The Bingongina or Pinkangarna are a possible
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 ...
. However, the name may simply be a former alternative term for
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 ...
.
Country
According to
Norman Tindale's estimate, the Bingongina's tribal territory, covering much sand dune desert terrain, encompassed approximately to the west of
Lake Woods
Lake Woods is an ephemeral freshwater lake in the Northern Territory of Australia. It lies on Newcastle Creek close to the small town of Elliott on the Stuart Highway, about halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs. It is important as a b ...
and east of
the upper Victoria River. The southwestern boundary lay at Winnecke Creek (''Morerinju'').
Social organization
The Bingongina marriage system was claimed to exhibit patrilineal descent by
Spencer and
Gillen in 1904, analyzing the class relations in terms of two
moieties, respectively ''Wiliuku'' and ''Liaraku.'' This view challenged by
R. H. Mathews
Robert Hamilton Mathews (1841–1918) was an Australian surveyor and self-taught anthropologist who studied the Aboriginal cultures of Australia, especially those of Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland. He was a member of the R ...
who asserted that the cycles actually allowed for matrilineal descent.
Alternative names
* ''Bugongidja'' (exonym used by northern tribes)
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory