The Girramay are an
Australian Aboriginal
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 ...
tribe of northern
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
.
Name
The Girramay
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
is formed from ''jir:a'', meaning "man".
Language
The Girramay spoke the most southerly dialect of
Dyirbal.
Country
The Girramay people's traditional lands extend over some south from
Rockingham Bay
Rockingham Bay is a bay in Far North Queensland, Australia.
The bay opens onto the Coral Sea, part of the South Pacific Ocean. Adjacent to the bay is the Girramay National Park, south of which is the town of Cardwell. Goold Island is a smal ...
to
Cardwell. Northwards, their boundaries reach close to the upper Murray River and the Cardwell Range, and also take in inland areas of the
Herbert River
The Herbert River is a river located in Far North Queensland, Australia. The southernmost of Queensland's wet tropics river systems, it was named in 1864 by George Elphinstone Dalrymple explorer, after Robert George Wyndham Herbert, the first ...
.
Society
Before European settlement, the Girramay lived in a mixture of rainforest and open forest environments.
Foods and artefacts
Girramay territory has trees with a variety of bark that could be beaten into a cloth to fashion a "rain shield" and neighbouring tribes such as the
Dyirbal and
Ngajanji
The Ngajanji, also written ''Ngadyan,'' and Ngadjon-Jii are an Indigenous Australian people of the rainforest region south of Cairns, in northern Queensland. They form one of 8 groups, the others being Yidin, Mamu, Dyirbal, Girramay, Warrgamay ...
therefore called this device a ''keramai'', their pronunciation of the Girramay
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
.
* ''wila'' (cakes of brown walnut)
Alternative names
* ''Kiramai''
* ''Giramai, Giramay, Giramaygan''
* ''Kirrama, Kirrami, Kerrami''
* ''Wombelbara'' (
Warakamai
The Warrgamay people, also spelt Warakamai, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland.
Language
Their language, Warrgamay, is now extinct. It was a variety of Dyirbalic, and appears to be composed of three distinct dialect ...
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
)
Some words
* ''gamu'' (water) cf. Dyirbal ''bana''
* ''gumbul'' (woman) cf. Dyirbal ''jugumbil''
* ''garba'' (ear) cf. Dyirbal ''manga''
* ''wuyan'', a verb meaning to "keep on taking bit by bit from a group, or from a pile of objects, until scarcely any remain"
* ''whoyerr'' (tame dog)
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Queensland
Far North Queensland