Nhantan

The Nhantan, also recorded as Nhanda or Nanda, are an Aboriginal people of the Mid West coast of Western Australia, centred on the mouth of the Murchison River. Their language, Nhanda, has three dialects and a system of bound pronouns thought to be unique in Australia, setting it sharply apart from its neighbours.

The people were organised into at least three local groups, the Buluguda, Daguda and Tamala and held a spring increase ceremony called Caroo at the first new moon after the yam ripening, a night of dancing around a consecrated pit after which the site was declared taboo.

Off their coast the Dutch mariner Dirk Hartog landed on an island in Shark Bay in 1616 and left a pewter plate, the first European artefact recorded on Australia's western shore, though no meeting with the Nhantan was set down.