The Burarra people, also referred to as the Gidjingali, are an Aboriginal Australian people in and around Maningrida, in the heart of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Opinions have differed as to whether the two names represent different tribal realities, with the Gidjingali treated as the same as, or as a subgroup of the Burarra, or as an independent tribal grouping. For the purposes of this encyclopedia, the two are registered differently, though the ethnographic materials on both may overlap with each other.
According to Norman Tindale, there are five sub-groups of Burarra people: Anbara (or Anbarra), Marawuraba, Madia, Maringa and Gunadba. The Burraras' closest neighbours are the Dalabon people, Nakara people and Yolngu peoples.
Name
The
ethnonym Burarra means 'those people'.
Norman Tindale classified the Gidjingali as being eastern Burarra, speaking a dialect only slightly different from Burarra.
Lester Hiatt argued in 1965 that they were a distinct "tribe". Others take Hiatt's Gidjingali to be essentially synonymous with Burarra, and the words are used now interchangeably. Tindale considered
Burarra to be an
exonym applied to them by outsiders, and speculated that their "real" name might be
Ngapanga.
Language
Burarra language is a prefixing Arnhem land language belonging to the Maningrida family of non-Pama-Nyungan languages. Bururra is spoken by approximately 2,000 people, many of them multilingual.
Country
Burarra traditional land covers some on both banks of the Blyth River, for a distance of roughly 20 miles inland. Their eastward extension runs as far as and east to Cape Stewart. Facing the
Arafura Sea, their territory also extends to some islands, opposite those of their northern maritime neighbours, the Yan-nhaŋu of the Crocodile Islands. Despite speaking markedly different languages one
, the other
the Burarra and the Yan-nhaŋu have strong sociocultural links.
Their land adjoins that of the Dangbon (or Dalabon), Nakara (Nagara) and Yolngu peoples.
Social organisation
Though neighbours of such Yolngu peoples as the
Djinang people, Burarra marriage practices are markedly at odds with those of the Yolngu.
Ian Keen has said that there are five major differences:
-
(a) Yolngu men are more polygamous than their Burarra peers;
-
(b) while the Yolngu having a Karajarri system of kin classification, the Burarra's resembles that of the Aranda people;
-
(c) the rules governing spousal choice are at odds, as are their respective expectations about how flexible older men should be in ceding rights over women to younger men;
-
(d) Land-owning groups are structured somewhat differently; and
-
(e) Whereas for the Burarra the named community forms the basic unit for certain types of political action, the Yolngu organise such activities on a clan basis (occasionally with another clan).
Clans and moieties
The Burarra, according to Tindale, consist of five subgroups:
-
Anbara (western bank of the mouth of the Blyth River)
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Marawuraba (from the coast to the east of Blyth River)
-
Madia (Cape Stewart area)
-
Maringa
-
Gunadba (Gunaidbe)
Each of the five have a Yirritja/Dua moiety division.
Alternative names
-
Barera
-
Baurera
-
Burada
-
Burara
-
Burarra
-
Burera
-
Gidjingali
Source:
Modern period
Questacon, Australia's national science and technology centre in
Canberra, has produced a website about the "people, land, language and traditional technologies of the Burarra people", called
Burarra Gathering.
Some words
See also
-
for description of the rom ceremony practised by the Anbarra people
Notes
Citations
Sources
External links
