![Traditional lands of Australian Aboriginal Tribes around Derby](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Traditional_lands_of_Australian_Aboriginal_Tribes_around_Derby.png)
The Bardi people, also spelt Baada or Baardi and other variations, are an
Aboriginal Australian
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
people, living north of
Broome and inhabiting parts of the
Dampier Peninsula
The Dampier Peninsula is a peninsula located north of Broome and Roebuck Bay in Western Australia. It is surrounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and north, and King Sound to the east. It is named after the mariner and explorer William Damp ...
in the
Kimberley
Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to:
Places and historical events
Australia
* Kimberley (Western Australia)
** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley
* Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania
* Kimberley, Tasmania a small town
* County of Kimberley, a ...
region of
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
. They are ethnically close to the
Jawi people
Jawi may refer to:
People and languages
*Australia:
**Jawi dialect, a nearly extinct Australian aboriginal language
**Jawi people, an Australian Aboriginal people of the Kimberley coast of Western Australia, who speak or spoke the Jawi dialect
*A ...
, and several organisations refer to the Bardi Jawi grouping, such as the Bardi Jawi Niimidiman Aboriginal Corporation Registered Native Title Body (
RNTBC
A Registered Native Title Body Corporate (RNTBC) is a corporation nominated by a group of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people for the purposes of native title in Australia, to represent their native title rights and interests, once tha ...
) and the Bardi Jawi Rangers.
Language
The
Bardi language
Bardi (also Baardi, Baard) is an endangered Australian Aboriginal language in the Nyulnyulan family, mutually intelligible with Jawi and possibly other dialects. It is spoken by the Bardi people at the tip of the Dampier peninsula and neighbo ...
is a
non-Pama-Nyungan tongue, the most northerly variety of the
Nyulnyulan language family. It is mutually intelligible with
Jawi. It is the best known Nyulnyulan language, and a detailed grammar of the language exists, written by
Claire Bowern
Claire Louise Bowern () is a linguist who works with Australian Indigenous languages. She is currently a professor of linguistics at Yale University, and has a secondary appointment in the department of anthropology at Yale.
Career
Bowern re ...
.
The
Pallotine priest and linguist, Father Hermann Nekes, who worked with
Ernst Alfred Worms in compiling dictionaries of Baardi and related languages, found his informants to be extremely linguistically astute. In an interview in 1938, a journalist writes of him and the Baardi/Jawi area informants as follows
In a little stone house at Beagle Bay, with a creek running beside it and the sea only five miles away, he has been living and working with nine aborigines, studying their tongues. Every day he and the aborigines sat in a circle round the one big table in the house. Dr. Nekes asked them questions, and from their replies was able to compare their answers on the spot. The strangest feature of these linguistic knights of the round table was that no two of them spoke the same tongue. As the days became weeks and the weeks months, Dr. Nekes became the central figure in one of the oddest language experiments in scientific history. The aborigines began to understand every word that every other aborigine said. At first some of them had used what Dr. Nekes calls a kind of 'pidgin-black.' Now they were all coming to terms. At this stage, some of the brightest of them gave Dr. Nekes a shock. They began to use grammatical terms and hold almost scientific discussions on syntax. Some further months at the round table, and they were dealing with phonetic symbols, explaining fine points of pronunciation, elucidating the differences between dialects that were generally similar, and even giving Dr. Nekes a hand with his job of finding the best written representation of the different tongues
Country
The Bardi's traditional land, estimated by
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.
Life
Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...
to encompass about , was in the
Cape Leveque peninsula, extending eastwards from Cape Borda to Cygnet Bay and Cunningham Point. There are problems with this estimate, in particular with the southern borders assigned to the Bardi. The Kooljaman resort at Cape Leveque is run by Bardi people.
Seasons
The Bardi divide their year up into six seasons (''lalin'') whose time length varies:-
# (1) ''mankal'' is the
monsoon
A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...
al wet period, usually a few weeks in January or early February, when food is scarce but turtle eggs can be gathered.
# (2) ''ngaladany'' follows, a windless humid period from late February through to early March.
# (3) ''iralboo'' is the hot season of swelling tides in April and May, with fruit burgeoning, and reefing possible. Mosquitos thrive, and influence where one will camp.
# (4) ''barrgan'' is marked by cold and strong southeasterlies blowing in, from May to August. The onset marks the best time for hunting ''odoor'' (
dugong
The dugong (; ''Dugong dugon'') is a marine mammal. It is one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatees. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest m ...
).
# (5) ''jalalay'' from September to October is characterized by westerlies, the end of dugong hunts and the best time to catch the fattened
barnamb(oo) or stingray
# (6) ''lalin'' the season when turtles (''goorlil'') mate, and can be hunted, begins with November, which also affords an abundance of
wild bush apple. It is hot, as humidity rises, and northwesterlies blow in, with tropical storms (''janjal'') towards the end.
Religion and spirituality
The heartland of Baardi (and Jawi) religious thought and practice lies in an area some 3 miles southwest of Cape Leveque, called ''Ngamagun'' (At the water)/''Urgu'' (water). It is there that many of the key moments of the primordial creation of their world, in what they call ''būar'' or the
dreaming, are grounded.
The oldest supernatural beings in the Dampier peninsula thought-world were, firstly, ''Galalaṇ'', followed by ''Minau''. At some time, a young
culture hero
A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group ( cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or discovery. Although many culture heroes help with the creation of the world, most culture heroes are imp ...
, Djamar emerged from the sea at Bulgin and, after resting against a
paperbark
''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of ''Leptospermum''). They range in size f ...
tree for three days, struck out, whirling his
bullroarer
The bullroarer, ''rhombus'', or ''turndun'', is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over great distances. It consists of a piece of wood attached to a string, which when swung in a large circle ...
, for the south, then dived back into the sea after turning west, only to emerge at Ngamagun creek. Going into the bush he cut down a
''bilāl'' (silver-blood tree), and split boards from it, which he fashioned into bullroarers that, as he went back at his campsite on the shore, he shoved into the stone-beds of the creek, forming a line of
galaguru. He then walked on to
Djarindjin
Djarindjin is a medium-sized Aboriginal community located north of Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, within the Shire of Broome. It is within the traditional lands of the Bardi and Jawi peoples.
Location
Djarindjin is l ...
where, while seated on a rock, his hand was stung by a rock-fish he had caught underneath it. He found the blood tasty as he licked the wound, and stopped it with a wooden plug (''banan''). Returning to Ngamagun, he let the blood from his arm drip into a trough of stone. This blood became his food (''warb''), which he shared with his three unmothered sons: ''Nalja, Winindjibi and Glabi'', and the ritual drink of Baardi men to this day. The three sons took different directions, with Nalja travelling east with the
tjuringa
A Tjurunga, also spelt Churinga and Tjuringa, is an object considered to be of religious significance by Central Australian Aboriginal people of the Arrernte (Aranda, Arunta) groups. Tjurunga often had a wide and indeterminate native significa ...
, Winindjibi went south introducing initiation rituals and dancing, while Glabi introduced the Law.
He speared another fish at high tide and sang his way back to Ngamagun, collecting his galaguru and, on climbing the Burumar sandhill, swung it round while kneeling. The hair-string broke as he did so, and the bullroarer shot skyward, to rest at a celestial zone called 'With the Fleshless' (''baug-ara-njara''), i.e., at the realm of the dead, in the
Coalsack Nebula
The Coalsack Nebula (Southern Coalsack, or simply the Coalsack) is a prominent dark nebula in the skies, being easily visible to the naked eye as a dark patch obscuring a brief section of Milky Way stars as they cross their southernmost region of ...
, a dark spot near the
Southern Cross
Crux () is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism commonly known as the Southern Cross. It lies on the southern end of the Milky Way's visible band. The name ''Crux'' is Latin for c ...
. After his death, Djamar himself went to the Coalsack Nebula, and his presence may be represented by
BZ Crucis.
Galalaṇ (perhaps "belonging to the long-ago"), was the primordial figure who endowed the landscape with names from the Bardi language as he traipsed all over what became their territory. He was an upright being, easily incensed by signs of greed in the allotment of food. He died when, angered by such behavior, he channeled inland lake waters to the sea to allow fish and turtles to escape into the ocean and was speared by the outraged people at Gumiri, a waterhole located at Swan Point on the northernmost sector of the Dampier peninsula, and then thrown into the sea where he floated, and is known by the name of ''Lulul/Lular'' (sharkman). He ascended to the realm of the dead (''Baugaranjara'') where it covers and arc of 33°. The exact cedlestial coordinates are as follows:-
His figure can still be seen in the darker parts of the Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...
, on both sides of a line drawn from Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centaur ...
to Alpha Scorpionis, Antares. His right foot rests near 113 G of Lupus, and his left foot near Lambda
Lambda (}, ''lám(b)da'') is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoenician Lamed . Lambda gave rise ...
and Upsilon Scorpionis. He bears on his head the feather of white cockatoo
The white cockatoo (''Cacatua alba''), also known as the umbrella cockatoo, is a medium-sized all-white cockatoo endemic to tropical rainforest on islands of Indonesia. When surprised, it extends a large and striking head crest, which has a sem ...
, identified with the bright star, Alpha Centauri, and that of an owl represented by the darker Beta Centauri
Beta Centauri is a triple star system in the southern constellation of Centaurus. It is officially called Hadar (). The Bayer designation of Beta Centauri is Latinised from β Centauri, and abbreviated Beta Cen or β Cen. The sys ...
. The whole figure extends over an arc of 33°.'
Minau (perhaps "old timer"), the second creator figure, is associated with innovations that are viewed as negative compared the customs laid down by the predecessor Galalaṇ. He was polygamous, invented obscene dances, and introduced painful practices like circumcision and
subincision
Penile subincision is a form of genital modification or mutilation consisting of a urethrotomy, in which the underside of the penis is incised and the urethra slit open lengthwise, from the urethral opening (meatus) toward the base. The slit can ...
into initiatory rituals (''ololoṇ''). The changes he wrought were associated with the transformation of Baardi parkland estates into
mulga scrub, perhaps with the advent of colonial cattlegrazers.
A fourth figure that came into prominence in Baardi lore is Djamba.
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany, a city
**Worms (electoral district)
*Worms, Nebraska, U.S.
*Worms im Veltlintal, the German name for Bormio, Italy
Arts and entertainme ...
found the cult dominant among the nearby
Yawuru
The Yawuru, also spelt Jawuru, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Language
A Japanese linguist, Hosokawa Kōmei (細川弘明), compiled the first basic dictionary of the Yawuru language in 1988, a ...
by the early 1930s, yet all absent among the
Nyulnyulan speaking groups such as the
Jabirr Jabirr
The Jabirr Jabbirr are an Indigenous Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Jabirr Jabirr, is also written as Jabirrjabirr and with other spellings such as DjaberrDjaberr, Djaberadjabera, Dyaberdyaber and Jabba Jabba. Th ...
,
Nyulnyul and the Baardi, and hazarded the conjecture, with some evidence, that it came from the central Australian group, the
Arrernte
Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia.
It may refer to:
* Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?)
* Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...
, via the
Gugadja
The Kukatja people, also written Gugadja, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Country
The Kukatja's traditional lands were, according to Norman Tindale, roughly , centering around Lake Gregory, an ...
.
This ''Djamba'', a prototypical figure in widespread Aboriginal lore characterized by crippled feet, is associated with the introduction of ''guraṇara'' (ritual intercourse with exchanged women matters, tyuringa and instruments like the love bullroarer, ''mandagidgid''; magic daggers and spindle-shaped sticks used as points (''wadaṇara/durun''), many associated with innovative sexually explicit corroborees and rites. All this bears strong resemblances to key features of the
Kunapipi ceremonies swept over northern Australia. Among the Baardi, there were those who assimilated these innovations to the Djamar cult, and others who, in deference and fealty to the moral example of the primal Dreaming spirit Galalaṇ.
Bardi people could trace their connection to figures in the Dreaming via the presence of their ''rai'' (child-soul), which is a contemporary witness to the primordial period.
Social organisation and economy
In the Dreaming, Galalan split people into two reciprocal groups, the ''Djando'' and the (''Y'')''nar.'' According to Worms, Bardi marriage classes later came to accept the following division:-
According to elderly informants however these divisions were recent, and were introduced from
Lagrange
Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangia[Claire Bowern
Claire Louise Bowern () is a linguist who works with Australian Indigenous languages. She is currently a professor of linguistics at Yale University, and has a secondary appointment in the department of anthropology at Yale.
Career
Bowern re ...](_blank)
states that the Baardi, unlike many Kimberley groups, do not employ to this purpose the
section and subsection names almost ubiquitous elsewhere in the region. Generally the kinship classificatory system among them conforms to the Arrernte type, which is that also used among the
Nyigina
The Nyikina people (also spelt Nyigina and Nyikena, and listed as Njikena by Tindale) are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
They come from the lower Fitzroy River (which they call ''mardoowarra'').
...
and
Nyulnyul. In such a system there are 4 distinct terms for the grandparents' generation, and cross-cousin marriage, with some exceptions in second-cousin marriages, is prohibited,
Bowern states that the primary division, alluded to by Worms – ''djando'' and the (''Y'')''nar,'' – now transcribed as ''jarndoo'' and ''inar''(''a'') – refer to two generational
moieties. If one is ''jarndoo'', all members of one's harmonic generation (brothers/sisters/cousins/second cousins, together with those of one's grandparents' and grandchildren's generation) are also within that typology. Likewise, ''inar''(''a'') groups those people within one's parents' or children's generation. Marriage is only lawful between those who are ''jarndoo'' to each other.
Only
medicine men
A medicine man is a traditional healer and spiritual leader among the indigenous people of the Americas.
Medicine Man or The Medicine Man may also refer to:
Films
* ''The Medicine Man'' (1917 film), an American silent film directed by Clifford S ...
had a
totem
A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or ''doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system.
While ''the wo ...
animal (''banmin''), whose presence was thought to carry the implication that one would die earlier that most other Bardi people. The ideal was to take only one wife ideally, with polygamy (as allowed by the ''ololou'' custom) frowned on.
The Bardi were a maritime, coastal people, composed of 5 groups. They crafted pegged
mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...
logs from a light buoyant variety which they got in trade from the
Jawi people
Jawi may refer to:
People and languages
*Australia:
**Jawi dialect, a nearly extinct Australian aboriginal language
**Jawi people, an Australian Aboriginal people of the Kimberley coast of Western Australia, who speak or spoke the Jawi dialect
*A ...
of
Sunday Island to form rafts to venture out to the sea to hunt, and to visit the outlying islands.
As with the Jawi, the Bardi defined land rights in terms of four kinds of relationship:
# Ownership of a
patrilineal
Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...
estate (''booroo'') by virtue of patrilineal descent
# A right of access to the patrilineal estate of one's mother (''ningalmoo'')
# Rights stemming from the site associated with one's conception totem (''raya'')
# Rights that derive from customary usage and intermarriage
Ceremonies
Ilma
The term "ilma" refers both to a type of Bardi
ceremonies
A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion.
The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin '' caerimonia''.
Church and civil (secular) ...
, or performance, and to the objects used to teach stories, songs and customary law in these ceremonies. The objects have been described as "performance symbols of Bardi law and custom, which tell stories of the lands and seas of the Dampier Peninsula". Ilma ceremonies are for public performance.
The
Australian National Maritime Museum
The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) is a Australian government, federally operated maritime museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney. After considering the idea of establishing a maritime museum, the federal government announced that a nation ...
has over 1,000 ilma, although these were still unavailable for public viewing in 2018.
Initiation
Initiations must be conducted in the
wet season
The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...
, and are announced by a messenger who announces to each group there is a ''angui inlandjen amba'' (ceremony to make man).
The ceremony's first ritual phase is called ''kundaldja'', in which, over several evenings the ''neminem'' novice or initiand has his body smeared with
charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, cal ...
and
turtle
Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...
oil by his tribal sister's husband (''alabel''), who acts as his guardian and supporter. Songs taught to the tribe by Minau are sung, to the rhythm of boomerang beating, as various dances are performed, and women joke and sometimes dress up, even as men. They are ignored by the male choir. Some male
affines (relatives by marriage) visit the
circumcision
Circumcision is a surgical procedure, procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin ...
site and draw blood from their subincised penises, which must trickle down their thighs to the ground. The latter is repeated on several occasions thereafter; the reason given is that the men must hurt themselves because shortly they must hurt the boy.
The second stage consists of
tooth avulsion
Dental avulsion is the complete displacement of a tooth from its socket in alveolar bone owing to trauma. Normally, a tooth is connected to the socket by the periodontal ligament. When a tooth is knocked out, the ligament is torn.
Avulsed perman ...
, in which the
corroboree
A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the l ...
ground is marked out by three
parallel lines
In geometry, parallel lines are coplanar straight lines that do not intersect at any point. Parallel planes are planes in the same three-dimensional space that never meet. ''Parallel curves'' are curves that do not touch each other or inters ...
, apart, and a rug placed before the third, behind which is the ''djungagor'' (
medicine man
A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremo ...
) and the boy's tribal mother's brother. The hunched novice, each time a
waddy
A waddy, nulla-nulla or boondi is an Aboriginal Australian hardwood club or hunting stick for use as a weapon or as a throwing stick for hunting animals. ''Waddy'' comes from the Darug people of Port Jackson, Sydney.Peters, Pam, ''The Cambrid ...
(club) is thumped, must hop from one line to the next, and then sit, his arms bent from the elbow so the hands reach his shoulders, a position his guardian clasps him in. The ''djungagor'' would use native possum twice to bind the teeth and separate them from the gums. The two front teeth, against which a stick was placed, were then knocked out by hammering the other end of the stick with a stone. The mother and other women present weep, and run away. He is then painted all over with red
ochre
Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...
, with white strips on his chest and stomach, black ones on his back. He is now known as a ''lainyar''.
History of contact
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.
Life
Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...
thought that the Bardi were probably those described by
William Dampier
William Dampier (baptised 5 September 1651; died March 1715) was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnav ...
. Dampier arrived in the privateer
''Cygnet'' off this coast on 5 January 1688, and remained there doing repairs until 12 March. This has been identified as, in all probability, Karakatta Bay in
King Sound
King Sound is a large gulf in northern Western Australia. It expands from the mouth of the Fitzroy River, one of Australia's largest watercourses, and opens to the Indian Ocean. It is about long, and averages about in width. The port town ...
, now
Ardyaloon (also known as One Arm Point). The ancestors of the Bardi were thus probably the first native Australian people described by Western explorers.
Toby Metcalfe, a linguist who has studied the Bardi language, suggested that Dampier's report of his encounter with the natives of the bay contained a word which was still recognisable from the Bardi lexicon.
At our first coming, before we were acquainted with them or they with us, a company of them who lived on the main came just against our ship, and, standing on a pretty high bank, threatened us with their swords and lances by shaking them at us: at last the captain ordered the drum to be beaten, which was done of a sudden with much vigour, purposely to scare the poor creatures. They hearing the noise ran away as fast as they could drive; and when they ran away in haste they would cry ''Gurry, gurry,'' speaking deep in the throat.
Metcalfe argued that, indisputably, the word repeated here, as transcribed as ''gurri'' was in fact ''ngaarri'', the "most feared and fickle" of the Bardi
malevolent spirit
In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crema ...
-beings. Thus, by an historical irony, it emerged that Dampier, who wrote down notoriously in his journal that the inhabitants of Bardi territory were "the miserablest people in the world", was considered in turn by the Bardi as the "miserablest" and "nastiest" of evil spirits.
Several
missions were set up on the Dampier Peninsula in the late 19th century. The
Sunday Island mission was established in 1899 by two pearlers, Sidney Hadley and Harry Hunter, whose fleet of luggers worked out of Bulgin, east of Cape Leveque and just north of its lighthouse. This was later affiliated with the
UAM, one of whose missionaries,
Wilfrid Henry Douglas, settled there in 1946, learning the Bardi language and attempting to translate some passages in the New Testament into the local tongue.
After the mission was dismantled in 1962 the Bardi were shifted to
Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...
and
Lombadina
Lombadina is a medium-sized Aboriginal community on the north-western coast of Western Australia on Cape Leveque, north of Broome in the Kimberley region. The name is derived from the Aboriginal word, "Lollmardinard". The community is inhabi ...
. When part of a pastoral lease of Lombardina was split off, the Bardi shifted back to take up residence at
One Arm Point
Ardyaloon or One Arm Point, also known as Bardi, is an Aboriginal Australian community town on the Dampier Peninsula, in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is located north of Perth and the closest populated town is Derby. At the , ...
, where by the early 2000s, some 400 people dwell.
Native title and current Bardi Jawi land
After a landmark 2002
High Court decision confirmed the primacy of the ''
Native Title Act 1993
The ''Native Title Act 1993'' (Cth) is a law passed by the Australian Parliament, the purpose of which is "to provide a national system for the recognition and protection of native title and for its co-existence with the national land managemen ...
'', the Bardi and Jawi people managed to obtain recognition of their native title claim in 2005, when a
Federal Court under
Justice French ruled that they were entitled to exclusive rights over some areas of the roughly to which they had laid claim. They also sought to claim a small section of Brue Reef, 31 miles north of Cape Leveque. Justice French ruled in June 2015 affirmed part of their claim, while adding they had non-exclusive native title rights over areas below the mean high water mark. The Brue Reef claim was dismissed.
Many of the Bardi and Jawi peoples now live at
One Arm Point
Ardyaloon or One Arm Point, also known as Bardi, is an Aboriginal Australian community town on the Dampier Peninsula, in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is located north of Perth and the closest populated town is Derby. At the , ...
(Ardyaloon),
Djarindjin
Djarindjin is a medium-sized Aboriginal community located north of Broome in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, within the Shire of Broome. It is within the traditional lands of the Bardi and Jawi peoples.
Location
Djarindjin is l ...
and
Lombadina
Lombadina is a medium-sized Aboriginal community on the north-western coast of Western Australia on Cape Leveque, north of Broome in the Kimberley region. The name is derived from the Aboriginal word, "Lollmardinard". The community is inhabi ...
.
The Bardi Jawi Niimidiman Aboriginal Corporation Registered Native Title Body (
RNTBC
A Registered Native Title Body Corporate (RNTBC) is a corporation nominated by a group of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people for the purposes of native title in Australia, to represent their native title rights and interests, once tha ...
) administers land, and in consultation with several other bodies and individuals, including the
Australian Government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...
, produced the Bardi Jawi Indigenous Protected Area Management Plan 2013–2023.
Bardi Jawi Marine Park
, there is a proposal for a
marine park, which will cover the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
surrounding the Dampier Peninsula, including the many islands of the
Buccaneer Archipelago
The Buccaneer Archipelago is a group of islands off the coast of Western Australia near the town of Derby in the Kimberley region. The closest inhabited place is Bardi located about from the western end of the island group.
, a new marine ...
. There will be three marine parks: the
Lalang-gaddam Marine Park
Camden Sound is a relatively wide body of water in the Indian Ocean located in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The Sound is bounded by the Bonaparte Archipelago to the north-east, the Buccaneer Archipelago to the south-west, and Mon ...
covers
Camden Sound
Camden Sound is a relatively wide body of water in the Indian Ocean located in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The Sound is bounded by the Bonaparte Archipelago to the north-east, the Buccaneer Archipelago to the south-west, and Mont ...
,
Horizontal Falls
The Horizontal Falls, or Horizontal Waterfalls, nicknamed the "Horries" and known as Garaanngaddim by the local Indigenous people, are an unusual natural phenomenon on the coast of the Kimberley region in Western Australia, where tidal flows ca ...
and two other parks in
Dambeemangarddee waters to the north; the
Mayala Marine Park
The Buccaneer Archipelago is a group of islands off the coast of Western Australia near the town of Derby in the Kimberley region. The closest inhabited place is Bardi located about from the western end of the island group.
, a new marine ...
will cover the Buccaneer islands, the land and waters of the
Mayala
The Yawijibaya, also written Jaudjibaia, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. Along with the Unggarranggu people, they are the traditional owners of Buccaneer Archipelago, off Derby, togeth ...
group; the Bardi Jawi Marine Park is the most southerly of the three. Each will be jointly managed by the local
traditional owner
Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...
groups.
Notable people
*
Stephen "Baamba" Albert (born 1950 in Broome, died in Perth 13 November 2019) was a Bardi actor and singer who was also the first chairman of the National Aboriginal Education Committee and was the director of Goolarri Media.
*
Jimmy Chi
James Ronald Chi (1948 – 26 June 2017) was an Australian composer, musician and playwright. His best known work is the 1990 musical ''Bran Nue Dae'' which was adapted for film in 2009.
Early life
Chi was born in Broome, Western Australia in ...
(born 1948 in Broome, died in Broome 26 July 2017) was a playwright of Bardi descent on his mother's side (Scottish-Bardi). His father was of mixed Chinese and Japanese descent.
*
Roy Wiggan (born 1930 on Sunday Island, died 2015 in Broome) was a Bardi elder and custodian of the traditional stories and songs. He was a maker of ilma, and his work has been exhibited at the
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...
.
Alternative names
There are several alternative spellings in the literature on Bardi:
* ''Ba:d''
* ''Baada, Barda, Bardi, Bad''
* ''Baardi''
* ''Bad''
* ''Bard''
The preferred spelling is Bardi or Baardi (which represents the long vowel of the name more accurately).
Some words and expressions
* ' (married woman)
* ' (man)
* ' (fish, though more generic, and can also mean 'meat', as in ''aarli-mayi'' (meat-plant food=food))
* ' (turtle)
* ' (seaweed)
* ' (how are you?)
* ' (young man)
Indigenous rangers
The Bardi Jawi Rangers, an
Indigenous ranger
The Indigenous ranger projects were introduced by the Australian Government in 2007 as part of its Working on Country program. Indigenous rangers are Indigenous Australians who combine traditional knowledge with conservation training in order to p ...
group established in 2006, are based at Ardyaloon. The ranger programme helps to sustain traditional owners' livelihoods and their
connection to country
The concept of country, as an identity or descriptive quality, varies widely across the world, although some elements may be common among several groups of people.
Rurality
One interpretation is the state or character of being rural, regardles ...
. They cover of coastline and of land, performing valuable cultural and natural resource management activities such as managing the
dugong
The dugong (; ''Dugong dugon'') is a marine mammal. It is one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatees. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest m ...
turtle
Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...
population, recording their
traditional ecological knowledge
Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) describes indigenous and other traditional knowledge of local resources. As a field of study in Northern American anthropology, TEK refers to "a cumulative body of knowledge, belief, and practice, evolving by ...
and undertaking collaborative research. The group has eight full-time rangers, and in 2008 won the Banksia Environment Award.
A bird identified as a
Nicobar pigeon
The Nicobar pigeon (''Caloenas nicobarica'', Car: ') is a bird found on small islands and in coastal regions from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, east through the Malay Archipelago, to the Solomons and Palau. It is the only living member ...
, native to
South East Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
and the
South Pacific, was spotted by the Rangers on the Dampier Peninsula in May 2017. As part of
biosecurity
Biosecurity refers to measures aimed at preventing the introduction and/or spread of harmful organisms (e.g. viruses, bacteria, etc.) to animals and plants in order to minimize the risk of transmission of infectious disease. In agriculture, thes ...
measures, it was reported to
quarantine
A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...
services was removed by Australian Department of Agriculture officials.
Notes
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{{Authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia
Kimberley (Western Australia)