Utjan

**Highest Placing Member**: Hayley (Winner/20)

Utjan (pronounced oot-ch-ahn) was the merged tribe from Survivor: Cloncurry.

## Tribe History

The Final Twelve castaways from Brains and Brawn merged into the teal Utjan tribe on Day 20 of *Survivor: Cloncurry*. It initially seemed apparent the players would vote along original tribal lines, where the seven Brains would easily overthrow the five Brawn. However, George had built relationships with Brooke, Doug, Emmett and Kez throughout the Tribe Switch and wanted to create a seven person alliance that also included Cara and Flick. His plans soon changed after realising the five Brawn were an almost inseparable group and he would find himself in the minority by the Final Seven. In a similar vein, Neda thought she had control over the original Brains because she created their core alliance at the beginning of the game. Neda failed to recognise that Hayley had spent the pre-merge building strong personal relationships with outsiders Christopher, Jacob and Wai, to the point that they considered Hayley their closest ally and actually found Neda untrustworthy. When Hayley and George reconnected at the merge, the pair agreed it was in their best interest to work with the Brains but have Cara and George play double agents with the Brawn group. After the first individual immunity challenge on Day 21, most of the tribe went searching for a Hidden Immunity Idol that was ultimately found by Kez. Since Kez was not wearing clothes that could conceal the idol, she told Flick to hide it in her jumper during tribal council. Meanwhile, Cara, George and the Brawn’s agreed to split their votes between Christopher and Wai with Hayley’s help. Hayley then arranged for the remaining five Brains to vote for Kez, where she would flip and give their alliance the numbers in a 5-4-3 vote. Hayley and George’s plan was perfectly executed, and Kez was voted out one cycle short of the jury phase.

Brooke, Doug, Emmett and Flick returned to camp upset about losing Kez, but Cara, George and Hayley were individually adamant they voted with the Brawn majority in order to maintain their working relationship with the group. The four Brawn also met later in the night, where Flick revealed she had Kez's idol in her pocket, though Flick did not realise that George was also listening into this conversation. After Cara won individual immunity, she and George met with Brawn and pledged their loyalty to the alliance by agreeing to vote for Neda. George and Hayley then met so that George could tell Hayley about Flick's idol and the plan against Neda. Hayley, who spent the pre-merge strategically isolating Neda from the Brains, wanted Flick to flush her idol and still have Neda out of the game. With Hayley's persuasion, George spoke with Flick and spooked her into playing the idol at tribal council. This meant that the only votes that counted were from the four Brawn, where Neda was voted out and became the first member of the jury. Flick's bold idol play unfortunately kept the target on her back, especially because the Brains had a 7-4 majority over Brawn. The game then stopped in the early hours of Day 25 when production informed Flick that her mother had passed away from younger onset frontotemporal dementia. Production allowed Flick to decide whether she wanted to remove herself from the game, but she was adamant she wanted to keep playing in memory of her mother. When the game continued, the castaways participated in an individual immunity challenge that was won by Brooke. At her station for this challenge, Wai secretly found a clue to an idol and shared this information with her closest ally Hayley. The Brains majority had agreed to vote for Doug, but he used his Tribal Council Pass. With their plans ruined, the Brains scrambled at tribal council and were weighing up voting for Emmett or Flick. The pressure of this vote was impacting an already emotional Flick, and she asked the tribe to vote her out. The tribe ultimately honoured Flick's wishes, though Emmett cast a stray vote for Christopher out of respect for his adversary.

The mercy vote for Flick meant the Brains had a commanding 6-3 majority over Brawn by the Final Nine. Hayley was in the centre of this Brains majority, and was surrounded by her closest allies Christopher, Jacob and Wai. She also had strong relationships with Cara and George, though the pair maintained their relationships with Brooke, Doug and Emmett whilst picking their allies off. On Day 26, Wai asked Hayley to help her find an idol using the clue she found at the last immunity challenge, which Wai eventually found with Hayley. When Brooke won individual immunity, the Brains flirted with the idea to split votes between Doug and Emmett but ultimately agreed to throw all their votes on Emmett. As the afternoon progressed, George decided this plan did not benefit himself or Cara and instead spoke with Brawn about their plans. Brooke suggested the group vote for Hayley because she was the leader of the Brains, but George steered their target towards Christopher because he wanted to ensure Hayley and her allies were on his side. Christopher's blindside meant that George and Cara remained in the centre of two factions on Utjan. The pair initially planned on creating this war so that the original Brains could ultimately pick off every single Brawn player. Although George was set on turning on Brawn because of his relationship with Hayley, Cara started to lose confidence in this plan because she felt her relationships were strongest with Brooke, Doug and Emmett. After Hayley won individual immunity, Brawn thought they had the numbers with Cara and George to vote for Jacob. However, Doug wanted to keep his name off the chopping block and decided to throw his allies under the bus to the Brains. The group agreed to split the votes, with the girls voting for Emmett and the boys voting for Brooke. When Cara seemed apprehensive about voting for Emmett, George decided to take matters in his own hands and switch his vote from Brooke to Emmett. At tribal council, Brooke and Emmett voted for Jacob, Doug and Jacob voted for Brooke but George and the girls voted out Emmett.

Although the split vote plan against Brooke and Emmett was successful, Doug felt uncomfortable betraying his friends to work with the Brains. Since only four players were needed to create a majority at the Final Seven, Doug's ideal alliance included Brooke, Cara and George. The group seemed willing to work with each other, but George was still against turning on Hayley and the Brains. Doug even told the tribe that Hayley had a separate agreement with Jacob and Wai. However, his arguments were not taken seriously because he was never in a position of power. Although Wai had complete faith in Hayley and always believed she could never trust George completely, Doug's words made Wai concerned about Jacob. Hayley had to reassure Wai they were an inseparable duo, and that Jacob would be dealt with at a later date. At tribal council, Brooke and Doug voted for Jacob but the Brains eliminated Doug since Brooke won individual immunity.

## Trivia

* Kalkatungu is an extinct Australian Aboriginal language formerly spoken by the Kalkadoon People from Cloncurry, Queensland.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.scribd.com/document/147517017/Kalkadoon-Dictionary#
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalkatungu\_language