With only a  populace of 300 people, the Kaurna are the indigenous inhabitants of Adelaide and the Adelaide Plains. The area now occupied by the city and parklands was known as Kaurna Tarntanya (red kangaroo place) by the Kaurna. It was an open grassy plain with patches of trees and shrubs before 1836, the result of hundreds of generations of careful land management. Kaurna country included the plains that extended north and south from Tarntanya, as well as the wooded foothills of the range that bordered them to the east.

 

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Understanding the environment was crucial for more than just food, shelter, tools, and medicine to the Kaurna people. Teaching young people was an integral part of their culture. The Kaurna spirituality recognises the interconnectedness of humankind with the worlds of plants, animals, and stars. The land is alive with the spirits of Dreaming ancestors like Tjilbruke.

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The Kaurna's way of life, which depended heavily on mobility within their established territory, was decimated when European settlers arrived. Within a span of twenty years, diseases and illnesses brought by the settlers had swept taken the lives of many Kaurna, nearly wiping out the populace altogether. Survivors were relocated to Poonindie. Gradually over the decades, people of Kaurna descent began to return to Adelaide areas in the 1960s to live and revive Kaurna culture which is heavily protected and maintained by the South Australian government.