Bininj Gun-Wok peoples

The Bininj Kunwok peoples are an indigenous Australian people of Western Arnhem land in the Northern Territory. In 2015 a spelling change was agreed to standardise the spelling across all Bininj Kunwok languages, using the 'k' instead of 'g' form, though older documents still use the 'g' form.

Language

Kunwinjku refers to several closely related languages and dialects, spoken from Kakadu National Park, southwards to Pine Creek and Manyallaluk, across the Arnhem Plateau, and eastwards to the Liverpool River and its tributary the Mann River, and Cadell river districts..[1] The classification, encompassing the mutually intelligible languages, respectively Kunwinjku, Kuninjku, Kundjeyhmi, Manyallaluk Mayali, Kundedjnjenghmi, and two varieties of Kune, was made by Nicholas Evans. The terminology means 'Aboriginal'/ 'human being (male)' (bininj) and 'language, story' (kunwok).[1][lower-alpha 1][2] Their word for Europeans is balanda, a loan-word from Macassan traders, in whose language it meant 'Hollanders'.[3]

In addressing djang spirits (see below) a special language called kundangwok, which is specific to each particular clan, must be employed.[4]

Country

Map showing the lands of the Bininj people near Darwin, Northern Territory.

Their territory extends from Kakadu National Park to the west, the Arafura Sea to the north, the Blyth River to the east, and the Katherine region to the south.

The traditional lands of the Kunwinjku were located west of the Goomadeer River, north around the King and Cooper Rivers, south towards the East Alligator River, and extending to Gunbalanya (Oenpelli).[5] Kuninjku lay south-west of Maningrida,[6] which serves as their centre for services. Many live in some 15 outstations, such as Kumurrulu at Manggabor Creek above the Liverpool River floodplain.[7] The Kundjeyhmi (formerly spelled Gundjeihmi) lived around Jabiru between the east and south Alligator rivers. The Mayali lay further south across the South Alligator River. The Kundedjnjenghmi moved around the Upper Liverpool and Mann rivers to the east of the Kunwinjku and Kundjeyhmi, while, to their north, seawards, are the Kuninjku hunting and foraging grounds. Lastly, the Kune are the most eastward group, living around the Cadell river.[8]

History

The Macassans from Sulawesi had been in contact for trade purposes for centuries before the arrival of white civilization. They sailed down to exchange a variety of their goods for trepang, and the impact of their presence is evidenced by the retention in some Bininj Kunwok dialects of a few dozen foreign loan words from the language of these traders. They were depicted by local artists in the rock art still conserved in a variety of sites around the Mann River. The first recorded European penetration of these territories was underrtaken by Francis Cadell who reached the Kuninjku territory on the Liverpool river. The Liverpool area was surveyed by David Lindsay on behalf of the government in 1884.[9]

Social system

The Kunwinjku social system was analysed in detail in a 1970 monograph by Ronald Berndt and Catherine Berndt.[10]

Mythology

Like the aborigines generally of the Western Arnhem, land, the Bininj Kunwok tribes believed in the primordial creative function of a Rainbow serpent, which is generally[lower-alpha 2] called Ngalyod[lower-alpha 3] which has lineaments more suggestive of the feminine than masculine. It came to Australia from the sea northeast of the Cobourg Peninsula[12] When Baldwin Spencer visited the area and was a guest at Cahill's homestead at Oenpelli, he picked up one version which spoke of the same figure as being called Numereji[lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 5] Legend has it coming from the north, full of spirit-children, and settling at a point called Coopers Creek on the East Alligator River, she transformed her children into men, creating waterholes to cater to their thirst, supplying men with spears and woomera, and women with dilly bags and digging sticks, while endowing both with intelligence and their senses. She swallows those who infringe her laws, and drowns children who cry, since she is disturbed by noise.[14]

In Dreaming narratives, when Ngalyod surges from the earth to devour some ancestral species, it does so because a taboo has been violated, and the act sanctifies the site.[4]

  • For the Kuninjku important dreaming sites (djang) are the Leech Dreaming at Yibalaydjyigod in the swamps of the Manggabor Creek, the Maggot Dreaming at Yirolk, where a rock, girdled by water lilies, rises out of a waterhole and the Barramundi Dreaming around Marrkolidjban. The former two are likened to the Rainbow serpent, connoting, by battening on flesh, themes of decay and rebirth[15] The souls (kunmalng)of the Kuninjku are themselves derived from the water spirits at such sites.[16] The rejuvenating monsoonal downpours are caused by the flight of Ngalyod from its underground sanctuary into the sky, marked by the rainbow. Increase ceremonies like the Kunabibi and yabbadurruwa rites are performed in order to incite the djang to stir the onset of the fertilizing rains.[17]

Notable people

Notes

  1. ↑ Garde writes:'The word Bininj is a self-descriptor meaning variously, human being, Aboriginal (as opposed to non-Aboriginal) and man (as opposed to women) ...Gunwok has a semantic range nof 'language, speech, story, report, discourse.'[1]
  2. ↑ According to Taçon, the Rainbow Snake/Woman is known as Yingarna by the Kunwinnnjku, a woman called Imberombera or Warraamurrungundji by the Gaagudju and Iwaidja peoples, while among the Gundjeibmi the ancestral woman turned rainbow serpent is Almudji.[11]
  3. ↑ Ngalyod is often said[11] to be the son of Yingarna.
  4. ↑ Mountford p.78 n.31 identifies Numereji as identical to Ngalyod
  5. ↑ Numereji emerged at Kumbulmorma, and devoured a large tribe at Yiringira, after hearing a baby crying. Calling out Waji bialilla, yana. waji bialilla('there is a child crying, where is the child crying?') He slithered up, and sucked in the child, and then the natives, save for an old woman, Kominiyamana, who hid up a tree and managed to avoid being swallowed until smacking at mosquitoes, she gave her position away. He moved off sated, crossed the East Alligator River, at Maipolk, and frightened the local birdlife, which flew off screaming, thereby alerting the next tribe to his presence. They examined the sleeping hulk of the creature, who did not reply to their queries, but they knew it must be Numereji. One elder finally said: Urawulla jereini jau (It's Urawulla men whom you have eaten', at which the rainbow serpent vomited the bones of his victims, which can be seen to this day, in the form of stones. At this Numereji went underground at Mungeruauera.[13]

Citations

Sources

  • Berndt, Ronald Murray; Berndt, Catherine Helen (1970). Man, Land and Myth in Northern Australia: The Gunwinggu people. Ure Smith.
  • Evans, Nicholas (2003). Bininj Gun-wok: a pan-dialectal grammar of Mayali, Kunwinjku and Kune. ANU Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. ISBN 978-0-858-83530-6.
  • Garde, Murray (2013). Culture, Interaction and Person Reference in an Australian Language: An ethnography of Bininj Gunwok communication. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-9-027-27124-2.
  • Mountford, Charles (1978). "The Rainbow- Serpent Myths of Australia". In Buchler, Ira R.; Maddock, Kenneth. The Rainbow Serpent: A Chromatic Piece. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 23–97. ISBN 978-3-110-80716-5.
  • Scambary, Benedict (2013). My Country, Mine Country: Indigenous People, Mining and Development Contestation in Remote Australia. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-1-922-14473-7.
  • Spencer, Baldwin (1914). Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia. Macmillan and Co.
  • Taylor, Luke (2012). "Connections of Spirit:Kuninjku Attachments to Country". In Weir, Jessica K. Country, Native Title and Ecology. Australian National University. pp. 21–47. ISBN 978-1-921-86256-4.
  • Taylor, Luke (2015). "Categories of 'Old' and 'New' in West Arnhem Land Bark Painting". In McGrath, Ann; Jebb, Mary Anne. Long History, Deep Time: Deepening Histories of Place. Australian National University. pp. 101–118. ISBN 978-1-925-02253-7.
  • Taçon, Paul S.C. (2011). "Identifying Ancient Sacred Landscapes in Australia: Frtom Physical to Social". In Preucel, Robert W.; Mrozowski, Stephen A. Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 77–91. ISBN 978-1-444-35851-3.
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