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Guugu Yimithirr people

January 01, 1970

Location of the Guugu Yimithirr people

The Guugu Yimithirr, also spelt Gugu Yimithirr and also known as Kokoimudji, are an Aboriginal Australian people of Far North Queensland, many of whom today live at Hopevale, which is the administrative centre of Hopevale Shire. At the 2011 census, Hopevale had a population of 1,005 people. It is about 46 kilometres (29 mi) from Cooktown by road. It is also the name of their language. They were both a coastal and inland people, the former clans referring to themselves as a "saltwater people".

Country edit

 
Traditional lands of the Aboriginal Australian tribes around Cairns

The traditional territory of the Guugu Yimithirr speakers extended from the Endeavour River outlet inland, ranged as far north as the mouth of the Starcke river, or, according to Norman Tindale, to the southern vicinity of Cape Flattery. Westwards it reached the source of the Jack River and south to Battle Camp, north-west of Cooktown.[1] Tindale assigned them, in his estimations, an overall domain extent of some 600 square miles (1,600 km2).[2] Dialects of the same language were spoken north of Cape Bedford and the McIvor River, and inland as far as the source of the Jack River.[3]

David Horton's 1996 representation of Tindale's map shows the lands of the Guugu Yimithirr people extending from south of Hope Vale to an area which covers Lizard Island.[4] The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority states on their website that the traditional lands of the "Guugu Yimidhirr Warra Nation" extend from Lizard Island to the Hopevale region.[5] The website "Dingaals Lizard Island" states that the island has been in the custodianship of the Dingaal people (possibly a clan name) for thousands of years.[6] The Dingaals called the island "Dyiigurra", and the website mentions that "local Dingiil Aboriginal people have also been known to call the island Jiigurru".[7] According to the Cairns Institute[8] and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, the Dingaal people are the traditional owners of the Lizard Island group.[9]

Post-contact history edit

 
"Natives of Endeavour River in a canoe, fishing." From Phillip Parker King's Survey (1818)

Lt. James Cook anchored at the mouth of the Endeavour River at the site of modern Cooktown, on 11 June 1770 after their ship, the HM Bark Endeavour was damaged on a reef, and stayed in the area for seven weeks while repair work was done on the hull. Though the modern population was displaced and pushed 30 miles northwards, this was the traditional land of the Guugu Yimithirr. The expedition's members found them to be quite friendly, though they initially kept their distance. After a month, the Europeans were approached by five men, and an amicable relationship was established, as they were shown the Endeavour. The day after, things deteriorated quickly when, while visiting the Endeavour they found a catch of local turtles, and expected a share of the harvest, which Cook, already strained to feed his own, declined to do. He offered them bread, which they refused with disgust. Different concepts of hospitality and the rules of sharing clashed. Soon after, the natives set fire to grass in the bay, and in retaliation, some received injuries from shot.[10]

 
"Manner in which Natives of the East Coast strike turtle." From Phillip Parker King's Survey (1818)

One of the members of the crew, Joseph Banks's botanical draughtsman Sydney Parkinson, set down in his journal (published posthumously as A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas) a sketch of the local people. He described them as diminutive and small boned, agile, their skin painted with red and white ochre, with wood-sooty skin and generally given to shaving their hair off. They practised nose piercing. Women wore a feather headdress. They used wood from the ficus riduola as a rasp to sharpen their spears, which were tipped with bone. Their languages was quite mellifluous, with clear enunciation.[11]

Captain Cook left a few pigs on the land, and they bred quickly, to become a major local source of food.[12]

The tribes of the area around Cooktown were decimated, the Guugu Yimithirr being "substantially exterminated",[1] by a variety of factors: large-scale massacres, the kidnapping of women for rape and the abduction of their children, together with the lethal impact of consuming the opium that Chinese contractors paid to them for their work as hired labourers, and alcohol abuse.[13]

On 20 February 1879 there were 28 Aboriginal men shot and drowned at Cape Bedford. Cooktown-based Native Police Sub-inspector Stanhope O'Connor with his troopers hunted down and trapped in a narrow gorge, a group of 28 Guugu-Yimidhirr men and 13 women. None of the men escaped: 24 were shot down on the beach, while four swam into the sea, never to be seen again.[14]

In 1885 a curfew was imposed on them, disallowing their movement after dusk. In the same year, while delayed on his journey to Kaiser-Wilhelmsland (German New Guinea), the Lutheran missionary Johann Flierl founded the Elim Aboriginal Mission some 230 miles (370 km) to the north of Cooktown, at Cape Bedford, and the following year the governance of the mission was assumed by the G. H. Schwartz, who renamed it Hope Vale. He stayed on with his converted congregation right through to the Second World War, when the population was relocated inland from Rockhampton. Schwartz, who had been there since the age of 19 and who had forgotten to take naturalisation, had mastered the language, contributing greatly to the retention of traditional knowledge,[15] was interned as an enemy alien at 74.[16] The colder climate had serious consequences for the displaced congregation, and many died.[3]

Language edit

Guugu Yimidhirr, meaning 'language/speaking (guugu) 'this way' (yimi-thirr),[17] was one of the earliest Australian languages to be recorded, since Sydney Parkinson took down a list of 200 words[18] during Captain Cook's stop-over in the area in 1770. The major dialects are dhalun-dhirr, spoken on the coastal areas, and waguurr-ga, the inland vernacular.[1] It is still spoken by approximately 200 people, and was listed by Peter Austin as one of the languages at immediate risk of extinction.

Guugu Yimithirr had several dialects: dhalan-dhirr ('with the sea'); wagurrr-ga ('of the outside'); guugu nyiiguudyi; guugu nyalaadyi; guugu yinaa and guugu diirrurru. Because they intermarried widely with tribes speaking other tongues, it was not unusual for Guugu Yimithirr people to be familiar with several languages.[19]

The word kangaroo edit

Cook reported sighting on Sunday 24 June 1770 an animal which was:

of a light mouse Colour and the full size of a Grey Hound, and shaped in every respect like one, with a long tail, which it carried like a Grey hound; in short, I should have taken it for a wild dog but for its walking or running, in which it jumpd like a Hare or Deer.[20]

Sir Joseph Banks entered into his journal that the natives called it a "Kangooroo". The animal was thereafter called by this name by Europeans after settlement began. When Captain Phillip King stopped over on the same coast in 1820, however, and made the same enquiry, he was told that the animal in question was called minnar/meenuah. There arose an urban legend that in fact what the word "kangaroo" must have meant, when the Indigenous people of the Endeavour River responded to the incomprehensible English query, was "I don't know". Light was shed on the point by the American anthropologist John Haviland, who studied the Guugu Yimithirr language intensively from 1971 onwards. He discovered that in fact a word like "kangaroo" did exist in Guugu Yimithirr, namely gangurru. This denoted however a species, the large grey kangaroo,[a] that was relatively rare in the coastal territory, while the other word reported by King was an approximation to their word for meat or edible animal (minha). Cook's report and reputation as a precise observer was vindicated.[22][23]

Society and customs edit

Guugu Yimithirr practice certain forms of social avoidance. The language itself has a form of avoidance language in which, speaking in the presence of certain family members (like a man's father-in-law or brother-in-law), one must adopt a different vocabulary from that normally employed.[24] In everyday conversation 'the man is going' is bama dhaday. In the presence of certain kin, this must be altered to yambaal bali.[25][26] Speaking was totally forbidden in the presence of one's mother-in-law, one being obliged to sit, with bowed head, silently (guugu-mu).[27]

The system of spatial coordination inscribed in the language is totally different from that in Western languages, where the reference system is relative with respect to the subject. In Guugu Yimidhirr, as in Kayardild space is rendered in absolute terms,[28] like the cardinal points, north, south, east, west, independent of whether something is in front of, behind, to the left or right of a person. The language thus provides them with a mental map, allowing quite a precise dead-reckoning of all points around them wherever they are.[29] For example, if your Guugu Yimidhirr guest, on leaving your house, had to inform you he or she had left her tobacco behind, they would be required to state grammatically in their native language something like: I left it on the southern table in the western side of your house.[30]

Alternative names edit

  • ?Boolcanara
  • Gogo-Yimidjir
  • Gug-Imudji
  • Jimidir
  • Kokojimidir
  • Kokojimoji (southern pronunciation)
  • Kokoyimidir (northern pronunciation)
  • Kookcymma (typo)
  • Kookoyuma

Source: Tindale 1974, p. 176

Some words edit

  • dhawuunh. 'friend'.[31]
  • Ngayu mayi buda-nhu. 'I'm hungry' (lit. 'I want to eat food'(mayi).[32][b]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Haviland in 1979 wrote that[21] that gangurru denotes the 'black kangaroo'. Guugu Yimithirr distinguishes in everyday speech 10 varieties, the others being: gadaar (small wallaby); bawurr (rock wallaby); bibal (small scrub kangaroo); dyadyu (kangaroo rat); nharrgali (red kangaroo); ngurrumugu (large black kangaroo); walurr (female kangaroo); wudul (whip-tail kangaroo) and the dhulmbanu (grey wallaroo). In brother-in-law avoidance speech all 10 varieties were referred to by one word daarraalngan
  2. ^ In one's brother-in-law's presence one would say this diffierently, in respect speech,Ngayu gudhubay bambanga-nhu. (Haviland 1979, p. 369)

Citations edit

  1. ^ a b c Haviland 1979, p. 366.
  2. ^ Tindale 1974, p. 176.
  3. ^ a b Haviland 1987, pp. 167, 169.
  4. ^ Horton, David R. (1996). "Map of Indigenous Australia". AIATSIS. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  5. ^ "Reef Traditional Owners". Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  6. ^ "Home". Dingaals Lizard Island. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  7. ^ "History". Dingaals Lizard Island. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  8. ^ "An Update on the Lizard Island Archaeological Project: Investigating Dingaal Seascapes on the Great Barrier Reef, Far North Queensland". The Cairns Institute. 1 September 2017. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  9. ^ "Lizard Island: Nature, culture and history". Parks and forests. 22 January 2024. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  10. ^ Coutts 2013, pp. 92–94.
  11. ^ Parkinson 2004, p. 189.
  12. ^ Dixon 2011, p. 223.
  13. ^ Haviland 1987, pp. 166–167.
  14. ^ Ørsted-Jensen 2011, pp. 54–55 & 126..
  15. ^ Dixon 2011, p. 222.
  16. ^ Dixon 2011, p. 226.
  17. ^ Deutscher 2016, p. 161.
  18. ^ Parkinson 2004, pp. 191–193.
  19. ^ Haviland 1987, p. 169.
  20. ^ Haviland 1987, pp. 164–165.
  21. ^ Haviland 1979, p. 371.
  22. ^ Haviland 1987, pp. 164–166.
  23. ^ Deutscher 2016, pp. 159–160.
  24. ^ Haviland 1979, pp. 365–303.
  25. ^ Austin 2008.
  26. ^ Haviland 1987, pp. 161–139.
  27. ^ Haviland 1979, p. 369.
  28. ^ Evans 2011, p. 209.
  29. ^ Kovecses 2006, pp. 14–15.
  30. ^ Regier 1996, p. 21.
  31. ^ Haviland 1979, p. 375.
  32. ^ Haviland 1979, p. 368.

Sources edit

External links edit

January 01, 1970
guugu, yimithirr, people, location, guugu, yimithirr, also, spelt, gugu, yimithirr, also, known, kokoimudji, aboriginal, australian, people, north, queensland, many, whom, today, live, hopevale, which, administrative, centre, hopevale, shire, 2011, census, hop. Location of the Guugu Yimithirr people The Guugu Yimithirr also spelt Gugu Yimithirr and also known as Kokoimudji are an Aboriginal Australian people of Far North Queensland many of whom today live at Hopevale which is the administrative centre of Hopevale Shire At the 2011 census Hopevale had a population of 1 005 people It is about 46 kilometres 29 mi from Cooktown by road It is also the name of their language They were both a coastal and inland people the former clans referring to themselves as a saltwater people Contents 1 Country 2 Post contact history 3 Language 3 1 The word kangaroo 4 Society and customs 5 Alternative names 6 Some words 7 Notes 7 1 Citations 8 Sources 9 External linksCountry edit nbsp Traditional lands of the Aboriginal Australian tribes around CairnsThe traditional territory of the Guugu Yimithirr speakers extended from the Endeavour River outlet inland ranged as far north as the mouth of the Starcke river or according to Norman Tindale to the southern vicinity of Cape Flattery Westwards it reached the source of the Jack River and south to Battle Camp north west of Cooktown 1 Tindale assigned them in his estimations an overall domain extent of some 600 square miles 1 600 km2 2 Dialects of the same language were spoken north of Cape Bedford and the McIvor River and inland as far as the source of the Jack River 3 David Horton s 1996 representation of Tindale s map shows the lands of the Guugu Yimithirr people extending from south of Hope Vale to an area which covers Lizard Island 4 The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority states on their website that the traditional lands of the Guugu Yimidhirr Warra Nation extend from Lizard Island to the Hopevale region 5 The website Dingaals Lizard Island states that the island has been in the custodianship of the Dingaal people possibly a clan name for thousands of years 6 The Dingaals called the island Dyiigurra and the website mentions that local Dingiil Aboriginal people have also been known to call the island Jiigurru 7 According to the Cairns Institute 8 and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service the Dingaal people are the traditional owners of the Lizard Island group 9 Post contact history edit nbsp Natives of Endeavour River in a canoe fishing From Phillip Parker King s Survey 1818 Lt James Cook anchored at the mouth of the Endeavour River at the site of modern Cooktown on 11 June 1770 after their ship the HM Bark Endeavour was damaged on a reef and stayed in the area for seven weeks while repair work was done on the hull Though the modern population was displaced and pushed 30 miles northwards this was the traditional land of the Guugu Yimithirr The expedition s members found them to be quite friendly though they initially kept their distance After a month the Europeans were approached by five men and an amicable relationship was established as they were shown the Endeavour The day after things deteriorated quickly when while visiting the Endeavour they found a catch of local turtles and expected a share of the harvest which Cook already strained to feed his own declined to do He offered them bread which they refused with disgust Different concepts of hospitality and the rules of sharing clashed Soon after the natives set fire to grass in the bay and in retaliation some received injuries from shot 10 nbsp Manner in which Natives of the East Coast strike turtle From Phillip Parker King s Survey 1818 One of the members of the crew Joseph Banks s botanical draughtsman Sydney Parkinson set down in his journal published posthumously as A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas a sketch of the local people He described them as diminutive and small boned agile their skin painted with red and white ochre with wood sooty skin and generally given to shaving their hair off They practised nose piercing Women wore a feather headdress They used wood from the ficus riduola as a rasp to sharpen their spears which were tipped with bone Their languages was quite mellifluous with clear enunciation 11 Captain Cook left a few pigs on the land and they bred quickly to become a major local source of food 12 The tribes of the area around Cooktown were decimated the Guugu Yimithirr being substantially exterminated 1 by a variety of factors large scale massacres the kidnapping of women for rape and the abduction of their children together with the lethal impact of consuming the opium that Chinese contractors paid to them for their work as hired labourers and alcohol abuse 13 On 20 February 1879 there were 28 Aboriginal men shot and drowned at Cape Bedford Cooktown based Native Police Sub inspector Stanhope O Connor with his troopers hunted down and trapped in a narrow gorge a group of 28 Guugu Yimidhirr men and 13 women None of the men escaped 24 were shot down on the beach while four swam into the sea never to be seen again 14 In 1885 a curfew was imposed on them disallowing their movement after dusk In the same year while delayed on his journey to Kaiser Wilhelmsland German New Guinea the Lutheran missionary Johann Flierl founded the Elim Aboriginal Mission some 230 miles 370 km to the north of Cooktown at Cape Bedford and the following year the governance of the mission was assumed by the G H Schwartz who renamed it Hope Vale He stayed on with his converted congregation right through to the Second World War when the population was relocated inland from Rockhampton Schwartz who had been there since the age of 19 and who had forgotten to take naturalisation had mastered the language contributing greatly to the retention of traditional knowledge 15 was interned as an enemy alien at 74 16 The colder climate had serious consequences for the displaced congregation and many died 3 Language editGuugu Yimidhirr meaning language speaking guugu this way yimi thirr 17 was one of the earliest Australian languages to be recorded since Sydney Parkinson took down a list of 200 words 18 during Captain Cook s stop over in the area in 1770 The major dialects are dhalun dhirr spoken on the coastal areas and waguurr ga the inland vernacular 1 It is still spoken by approximately 200 people and was listed by Peter Austin as one of the languages at immediate risk of extinction Guugu Yimithirr had several dialects dhalan dhirr with the sea wagurrr ga of the outside guugu nyiiguudyi guugu nyalaadyi guugu yinaa and guugu diirrurru Because they intermarried widely with tribes speaking other tongues it was not unusual for Guugu Yimithirr people to be familiar with several languages 19 The word kangaroo edit Cook reported sighting on Sunday 24 June 1770 an animal which was of a light mouse Colour and the full size of a Grey Hound and shaped in every respect like one with a long tail which it carried like a Grey hound in short I should have taken it for a wild dog but for its walking or running in which it jumpd like a Hare or Deer 20 Sir Joseph Banks entered into his journal that the natives called it a Kangooroo The animal was thereafter called by this name by Europeans after settlement began When Captain Phillip King stopped over on the same coast in 1820 however and made the same enquiry he was told that the animal in question was called minnar meenuah There arose an urban legend that in fact what the word kangaroo must have meant when the Indigenous people of the Endeavour River responded to the incomprehensible English query was I don t know Light was shed on the point by the American anthropologist John Haviland who studied the Guugu Yimithirr language intensively from 1971 onwards He discovered that in fact a word like kangaroo did exist in Guugu Yimithirr namely gangurru This denoted however a species the large grey kangaroo a that was relatively rare in the coastal territory while the other word reported by King was an approximation to their word for meat or edible animal minha Cook s report and reputation as a precise observer was vindicated 22 23 Society and customs editGuugu Yimithirr practice certain forms of social avoidance The language itself has a form of avoidance language in which speaking in the presence of certain family members like a man s father in law or brother in law one must adopt a different vocabulary from that normally employed 24 In everyday conversation the man is going is bama dhaday In the presence of certain kin this must be altered to yambaal bali 25 26 Speaking was totally forbidden in the presence of one s mother in law one being obliged to sit with bowed head silently guugu mu 27 The system of spatial coordination inscribed in the language is totally different from that in Western languages where the reference system is relative with respect to the subject In Guugu Yimidhirr as in Kayardild space is rendered in absolute terms 28 like the cardinal points north south east west independent of whether something is in front of behind to the left or right of a person The language thus provides them with a mental map allowing quite a precise dead reckoning of all points around them wherever they are 29 For example if your Guugu Yimidhirr guest on leaving your house had to inform you he or she had left her tobacco behind they would be required to state grammatically in their native language something like I left it on the southern table in the western side of your house 30 Alternative names edit Boolcanara Gogo Yimidjir Gug Imudji Jimidir Kokojimidir Kokojimoji southern pronunciation Kokoyimidir northern pronunciation Kookcymma typo Kookoyuma Source Tindale 1974 p 176Some words editdhawuunh friend 31 Ngayu mayi buda nhu I m hungry lit I want to eat food mayi 32 b Notes edit Haviland in 1979 wrote that 21 that gangurru denotes the black kangaroo Guugu Yimithirr distinguishes in everyday speech 10 varieties the others being gadaar small wallaby bawurr rock wallaby bibal small scrub kangaroo dyadyu kangaroo rat nharrgali red kangaroo ngurrumugu large black kangaroo walurr female kangaroo wudul whip tail kangaroo and the dhulmbanu grey wallaroo In brother in law avoidance speech all 10 varieties were referred to by one word daarraalngan In one s brother in law s presence one would say this diffierently in respect speech Ngayu gudhubay bambanga nhu Haviland 1979 p 369 Citations edit a b c Haviland 1979 p 366 Tindale 1974 p 176 a b Haviland 1987 pp 167 169 Horton David R 1996 Map of Indigenous Australia AIATSIS Retrieved 12 April 2024 Reef Traditional Owners Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Retrieved 12 April 2024 Home Dingaals Lizard Island Retrieved 12 April 2024 History Dingaals Lizard Island Retrieved 12 April 2024 An Update on the Lizard Island Archaeological Project Investigating Dingaal Seascapes on the Great Barrier Reef Far North Queensland The Cairns Institute 1 September 2017 Retrieved 12 April 2024 Lizard Island Nature culture and history Parks and forests 22 January 2024 Retrieved 12 April 2024 Coutts 2013 pp 92 94 Parkinson 2004 p 189 Dixon 2011 p 223 Haviland 1987 pp 166 167 Orsted Jensen 2011 pp 54 55 amp 126 Dixon 2011 p 222 Dixon 2011 p 226 Deutscher 2016 p 161 Parkinson 2004 pp 191 193 Haviland 1987 p 169 Haviland 1987 pp 164 165 Haviland 1979 p 371 Haviland 1987 pp 164 166 Deutscher 2016 pp 159 160 Haviland 1979 pp 365 303 Austin 2008 Haviland 1987 pp 161 139 Haviland 1979 p 369 Evans 2011 p 209 Kovecses 2006 pp 14 15 Regier 1996 p 21 Haviland 1979 p 375 Haviland 1979 p 368 Sources edit AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia AIATSIS Austin Peter K 17 August 2008 Peter K Austin s top 10 endangered languages The Guardian Coutts Rob 2013 The Truth about Charlie Boolarong Press ISBN 978 1 922 10976 7 Deutscher Guy 2016 Through the Language Glass Why The World Looks Different In Other Languages Random House ISBN 978 1 446 49490 5 Dixon R M W 2011 Searching for Aboriginal Languages Memoirs of a Field Worker Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 108 02504 1 Evans Nicholas 2011 Dying Words Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell Us John Wiley amp Sons ISBN 978 1 444 35961 9 Haviland John B 1979 Guugu Yimidhirr Brother in Law Language Language in Society 8 3 365 393 doi 10 1017 S0047404500007600 JSTOR 4167091 S2CID 145287517 Haviland John B 1987 First published 1979 How to talk to your brother in law in Guugu Yimithirr In Shopen Timothy ed Languages and Their Speakers University of Pennsylvania Press pp 161 239 ISBN 978 0 812 21250 1 via Internet Archive Kovecses Zoltan 2006 Language Mind and Culture A Practical Introduction Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 199 77489 0 Orsted Jensen Robert 2011 Frontier History Revisited Colonial Queensland and the History War Lux Mundi pp 54 55 amp 126 ISBN 9 7814 6638 6822 Parkinson Sydney 2004 First published 1773 Parkinson Stanfield ed Parkinson s Journal National Library of Australia Regier Terry 1996 The Human Semantic Potential Spatial Language and Constrained Connectionism MIT Press ISBN 978 0 262 18173 0 Tindale Norman Barnett 1974 Kokoimudji QLD Aboriginal Tribes of Australia Their Terrain Environmental Controls Distribution Limits and Proper Names Australian National University Press ISBN 978 0 708 10741 6 de Zwaan J D March 1969 Two Studies in Gogo Yimidjir Oceania 39 3 198 217 doi 10 1002 j 1834 4461 1969 tb01006 x JSTOR 40329776 External links editBibliography of Guugu Yimidhirr people and language resources at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Guugu Yimidhirr Cooktown Community Language Journey Digital Story State Library of Queensland Guugu Yimidhirr Hope Vale Community Language Journey Digital Story Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Guugu Yimithirr people amp oldid 1223427874, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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