Ngarigo
| Ngarigo people | |
|---|---|
| aka: Ngarigo, Bombala tribe, Menero tribe, and Cooma tribe[1] | |
 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Language family: | Pama–Nyungan |
| Language branch: | Yuin–Kuric |
| Language group: | Yora |
| Group dialects: | Ngarigu |
| Area | |
| Location: | Monaro and Australian Alpine regions of New South Wales and Victoria |
| Rivers | |
| Urban areas |
|
The Ngarigo (also named Garego, Ngarego, Ngarago, Ngaragu, Ngarigu, Ngarrugu or Ngarroogoo) are an indigenous Australian people of southeast New South Wales, whose lands also extended around the present border with Victoria.
Language
Ngarigu is classified by Robert M. W. Dixon as one of two languages of the Southern New South Wales Group, the other being Ngunawal/Gundungurra.[2] It was spoken in the area of Tumut by the Walgalu, in the Canberra-Queanbeyan-Upper Murrumbidgee region by people variously called the Nyamudy, the Namwich or the Yammoitmithang, and also as far south as Victoria's Omeo district.[3] The heartland of Ngarigo speakers, in a more restricted sense, was Monaro.[3]
John Lhotsky, Charles du Vé, John Bulmer[a] and George Augustus Robinson, Alfred W. Howitt and R. H. Mathews took down early wordlists of the language, while Luise Hercus managed to recover many terms conserved by descendants living in Orbost, in 1963.[5]
Country
According to Norman Tindale, following R. H. Mathews,[6] the specific areas lands of the Ngarigo covered some 6,000 square miles (16,000 km2), centering on the Monaro tableland. The northern limits lay around Queanbeyan. It took in the Bombala River area, and ran south to the vicinity of Delegate and eastwards to Nimmitabel. Their western reaches extended to the Great Dividing Range of the Australian Alps.[1]
Socio-economic organization
The Ngarigo clan and marriage structure consisted of a dual class system with matrilineal descent.[7]
The Ngarigo would contact, via notched mnemonic sticks born by messengers, other tribes such as the Walgalu and Ngunawal in order to arrange for all to meet up in the Bogong Mountains for the annual feasting off the Bogong moth colonies.[8] Corroborees, together with initiation ceremonies at a Bora ring were also held, and while in the hills, the Ngarigo and other tribes culled plants like mountain celery and alpine baeckea(Baeckea gunniana) for medicinal ends, preparing the former as a paste for problems in the urinary tract, the latter as a sedative and cough medicine.[9]
Post-contact history
With their hunting areas being taken over by European settlers running sheep, many native people took on occasional labour on pastoral runs, but the overall population of the Canberra area suffered a drastic reduction as diseases introduced by the Europeans, such as smallpox, syphilis, influenza, measles and tuberculosis began to take their toll, so that the demise of the tribes was virtually completed within three generations.[10]
Dispute over the traditional ownership of the Canberra area
Several tribes have been historically associated with the area around Canberra, with conflicting claims arising also from considerations of native title rights among those who descend from the original aboriginal peoples of the region. Descendants of the Ngarigo, Ngunawal and Walgalu have vied to assert primacy.
In 2013, an ACT Government anthropological report was released concluding that the struggle between various indigenous groups for the mantle of Canberra's "first people" is likely to remain uncertain. The report concluded that evidence gathered from the mid-1700s onward was too scant to support any family's claims.[11]
Alternative names
- Currak-da-bidgee
- Ngaryo. (common typo)
- Murring. ("men")
- Bemeringal ("mountain men", of the coastal tribes
- Guramal, Nguramal, Gurmal
- Bradjerak/Brajeraq. (bara, "man,"+ djerak, "savage/angry")
- Bombala tribe
- Menero tribe
- Cooma tribe[1]
Notes
- ^ Bulmer's list should be read with care, given Koch's note that:"15 of the items (from 'canoe' to 'wind') are matched with what should be the gloss of the next word on the list.Thus mamat 'canoe' should rather be glossed 'sun', the next word in the list, which other sources establish as /mamady/. "[4]
Citations
- ^ a b c Tindale 1974, p. 198.
- ^ Dixon 2002, p. xxxv.
- ^ a b Koch 2016, p. 145.
- ^ Koch 2016, p. 146.
- ^ Koch 2016, pp. 145–147.
- ^ Mathews 1908, p. 335.
- ^ Flood 2000, p. 123.
- ^ Slattery 2015, p. 121.
- ^ Slattery 2015, p. 128.
- ^ Gillespie 1991, p. 217.
- ^ Towell 2013.
Sources
- ACT Government Genealogy Project: Our Kin Our Country: August 2012 Report (PDF), ACT Government, August 2012, retrieved 24 February 2016
- Blay, John (2015). On Track: Searching out the Bundian Way. NewSouth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-742-23444-1.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Flood, Josephine (2000) [First published 1980]. The moth hunters: Aboriginal prehistory of the Australian Alps. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. ISBN 978-0-855-75085-5.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Gillespie, Lyall Leslie (1991). Canberra 1820-1913. Australian Government Publishing Service. ISBN 978-0-644-08060-6.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Howitt, Alfred William (1904). The native tribes of south-east Australia (PDF). Macmillan.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Koch, Harold (2016). "Documentary sources on the Ngarigu language:the value of a single recording." (PDF). In Austin, Peter K.; Koch, Harold; Simpson, Jane (eds.). Language, land & song: Studies in honour of Luise Hercus. EL Publishing. pp. 145–157.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Kwok, Natalie (January 2013). Considering traditional Aboriginal affiliations in the ACT region: Draft Report (PDF). ACT government.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Mathews, R. H. (1908). "Vocabulary of the Ngarrugu tribe, N.S.W." Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales. 42: 335–342.
{{cite journal}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Slattery, Deirdre (2015). Australian Alps: Kosciuszko, Alpine and Namadgi National Parks. Csiro Publishing. ISBN 978-1-486-30172-0.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Ngarigo (NSW)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Towell, Noel (9 April 2013). "Canberra's first people still a matter for debate". The Canberra Times. Archived from the original on 10 April 2013.
{{cite news}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help); Unknown parameter|dead-url=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - du Vé, Charles; Bulmer, John (1887). "Moneroo" (PDF). In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent. Vol. Volume 3. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 429–233.
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