The Binbinga, also pronounced Binbinka, are an
Indigenous Australian
Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
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 ...
of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
.
Language
Binbinga is a dialect classified as a variety of
the Ngurlun branch of the
Mirndi languages
The Mirndi or Mindi languages are an Australian Aboriginal languages, Australian language family spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia. The family consists of two sub-groups, the Yirram languages and the West Barkly languages, Barkly la ...
, closely related to
Wambaya, to the degree that Wambaya, Binbinka and Gudanji are often treated as dialects of a single language. The Binbinga were among these tribes, and today only 89 speakers of Wambaya remain. When someone died, the widow, mother and a number of other female kin were banned from speaking until the deceased had undergone his second, final burial rite.
Country
The Binbinga's traditional lands consisted of some running southeast from the Old Bauhinia Downs, encompassing; the
McArthur River Station and Campbell Camp, and the upper limits of the McArthur and Glyde Rivers. Their camps on the McArthur river were described as very picturesque, with " pitched among shady
native figs,
Leichhardt pines,
paperbarks and
screw pines, close to the banks of the river".
People
Baldwin Spencer and
F. A. Gillen described the physical appearance of the Binbinga as follows:
The men.. have very little hair on the face, and that non the head is allowed to grow to a considerable length and is then made into plaits which are wound round the crown so as to produce the appearance of a close-fitting cap or helmet.
Mythology
In Binbinga metaphysics Ulanji was a supernatural being in the primordial world of the
Mungai times, similar to the
Bobbi-Bobbi
In myths of the Binbinga people of northern Australia, Bobbi-Bobbi was a supernatural being who lived in the heavens in the Dreamtime. He was a huge snake, similar to the Rainbow Serpent, and was originally benevolent towards humans. From the heave ...
of the
Anula people. He was a huge snake, who emerged from a hole at a site called ''Makumundana''. After making a water-hole full of water lilies, he began to move across the country, creating springs and creeks, and also the upper reaches of the Limmen river, and forming hills and ranges. At each creative point in his journey, he conducted ceremonies during which spirit-children came forth from his body who were left to inhabit these localities. At a certain point, at a site called ''Kuriella-dat-kaulu'', he decapitated flying foxes he had observed handing from the rocks. Withdrawing from his body two of his own ribs, he shaped two trees (''Lamara'') from them which he planted in the ground. At ''Tutita'', he left behind ''maitjama'' (quartzite) so that knives and spear-heads could be fashioned from them. He altered the name of a place called ''Nanawandula'', having created waterholes there rich in crocodiles, after removing his heart there, thus giving it the name for heart, ''Kurta-lula''. Thereupon, he sunk underground to continue travelling, emerging only at ''Uminiwura'', the end of his journey, and finally disappeared into the earth.
Ritual practices and burial rites
The Binbinga practiced both
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 ...
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 ...
.
Illness among the tribes of this area was believed to be caused by two evil spirits, whose powers were challenged by a third spirit, to whom the
Kurdaitcha
A kurdaitcha, or kurdaitcha man, also spelt gadaidja, cadiche, kadaitcha, karadji, or kaditcha, is a type of shaman amongst the Arrernte people, an Aboriginal group in Central Australia. The name featherfoot is used to denote the same figure by ...
or medicine man prayed for succor. In the Binbinga version, the medicine man had two gods whose curative assistance he could pray for by singing, doubles of each other and of the medicine man himself.
When a person died, his bones were wrapped in a package of paperbark, bound together with strings of human hair and wood bindings. The arms were not included, but, plastered with pipe clay, set aside to be used for
pointing the bone. This was set in a fork of a lopped branch about five feet off the ground, and around the base a 3 inch mound of soil, forming a circle measuring roughly 6 feet in diameter. Nearby a fire was lit which was to be tended day and night to ensure the fire did not die. The package was kept in this state until a second and final burial was performed.
Ethnography
The Binbinga were first studied in some detail by Spencer and Gillen who had access to an excellent informant, the
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 ...
''Kurkutji''.
Alternative names
* Binbingha, Binbinka, Bing Binga
* Leepitbinga
* Pinbinga
Source:
Notes
Citations
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory