Maraura
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Maraura

The Maraura or Marrawarra people are an Aboriginal group whose traditional lands are located in Far West New South Wales and South Australia, Australia.

The Maraura spoke the southernmost dialect of Paakantyi. A wordlist of the language was taken down by John Bulmer.

According to Tindale, the Maraura's traditional domain lands consisted of some 2,200 square miles (5,700 km2) of territory extending west from Wentworth along the northern bank of the Murray River downstream to Chowilla and Ral Ral, in South Australia. Inland they extended west to the anabranch of the Darling River as far as Popilta Lake, and upstream to Avoca.

The Maraura is known to have been divided into at least 5 hordes

A Nanya group is also recorded. A. A. Radcliffe-Brown mentions also a Yakumku sub-tribe of the Maraura, dwelling around Lake Victoria.

The social organization was dual, centered on the relations between two moieties, the Kilpara and the Makwara/Makgara.

In relating their tribal mythology to Tindale, -the tale in question was an account of how the hero Wa:ku sought to marry two sisters- his informants, he recorded, would draw pictures on the ground, illustrating the narrative. A. P. Elkin cites this as an example corroborating a theory he advanced according to which rock art engravings functioned as mnemonics, with a propaedeutic function in helping to pass on to initiate the legendary lore of the elders.

Tindale recorded their legends, particularly regarding the crow and eagle, in a work published in 1939.

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