Bundjalung Nation

Culture

Bundjalung language

Bundjalung (also spelt Bandjalang or Banjalang) belongs to the Pama–Nyungan family of Australian Aboriginal languages. ‘Bundjalung’ has been used as a general term for the whole language (covering all the different dialects) and also as a term to refer to certain individual dialects. Historically, at the time of the first European settlement in the mid 1800s, Bundjalung Nation people in the New South Wales North Coast and South East Queensland region, spoke up to twenty related dialects of Bundjalung and today there is only about nine tribal clan dialects of Bundjalung left. All Bundjalung Nation dialects were interwoven, so that each Bundjalung Nation tribal area knew what each person from another tribal clan was speaking about.

Bundjalung dialects

The Bundjalung Nation Bundjalung language dialects include:

Some words of Bundjalung Nation Aboriginal tribal groups

Selected cognates

The following is a very brief selection of cognates in basic vocabulary across the Pama–Nyungan family, which may serve to give an idea of the sound changes involved. This is not a list of translations: cognates have a common origin, but their meaning may be shifted and loanwords may have replaced them.

Science and technology

Musical Instruments

Health and Bush Medicine

Spiritual Medicine

Throughout Australia, Aborigines believed that serious illness and death were caused by spirits or persons practising sorcery. Even trivial ailments, or accidents such as falling from a tree, were often attributed to malevolence. Aboriginal culture was too rich in meaning to allow the possibility of accidental injury and death, and when someone succumbed to misfortune, a man versed in magic was called in to identify the culprit.

These spiritual doctors were men (rarely women) of great wisdom and stature with immense power. Trained from an early age by their elders and initiated into the deepest of tribal secrets, they were the supreme authorities on spiritual matters. They could visit the skies, witness events from afar, and fight with serpents. Only they could pronounce the cause of serious illness or death, and only they, by performing sacred rites, could effect a cure.

Medicine men sometimes employed plants and herbs in their rites, but they did not usually practice secular medicine.

Secular Medicine

The healing of trivial non-spiritual complaints, using herbs and other remedies, was practiced by all Aborigines, although older women were usually the experts. To ensure success, plants and magic were often prescribed side-by-side.

Plants were prepared as remedies in a number of ways. Leafy branches were often placed over a fire while the patient squatted on top and inhaled the steam. Sprigs of aromatic leaves might be crushed and inhaled, inserted into the nasal septum, or prepared into a pillow on which the patient slept. To make an infusion, leaves or bark were crushed and soaked in water (sometimes for a very long time), which was then drunk, or washed over the body. Ointment was prepared by mixing crushed leaves with animal fat. Other external treatment included rubbing down the patient with crushed seed paste, fruit pulp or animal oil, or dripping milky say or a gummy solution over them. Most plant medicines were externally applied.

Medicine plants were always common plants. Aborigines carried no medicine kits and had to have remedies that grew at hand when needed. If a preferred herb was unavailable, there was usually a local substitute. Except for ointments, which were made by mixing crushed leaves with animal fat, medicines were rarely mixed. Very occasionally two plants were used together.

Aboriginal medicines were never quantified - there were no measured doses or specific times of treatment. Since most remedies were applied externally, there was little risk of overdosing. Some medicines were known to vary in strength with the seasons. One area of Aboriginal medicine with no obvious Western parallel was baby medicine. Newborn babies were steamed or rubbed with oils to render them stronger. Often, mothers were also steamed.

A notable feature of Aboriginal medicine was the importance placed upon oil as a healing agent, an importance that passed to European colonists, and is reflected today in the continuing popularity of Australian Blue Cypress Oil (Callitris intratropica), Eucalyptus Oil, Emu Oil, Goanna Oil, Mutton Bird Oil, Snake Oil and Australian Native Tea Tree Oil (Melaleuca Oil).

Earth, mud, sand, and termite dirt were also taken as medicines. In many parts of Australia, wounds were dressed with dirt or ash. Arnhem Land Aborigines still eat small balls of white clay and pieces of termite mound to cure diarrhea and stomach upsets.^[3]

Notable Bundjalung Nation people

Famous Bundjalung Nation people include;

1. Albert Torrens: (a former international rugby league footballer who played for the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, Northern Eagles and St. George Illawarra Dragons in the Australian NRL and for the Huddersfield Giants in the European Super League.)
2. Dr Ruby Langford Ginibi: (an acclaimed author, lecturer in Aboriginal history, culture and politics), whose grandfather 'Sam', in the year 1928, in a game of cricket at Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, became one of only two Aboriginal cricketers to ever get Sir Donald Bradman (widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time), out. Later on in the cricket match, Sir Donald Bradman called Dr Ruby Langford Ginibi's grandfather 'Sam' a 'black bastard' and Dr Ruby Langford Ginibi's grandfather 'Sam' was in retaliation for the insult from Sir Donald Bradman, going to hit Sir Donald Bradman with a cricket bat, and it is alleged that you will not find that in any European history books in Australia.^[4]
3. Mark Olive, also known as the 'Black Olive' & 'Bush food crusader': (a Wollongong born Australian, trained as a chef in Europe, with over twenty years cooking experience, and now has his own pay TV indigenous cooking show, "The Outback Cafe" and is also the author of cookbooks such as "Olive's Outback Cafe: A Taste of Australia".)
4. Warren Mundine
5. Anthony Mundine

See also

• Australian frontier wars | Australian megafauna | Bandjalang language | Bundjalung | Bundjalung Nation Timeline | Dirawong | Commercialization of traditional medicines | History wars | List of legendary creatures | List of massacres of Indigenous Australians | List of Australian place names of Aboriginal origin

References

Primary literature

1. ^ List of English words of Australian Aboriginal origin
2. ^ ^{a b} Aboriginal Artifacts: bullroarers, emu-callers, clap-sticks; Paintings
3. ^ Traditional Aboriginal Bush Medicine - Aboriginal Art Online
4. ^ Digital Collections - Audio - Ginibi, Ruby Langford, 1934- (interviewee) Ruby Langford Ginibi interviewed by Frank Heimans (sound recording). - nla.oh-3966-0000-0001 - Transcript - Page 1

Bibliography and resources

• Animal worship
• Aboriginal Bush Medicines
• About the Aboriginal Dreamtime
• Aboriginal stories of creation, myths and legends about moral and natural issues
• Aboriginal Studies Press
• Australia - New South Wales : Blue Mountains, Three Sisters, Jenolan Caves, Wentworth Falls
• Aboriginal educational contexts :: About the Topic
• Australian Indigenous tools and technology
• Australian Aboriginal Myths & Legends
• Australian Aboriginal Religion
• Australia's culture Portal
• Australian Week Year 5
• Badjalang (NSW)
• Bahamian Bush Medicine
• Banjo Paterson Poem - (Johnsons Antidote)
• Blue Mountains Australia
• Bolwarra
• Bundjalung
• Bundjalung and Anangu identity autonomy
• Bundjalung Cultural Tours
• Bundjalung of Byron Bay (Arakwal) Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA)
• BUNDJALUNG NATIONAL PARK
• Bundjalung National Park : NSW Australia
• Bundjalung people
• Bush Medicine
• Bush Medicine of Belize and Central America
• Bush Medicine (Rainforest)
• Bush tucker stories from the Birpai jockey
• Cabbage Tree Island
• Cabbage Tree community has top immunisation rate
• Caledonian Confederacy
• Common Elements in Creation Myths
• Comparative linguistics
• Cubawee Reserve
• Demiurge
• Dreaming stories and bird
• Dreaming (spirituality)
• Eddie Mabo (Land rights)
• Goanna Salves
• High Court of Australia
• HOW THE SELFISH GOANNAS LOST THEIR WIVES
• History : The Kamilaroi People
• History
• Land rights
• Langford, Ruby Ginibi. (1994). My Bundjalung People, University of Queensland Press, Queensland.
• Legends of Sukur: Themes
• Lifes a beach
• Limes
• Living on Cabbage Tree Island
• Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
• Minjungbal Aboriginal Cultural Centre
• Moral Character (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) - (Stanford University)
• Mungindi : The Kamilaroi of Mungindi
• Noongar
• Philology
• SGAP(Qld) - Bush Tucker
• The Birpai
• The Bundjalung Mapping Project
• The Story of Buda-dji
• The Three Sisters - 3 Sisters Echo Point Katoomba
• Three Sisters (Australia)
• The Three Sisters (Queensland)
• Tool making
• Unconventional Means - The Dream Down Under
• Yagan