The Manbarra, otherwise known as the Wulgurukaba, are
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, and the
traditional custodians of the
Palm Islands
The Palm Islands are three artificial islands, Palm Jumeirah, Deira Island and Palm Jebel Ali, on the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Palm Islands were conceived around the same time as The World, another artificial island project in ...
,
Magnetic Island
Magnetic Island ( Wulguru: Yunbenun) is an island offshore from the city of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. This mountainous island in Cleveland Bay has effectively become a suburb of Townsville, with 2,335 permanent residents. The island ...
, and an area of mainland
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_ ...
to the west of
Townsville
Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
.
The Manbarra people were forcibly moved off the Palm Islands in the 1890s by the
Queensland Government
The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was formed in 1859 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended fr ...
, and hundreds of people drawn from many Aboriginal nations on the mainland were moved to an
Aboriginal reserve
An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-sanctioned settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th c ...
on
Great Palm Island
Great Palm Island, usually known as Palm Island, is the largest island in the Palm Islands group off Northern Queensland, Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal community, the legacy of an Aboriginal reserve, the Palm Island Aboriginal Sett ...
in 1914, becoming the
Bwgcolman
The Bwgcolman (pronounced "Bwookamun") is the self-assigned name for the Aboriginal Australians who were deported from many areas of the Queensland mainland, and confined in resettlement on Great Palm Island after the establishment of an Aborigin ...
people, who inhabit the island today.
Name
The name "Wulgurukaba" translates to "
canoe
A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle.
In British English, the term ...
people".
Language
Wulguru/Manbarra was one of two
Nyawaygic languages
The Dyirbalic languages are a group of languages forming a branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. They are:
*Dyirbalic proper: Dyirbal, Warrgamay
*Nyawaygic: Wulguru, Nyawaygi
At least one of the Lower Burdekin languages, Yuru, may belong to ...
and constitutes the fourth class of the Herbert River languages, according to
Robert M. W. Dixon. The surviving vocabulary of the Manbarra language, mainly collected by
Ernest Gribble
Ernest Richard Bulmer Gribble (23 November 186818 October 1957) was an Australian missionary. Though considered to be temperamentally unsuited to his vocation, he became a strong advocate for better treatment of Australian Aboriginal people, savin ...
in 1932, indicates that it had a roughly 50% lexical overlap with
Nyawaygi
The Nyawigi people, also spelt Nyawaygi, Nywaigi, or Nawagi, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose original country was around Halifax Bay in Far North Queensland.
They may also have inhabited Orpheus Island.
Language
An early record sugge ...
. Little information was conserved regarding its grammatical structure. Another language was also spoken on the island, ''Buluguyban'' which was mutually intelligible with Manbarra, and may have been a dialect name, like Mulgu, Wulgurukaba, Coonambella, and Nhawalgaba.
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 the range of Wulgurukaba tribal territory at about , which covered both the islands off Townsville - including the Palm Islands] and Magnetic Island - and the hinterland west of Townsville to an extend of about (from the
Ross River (Queensland), Ross River, eastwards nearly to
Cape Cleveland.
History of contact
It is estimated that there were about 200 Manbarra people at the time of
James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
's visit in 1770. By the end of the 19th century they numbered about 50, apparently because many had left the island to go fishing for
bêche-de-mer with Europeans. In 1909 the Queensland Chief
Protector of Aborigines
The role of Protector of Aborigines was first established in South Australia in 1836.
The role became established in other parts of Australia pursuant to a recommendation contained in the ''Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Abori ...
visited the island, apparently to check on the activities of Japanese
pearling crews in the area, and reported the existence of a small camp of Aboriginal people. Most Manbarra people were forcibly removed to the mainland in the 1890s.
The last survivor of the Wulgurukaba band resident on Great Palm Island died in 1962.
Dreamtime mythology
The
primordial creative serpent of the Manbarra
dreamtime
The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal mythology, Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Ja ...
legends, a
carpet snake named ''Gubbal'', is said to have slithered down 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 ...
, and, swimming across the sea, to have disintegrated, leaving pieces of his back as Palm Island and his head as
Magnetic Island
Magnetic Island ( Wulguru: Yunbenun) is an island offshore from the city of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. This mountainous island in Cleveland Bay has effectively become a suburb of Townsville, with 2,335 permanent residents. The island ...
.
Recent events
Tambo (''Kukamunburra''), a Manbarra man was shipped by the showman R. A. Cunningham to the United States in 1883, in response to a call by
P.T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum (; July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and politician, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871–2017) with James Anthony Bailey. He was ...
for specimens of "savage races" to be put into a display in his
traveling circus act. He died the following year in Ohio. His
mummified remains were first put on exhibition in a
dime museum
Dime museums were institutions that were popular at the end of the 19th century in the United States. Designed as centers for entertainment and moral education for the working class ( lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper mid ...
and then stored in the basement of a Cleveland funeral parlour and were only discovered a century later when the business closed down. The Manbarra community appealed for the repatriation of his remains and they were duly restored to the people in 1994. His reburial there according to traditional funeral rites that had fallen into abeyance for decades played an important role in the cultural renewal and reconsolidation of Manbarra identity, and also that of the Bwgaman.
Native title
In July 2012, a six hectare section of Magnetic Island was granted to the Wulgurukaba people under
freehold native title. The Queensland government also stated it would grant trusteeship of a further to the Wulgurukaba Yunbenun Aboriginal Corporation.
The Manbarra have not been given legal status as traditional owners of the Palm Islands, as the people known as the
Bwgcolman
The Bwgcolman (pronounced "Bwookamun") is the self-assigned name for the Aboriginal Australians who were deported from many areas of the Queensland mainland, and confined in resettlement on Great Palm Island after the establishment of an Aborigin ...
, drawn from over 40 tribes on the mainland and
Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total land ...
, were forcibly moved to the
Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement
Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement, later officially known as Director of Native Affairs Office, Palm Island and also known as Palm Island Aboriginal Reserve, Palm Island mission and Palm Island Dormitory, was an Aboriginal reserve and penal set ...
from 1918 onwards, and it is their descendants (the "historical people", who now inhabit the island.
Alternative names
* Buruku'man, Burugu'man (native
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
for
Great Palm Island
Great Palm Island, usually known as Palm Island, is the largest island in the Palm Islands group off Northern Queensland, Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal community, the legacy of an Aboriginal reserve, the Palm Island Aboriginal Sett ...
)
* Korambelbara (
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, ...
)
* Mun-ba-rah
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Queensland
North Queensland