Cirrus@Austlit

'In the case of Kaurna, the original language of the Adelaide Plains, South Australia, the demographic profile and movements of people have great explanatory power for understanding the fortunes of a language. The Kaurna people were never a large group. Their country extends from around Crystal Brook and Clare in the north to Cape Jervis in the south, bounded by the hills in the east and Gulf St Vincent in the west. The Kaurna people were decimated by smallpox that had been introduced into New South Wales and Victoria by colonists. Smallpox spread down the river systems following trade routes and passed on at ceremonial gatherings. An epidemic struck the Kaurna population about a decade prior to colonisation (Teichelmann & Schürmann 1840: 34) and there is some suggestion that there might have been an even earlier epidemic soon after the establishment of the penal colony in Sydney. Many in the remaining population of perhaps 500 to 700 Aboriginal people at the time of colonisation bore the signs of smallpox.' (Introduction)