Umpithamu

The Umpithamu, also once known to ethnographers as the Koko Ompindamo, are a contemporary Indigenous Australian people of the eastern Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland. Norman Tindale, transcribing their ethnonym Umpithamu as Umbindhamu, referred to them as a horde of the Barungguan.[1]

Language

Umpithamu belongs to the Paman subgroup of the Pama–Nyungan languages.[2] By the early 2000s, there were only two complertely fluent speakers of Umpithamu, one of them being Mrs. Florrie Bassani.[3]

People and country

The Umpithamu were the southernmost group of the Kawadji or 'sandbeach peoples' (in Umpithamu ma-yaandhimunu or 'people who own the sandbeach'.[4]), followed in order to their north, by the Yintyingka, the Umpila, the Pontunj (Yankonyu)[5] the Pakadji(Koko Yao) and the Otati(Wuta(h)i).[6] Their territory embraced an estimated 700 square miles (1,800 km2) on the western coastline of Princess Charlotte Bay with its northern limits around Cape Sidmouth.[1]

History

For some years in the 1950s a cattle station owner in Umpithamu territory had been complaining of the presence of this Indigenous people on his grazing lands, and after successful lobbying, he managed to have them removed in 1961. The Umpithamu were deported, reportedly by a ruse that deceived them, by the local police from their home country around Port Stewart to the Aboriginal reserve near Bamaga, 400 kilometres to their north. After decades they eventually managed to return south, to Coen, a mere 70 miles from their tribal centre. Since then they have managed to set up three outstations in the Port Stewart area.[7] At present they form one of the several tribes groups composing the Lama Lama people.

Alternative names
  • Baka (Kaantjuu term)
  • Banjigam (Bakanambia term)
  • Barungguan
  • Ganganda
  • Njindingga,
  • Umbuigamu//Umbindhamu
  • Yintjingga (native name of a place at mouth of Stewart River)

Source: Tindale 1974

Notes

    Citations
    1. Tindale 1974.
    2. Verstraete & De Cock 2008, p. 219.
    3. Verstraete & De Cock 2008, pp. 217–218.
    4. Rigsby & Chase 2014, p. 307.
    5. Thomson 1933, p. 255.
    6. Rigsby & Chase 2014, p. 308.
    7. Verstraete & De Cock 2008, pp. 220–221.

    Sources
    • Rigsby, Bruce; Chase, Athol (2014). "The Sandbeach People and Dugong hunters of Eastern Cape York Peninsula: property in land and sea country". In Peterson, Nicolas; Rigsby, Bruce (eds.). Customary marine tenure in Australia. Sydney University Press. pp. 307–350. ISBN 978-1-743-32389-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
    • Thomson, Donald F. (1933). "The Hero Cult, Initiation and Totemism on Cape York". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 63: 453–537. doi:10.2307/2843801. JSTOR 2843801.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
    • Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Barungguan (QLD)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
    • Verstraete, Jean-Christophe; De Cock, Barbara (April 2008). "Construing Confrontation: Grammar in the Construction of a Key Historical Narrative in". Language in Society. 37 (2): 217–240. doi:10.1017/s0047404508080275. JSTOR 20108123.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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