Koinjmal tribe

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The Koinjmal were an indigenous Australian people of the state of Queensland.

Queensland North-east state of Australia

Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean. To its north is the Torres Strait, with Papua New Guinea located less than 200 km across it from the mainland. The state is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 square kilometres (715,309 sq mi).

Contents

Country

The Koinjmal's traditional lands covered an estimated 1,600 square miles (4,100 km2), taking in the western slopes of Pine Mountain in the Normanby Range (Pine Mountain) to the Styx. They occupied the coastal strip from Broad Sound northwards to Cape Palmerston and took in St. Lawrence. Their inland extensions went as far as the Coast Range, and, to the south, ended around Marlborough. Ecologically, they worked large areas of mangrove mudflats, and employed bark canoes to navigate these shoreline zones. [1]

Styx River (East Central Queensland) river draining to Broad Sound in East Central Queensland, Australia

The Styx River is a river in the eastern portion of Central Queensland, Australia.

Broad Sound (Queensland) sound in Australia

Broad Sound is a large bay on the east coast of Australia, in the state of Queensland 675 km northwest of the state capital, Brisbane. It is about 50 km long and 20 km across at its widest point. The Torilla Peninsula forms the eastern side of the bay; Shoalwater Bay is on the other side of the peninsula.

Cape Palmerston National Park Protected area in Queensland, Australia

Cape Palmerston is a national park in the Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia.

Social organization

The Koinjmal consisted of several hordes the name of at least one of which is known.

The Darumbal are the Indigenous Australians that have traditionally occupied Central Queensland, speaking dialects of the Darumbal language. Darumbal people of the Keppel Islands and surrounding regions are sometimes also known as Woppaburra or Ganumi, and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

According to an early Rockhampton informant, W. H. Flowers, responding to a request for information by A. W. Howitt, the Koinjmal were divided into two moieties, the Yungeru and the Witteru, each in turn subdivided into two sections, creating 4 sub-classes: [3]

In the anthropological study of kinship, a moiety is a descent group that coexists with only one other descent group within a society. In such cases, the community usually has unilineal descent, either patri- or matrilineal, so that any individual belongs to one of the two moiety groups by birth, and all marriages take place between members of opposite moieties. It is an exogamous clan system with only two clans.

The Yungeru were split into the Kurpal (Eaglkehawk totem) and the Kuialla (Laughing jackass totem): the Witteru. divided into the Karilbura and Munaal, which had several totems, including the wallaby, Curlew, Hawk, Clearwater and Sand. [4]

Wedge-tailed eagle species of bird

The wedge-tailed eagle or bunjil is the largest bird of prey in Australia, and is also found in southern New Guinea, part of Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. It has long, fairly broad wings, fully feathered legs, and an unmistakable wedge-shaped tail.

Kookaburra genus of birds

Kookaburras are terrestrial tree kingfishers of the genus Dacelo native to Australia and New Guinea, which grow to between 28–42 cm (11–17 in) in length. The name is a loanword from Wiradjuri guuguubarra, onomatopoeic of its call. The loud distinctive call of the laughing kookaburra is widely used as a stock sound effect in situations that involve an Australian bush setting or tropical jungle, especially in older movies.

Wallaby common name of small- or mid-sized macropods found in Australia and New Guinea

A wallaby is a small- or mid-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, UK and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and sometimes the same genus, but kangaroos are specifically categorised into the six largest species of the family. The term wallaby is an informal designation generally used for any macropod that is smaller than a kangaroo or wallaroo that has not been designated otherwise.

Marriage

According to Flowers, marriages were contracted early, in infancy, when a girl's parents would arrange her marriage to an elder man, who, after the ceremony of betrothal would supply her regularly with game and fish, while scrupulously avoiding going near the camp of her parents or speaking to the mother. [5]

The ceremony was finalized in the following manner:

The parents having painted the girl and dressed her hair with feathers, her male cousin [lower-alpha 1] takes her to where her future husband is sitting cross-legged in silence, and seats her at his back, and close to him. He who has brought the girl after a time removes the feathers from her hair and places them in the hair of her future husband, and then leads the girl back to her parents. [5]

The actual marriage was sealed by a simulated kidnapping of the young girl.

when a girl who has been promised is considered to be old enough for marriage by her father, he sends the girl as usual with the other women to gather yams or other food, and he tells the man to whom he has promised her, who, then painting himself, takes his weapons and follows her, inviting all the unmarried men in the camp to assist him. When they come up with the women he goes forward alone, and telling the girl he has come for her he takes her by the wrist or hand. The women at once surround her and try to keep her from him. She tries to escape, and if she does not like him she bites his wriest, this being an understood sign that she refuses him. [7]

History

Some Koinjmal hordes could be found living beyond their traditional lands, at places like Yaamba and Bombandy, at the beginning of the 20th century, but this displacement was the consequence of white encroachments, which drove them to push south of their homeland. [1]

Alternative names

Some words

Country

Notes

  1. ↑ Since descent was on the mother's side, Howitt inferred that 'cousin' here referred to the mother's brother's son. [6]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Tindale 1974, p. 176.
  2. ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 167.
  3. ↑ Howitt 1884, p. 336.
  4. ↑ Howitt 1884, p. 335.
  5. 1 2 Howitt 1889, p. 118.
  6. ↑ Howitt 1889, p. 118, note.
  7. ↑ Howitt 1889, p. 123.

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References

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