The Warrgamay people, also spelt Warakamai, 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 state of
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_ ...
.
Language
Their language,
Warrgamay
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 dialec ...
, is now
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
. It was a variety of
Dyirbalic, and appears to be composed of three distinct dialects:''Wargamaygan'' spoken around the lower reaches 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 ...
; ''Biyay'' spoken at the mouth of the Herbert, in the area of
Halifax and Bemerside; and ''Hinchinbrook Biyay,'' spoken around the coastal area south of
Cardwell and offshore on
Hinchinbrook Island
Hinchinbrook Island (or Pouandai to the Biyaygiri people) is an island in the Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It lies east of Cardwell and north of Lucinda, separated from the north-eastern coast of Queensland by the narrow Hi ...
.
Words in the Warrgamay language include:
* ''knarbo'' (tame dog)
* ''gerolo'' (wild dog)
* ''baby'' (father)
* ''kora/yong/yonga'' (mother)
* ''mecolo'' (white man)
Country
The Warrgamay were the
Indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
of
Halifax Bay
Halifax Bay is a region located around a bay in the Coral Sea, situated on the Australian coast in Far North Queensland. It is bordered by the town of Ingham to the north, city of Townsville to the south and Great Palm Island off the coast to ...
, and held in
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 ...
's calculations, approximately of tribal domains. An early resident, James Cassady, specified that they had of shoreline, extending into the hinterland approximately .
Their northern neighbours were the
Girramay
The Girramay are an Australian Aboriginal tribe of northern Queensland.
Name
The Girramay ethnonym is formed from ''jir:a'', meaning "man".
Language
The Girramay spoke the most southerly dialect of Dyirbal.
Country
The Girramay people's trad ...
, while to their south lay the
Wulgurukaba
The Manbarra, otherwise known as the Wulgurukaba, are Aboriginal Australian people, and the traditional custodians of the Palm Islands, Magnetic Island, and an area of mainland Queensland to the west of Townsville.
The Manbarra people were forci ...
.
Social organisation
The Warrgamay were divided into several
groups or clans:
* ''Ikelbara''
* ''Doolebara''
* ''Mungulbara''
* ''Mandambara''
* ''Karabara''
* ''Bungabara''
* ''Yoembara''
The intermarriage of groups has been classified as follows:
Customs
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 ...
as an initiatory rite was unknown among the Warrgamay. They did practise
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 perma ...
,
ritual scarification and
piercing of the septum to wear nose bones.
Polygamy
Crimes
Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married ...
was common, and
widows were married to their deceased husband's brother.
History of contact
The area of Halifax Bay first began to be settled by white colonialists in 1865, in the then
Colony of Queensland
The Colony of Queensland was a colony of the British Empire from 1859 to 1901, when it became a State in the federal Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. At its greatest extent, the colony included the present-day State of Queensland, t ...
. At that time the numbers of Warrgamay were estimated to amount to roughly 500 people. Within 15 years, they had declined by 300, a mere 40 of the surviving 200 being men. The difference was due to their being relentlessly hunted and gunned down by
mounted native troopers under white supervision, together with settlers, both of whom "shot as many of the males of the tribe as possible".
Alternative names
Alternative names and spellings included, according to Tindale:
* ''Waragamai''
* ''Wargamay''
* ''Wargamaygan''
* ''Bungabara''
* ''Ikelbara''
* ''Herbert River tribe''
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Queensland