Mirningan

The Mirning, also called the Ngandatha, are an Aboriginal people of the Great Australian Bight coast, whose country stretched from Point Culver in Western Australia east to White Well in South Australia, with the Nullarbor Plain forming its inland limit. They were divided into at least two groups, the Jirkala-mirning around the later settlement of Eucla and the Wonunda-mirning of the Hampton plateau, who gathered near Cocklebiddy for initiation ceremonies.

Their language was also called Ngandatha. Mirning society observed a four-class kinship system together with rites of circumcision and subincision, while Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor, with its ancient art, was among their sacred places.

When the colony of South Australia was proclaimed in 1836 the Mirning still lived beyond the colonial frontier; direct contact came only decades later, when disease and displacement had already reduced them to tiny remnants.