Is Munanga a placename?

Click to enlarge

This image relates to the discussion and comments on David Nash's post on Munanga. It was prepared by Kay Dancey who searched the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA, formally NIMA) GEOnet Names Server for Indonesian placenames that resemble Munanga. If the Yolngu word munaŋa is from a placename, perhaps Munangge is a candidate. The trouble is that it's not directly on a trepang trading routes. Two of the routes in the image below go around the east side of Flores and end up in the Kimberley. A Madurese route goes west but also ends up in the Kimberley.

The image is taken from Morwood, MA & Hobbs, DR 1997, ‘The Asian connection: preliminary report on Indonesian trepang sites on the Kimberley coast, NW Australia’, Archaeology in Oceania 32:197–206. Reproduced in Russel, Denise. 2004. Aboriginal–Makassan interactions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in northern Australia and contemporary sea rights claims, Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2004/1

Any comments? Please add them to the bottom of this post: http://www.paradisec.org.au/blog/2008/10/munanga/