The Mutumui were an indigenous Australian people of northern Queensland.
Language
The name of the
Mutumui language, now extinct, was
Eibole, of which a dialect called Ongwara ('northern talk') was spoken to their north.
Country
The Mutumui's traditional territory spread out over an estimated , covering the area of
Bathurst Bay and
Cape Melville southwards, at Barrow Point and the vicinity of the Starcke and
.
Social organization and people
The Mutumui were divided into several
Band society, each speaking a distinct dialect version of Mutumui, and of which the probable names of two are known:
Though tooth avulsion was practised in the area, among the Mutumui is reported to have formed part of the initiatory ceremony itself.
The Mutumui were essentially shore dwellers, mainly in the area around Murdoch Point and Bathurst Bay. They would make forays into the sandstone hinterland on occasion in pursuit of honey, and to hunt opossums and rock wallaby.
History
The Palmer River gold rush following from its discovery in the area 1873 led to a large influx of people seeking to
gold panning for quick riches during the decade of the 1870s, and this surge led to conflict and massacres during the subsequent occupation of the general region just south of the Mutumui. The Aboriginal sacred sites at
Clack Island were ransacked for objects from the indigenous cultural patrimony, which included sacred bark paintings, when the physician and naturalist Richard Coppinger on board the British Royal Navy sloop, . Punitive expeditions in the area were carried out following the discovery of Mary Watson's remains in 1882. She had been on Lizard Island and after clashes with local Aboriginal people, which led to the spearing of speared her Chinese cook, led to punitive expeditions against the natives through this area in the early 1880s. Reports of this would have reached the Mutumui and
Ithu nearby.
Alternative names and spellings
Notes
Citations
Sources
