Bilinarra
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The Bilinarra, also spelt Bilingara and Bilinara, 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 of the
Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...
.


Language

The
Bilinarra language Bilingara, also known as the Bilinarra, is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Bilinarra people of the Northern Territory. It is classified as an eastern variety of one of the Pama-Nyungan Ngumbin languages. It is mutually intelli ...
is classified as an eastern variety of one of the Pama-Nyungan
Ngumbin languages Ngumbin (or Ngumpin) languages are a small language family of Australia, consisting of (from west to east): *Walmajarri *Djaru * Gurindji (Gurindji proper, Bilinarra, Wanyjirra, Malngin, Ngarinyman) *Mudburra In 2004 it was demonstrated that N ...
. It is mutually intelligible with
Gurindji Gurindji may refer to: * Gurindji, Northern Territory, a locality in Australia *Gurindji people, an Australian Aboriginal people **Gurindji language, the language of the Gurindji people **Gurindji Kriol language, the main language now spoken by Guri ...
and the dialect spoken by the neighbouring Ngarinman people. Bilinarra is considered a dialect of
Ngarinyman The Ngarinman or Ngarinyman people are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory who spoke the Ngarinyman language. Country According to an estimate made by Norman Tindale, the Ngarinman held some of territory. Their central dom ...
, though it shares more vocabulary with
Gurindji Gurindji may refer to: * Gurindji, Northern Territory, a locality in Australia *Gurindji people, an Australian Aboriginal people **Gurindji language, the language of the Gurindji people **Gurindji Kriol language, the main language now spoken by Guri ...
. There are no structural features that are unique to Bilinarra and linguists would consider all three languages to be dialects of a single language, but speakers of these languages consider them to be different. Elements of their tongue were first recorded by a police constable W. H. Willshire (who was later charged with murder) in 1896. By 2013, only one person was alive who spoke it as their primary language though it inflects the variety of Kriol spoken by Bilinarra children. Bilinarra is native to the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory of Australia. The name of the language most likely refers to the surrounding country, as ''bili'' means 'rock' or 'hill', followed by an unknown suffix. Massacres by early colonists, poor treatment on the cattle stations, and mixing of languages at the cattle stations caused Bilinarra to lose prominence as more dominant languages took over, leading to the endangerment of Bilinarra.


Country

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 ...
estimated Bilinarra tribal land to cover some covering the areas of the Moray Range, Delamere, and, in its southern extension, down to the Victoria River Downs and Pigeon Hole stations and the junction where the
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...
and Armstrong rivers join. Its eastern boundaries lay beyond
Killarney Killarney ( ; ga, Cill Airne , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Ross Castl ...
. Numbers lived around the
Billiluna Station Billiluna Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in Western Australia. It is located approximately north of Balgo and south of Halls Creek in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The name of the station is ta ...
in the 1920s. Bilinarra territory was predominantly characterized by blacksoil plains, limestone gorges and sandstone outcrops. Their neighbours are the
Mudburra The Mudburra, also spelt Mudbara and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language Mudburra is one of the far eastern forms of the Pama-Nyungan Ngumbin languages. Country The Mudburra people live in ...
to the east, the Gurindji people to the southwest, and the Ngarinyman to the northwest. Most Bilinarra people now live at Pigeon Hole (''Balarrgi'')


Cultural practices and beliefs

In order to manufacture a gum for use in fixing tufts of flax to the bodies of dancers in their
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 ...
s, the Bilingara used to call on one of the clan who would not be participating in the dance itself. Once handed a piece of string woven from human hair, the person who was to supply his blood used it as a ligature of his biceps, and then cut into an artery with a stone, jabbing away until an ample flow was secured, which was caught in a bark basin at his feet. What was not used for making gum was given to dingos to lap up. Their native
pharmacopeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (from the obsolete typography ''pharmacopœia'', meaning "drug-making"), in its modern technical sense, is a book containing directions for the identification of compound medicines, and published by ...
drew on things like lemon grass (''gubuwubu'') and Dodonaea polyzyga (''yirrigaji'') for preparing a medicinal drink or lotion, mixed with a slurry of termite mound earth (''mardumardu'') to treat congestion, for example. With regard to conception, the Bilinarra consider that children pre-exist their actual births, in the form of spirits that linger around an outcrop of rocks at a site called ''Gurdurdularni'' ('the place of women's children). Even the spirits of the dead (''yirrmarug'') may reincarnate themselves by shifting into the foetus of a pregnant woman. Numerous foods were taboo for such women, the bans being related to beliefs that such meats might damage the unborn child. Turtle (''gurwarlambara'') meat for example was forbidden because it was thought that, were it consumed, the child would grow up walking with a turtle-like waddle.


History of contact

The first non-Aboriginal (''gardiya''), that is, European, to venture into the Victoria Downs area was
John Lort Stokes Admiral John Lort Stokes, RN (1 August 1811 – 11 June 1885)Although 1812 is frequently given as Stokes's year of birth, it has been argued by author Marsden Hordern that Stokes was born in 1811, citing a letter by fellow naval officer Crawford ...
in 1839. The first major exploratory expedition followed in 1855-1856 when the area was surveyed by Francis Gregory and his brother Henry, and they reported favourably on its prospects for pastoral development. In 1883 Charles Fisher and Maurice Lyons set up the
Victoria River Downs Station Victoria River Downs Station, also known as Victoria Downs and often referred to as The Big Run, is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. Location It is located about south east of Timb ...
on an area that extended over Bilingara and
Karrangpurru The Karrangpurru were an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory. They suffered severe population loss very early on in the period of colonial expropriations of their land. Language Nothing is known of their language, Karranga lan ...
lands. The Bilinarra suffered from massacres during the period of their dispossession as their land was taken over for pastoral development, and even thereafter, on the stations where they sought employment, were treated harshly. Like other tribes in the area, they suffered from the standard three successive waves of colonial devastation: introduced disease, land-clearing massacres, and
forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
on the new pastoral leases. Meakins and Nordlinger state that with the establishment in 1894 of a police station run by Willshire "massacres became the officially sanctioned method of population control." Their numbers rapidly declined. In Bilinarra
oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...
accounts, two massacres in particular are recorded for this early period. One group of tribesmen were rounded up and brought into the Gordon Creek police station, where they were tethered and then shot, with their bodies then burnt and dumped into a rubbish tip for cattle bones. In a further incident, a cook prepared a stew for some Bilinarra, lacing it with
strychnine Strychnine (, , US chiefly ) is a highly toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the eye ...
. Thereafter the site was named Poison Creek. Survivors eventually made their way into Ngarinman territory, where many were killed as intruders, while women were taken as wives. Those women returned to Bilinarra lands on the demise of their husbands. Some time around 1922 a Bilinarra youth nicknamed "Banjo" killed the Billiluna station manager Condon and his white stockman, Sullivan, after the latter had abducted his woman for sexual purposes. Banjo remonstrated with the usurper, but to no effect, other than being dressed down. When the time came for the annual calf-branding, Banjo snuck into the station and, seizing a rifle on a table, shot Sullivan in the thigh, and he died of the wound soon after. He then aimed at Condon, who asked him not to shoot, and killed him. The other blacks thought of spearing him, but he had the upper hand with a rifle, and ordered some of them to report the murder to the manager of another station, while he slipped off to the Kimberley with his girl. Jack Flinders eventually tracked him down near Mary River and Louisa Downs, and shot him dead. Bilinarra people joined
Gurindji Gurindji may refer to: * Gurindji, Northern Territory, a locality in Australia *Gurindji people, an Australian Aboriginal people **Gurindji language, the language of the Gurindji people **Gurindji Kriol language, the main language now spoken by Guri ...
and other workers in the
Wave Hill walk-off The Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike, was a walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families, starting on 23 August 1966 and lasting for seven years. It took place at Wave Hill, a cattle stati ...
in 1967, to protest poor working conditions on the
cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stati ...
.


Alternative names

* ''Bilinara'' * ''Bilinurra'' * ''Billianera'' * ''Bilyanarra'' * ''Bilyanurra'' * ''Boonarra'' * ''Bringara'' * ''Bulinara'' * ''Pillenurra'' * ''Plinara'' Source:


Some words

* ''girrawa''. (goanna) * ''jamud''. ( bush turkey) * ''jiya'' (kangaroo) * ''yinarrwa''. (
barramundi The barramundi (''Lates calcarifer'') or Asian sea bass, is a species of catadromous fish in the family Latidae of the order Perciformes. The species is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, spanning the waters of the Middle East, South ...
) Source:


See also

*
Ngumpit The Gurindji are an Aboriginal Australian people of northern Australia, southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory's Victoria River region. Language and culture Gurindji is one of the eastern Ngumbin languages, in the Ngumbin-Yapa su ...
, a name used by the
Gurindji Gurindji may refer to: * Gurindji, Northern Territory, a locality in Australia *Gurindji people, an Australian Aboriginal people **Gurindji language, the language of the Gurindji people **Gurindji Kriol language, the main language now spoken by Guri ...
,
Malngin The Malngin are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The Malngin language was a dialect of Gurindj. Country Norman Tindale estimated their tribal lands to have encompassed some and placed their western ...
, Bilinara,
Mudburra The Mudburra, also spelt Mudbara and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language Mudburra is one of the far eastern forms of the Pama-Nyungan Ngumbin languages. Country The Mudburra people live in ...
and
Ngarinyman The Ngarinman or Ngarinyman people are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory who spoke the Ngarinyman language. Country According to an estimate made by Norman Tindale, the Ngarinman held some of territory. Their central dom ...
peoples to refer to themselves as a group


Notes


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory