Pilatapa

The Pilatapa (or Pirlatapa, Birladapa, or Biladaba) were an Indigenous people of South Australia, now extinct.

Country

Norman Tindale estimated that the Pilatapa had some 5,000 square miles (13,000 km²) of tribal land, ranging northeast of the northern edges of the Flinders Ranges and to the north of the Lake Frome drainage basin. On the northwest they lived also around northwest to what is now the Strzelecki Desert Lakes encompassing Lake Blanche and Blanchewater. He placed their eastern extension at east to Callabonna approximately to the vicinity of Tilcha, while their southern boundaries were around Wooltana and Hamilton Creek.^[1]

Language

Their language, Pilatapa, was closely related to the Diyari language.^[2]

Social organisation and customs

Samuel Gason's account of the Pilatapa is integrated into a general description of the Diyari, Ngameni, Yandruwandha and Yauraworka.^[3] Male initiation rites involved circumcision, but excluded subincision.^[1]

Alternative names

• Pidlatapa
• Piladapa, Pilladapa, Pillitapa
• Billidapa
• Pulladapa
• Berluppa
• Pilliapp
• Jarikuna (Wailpi pejorative exonym)^[a]
• Yarrikuna^[4]