The Yumu (also written Jumu) were an

Indigenous Australian people 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 ...

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 ...

Language

The Yumu language was called Ŋatatara. This was often mistaken for their

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 ...

and transcribed ''Ngatatara'' leading to confusion between the Yumu and the

Ngaatjatjarra The Ngaatjatjarra (otherwise spelt Ngadadjara) are an Indigenous Australian people of Western Australia, with communities located in the north eastern part of the Goldfields-Esperance region. Name The ethnonym Ngaatjatjarra, in line with a gener ...

of Western Australia.

Country

According to Norman Tindale, the Yumu ranged over some of tribal land, in the Western MacDonnell Ranges, running east o
Mount Russell
to the vicinity of Mount Zeil. Their northern reaches were apparently just south of central Mount Wedge and Lake Bennett. He puts their southern limits around Mount Solitary an
Mount Udor
They were also present at Haast Bluff (''Ulambaura''), which they called ''Paura'',

Mount Liebig Mount Liebig is a mountain with an elevation of in the southern part of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is one of the highest peaks of the MacDonnell Ranges and was named by the explorer Ernest Giles after the German chemist Justus v ...

an
Peculiar

Social organization

The marriage rules of the Yumu were, as with the Ngalia, found to be identical to that of the Arrernte class system with the difference that prefixes were attached to the respective sexes, ''t(j)a-'' for males, and ''na-'' for females.

Myths

According to

Géza Róheim Géza Róheim ( hu, Róheim Géza; September 12, 1891 – June 7, 1953) was a Hungarian psychoanalyst and anthropologist. Considered by some as the most important anthropologist-psychoanalyst, he is often credited with founding the field of ...

, like the

Pintupi The Pintupi are an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose traditional land is in the area west of Lake Macdonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved (or were moved) into ...

, the Yumu believed that

menstruation Menstruation (also known as a period, among other colloquial terms) is the regular discharge of blood and mucosal tissue from the inner lining of the uterus through the vagina. The menstrual cycle is characterized by the rise and fall of hor ...

was induced by a hirsute demon (''mamu'') called 'hair-big' (''Inyutalu'') is the cause of menstruation, which occurs when he penetrates the vagina, scratching it with his nails.

History of contact

According to Tindale, the majority of the Yumu people died as a consequence of an epidemic which swept their community between 1932 and 1940. A remnant of children were adopted into the Kukatja tribe thereafter. Their land was then claimed by the Ngalia as being (unpossessed country). Both Margaret Heffernan and Sarah Holcombe, writing decades later, could find no evidence for their existence, while some early observers such as H. K. Fry considered them to be a branch of the Kukatja (Luritja).

Alternative names

* ''Jumu'' * ''Ngadadjara'' * ''Ngatatara.'' ( Kukatja

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, ...

.) * ''Pa:kulja'' Source:

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * {{Authority control Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory