Yidinji people

The Yidinji people, otherwise known as the Yidiñ,^{[lower-alpha 1]} are an indigenous Australian tribal group in Far North Queensland. Members of the tribe traditionally spoke the Yidiny language.

Language

The last fluent speakers of Yidiny were Tilly Fuller (d. October 1974), George Davis (b.1919), Dick Moses (b.1898) and his sister Idea Burnett of White Rock.^[2]^[3]

Country

The Yidinji lands stretched from Yarrabah down to the south, where their borders met those of the Ngajanji and the Wanyurr. To their north were the coastal Djabugay people.

History

The Yidinji, along with many other tribal people in the tropical rainforest areas from Cairns to Ingham, and the Atherton Tableland were cleared off their land to enable the establishment of cattle stations and sugar cane plantations. Jack Kane participated in some massacres as a youth and recalled, in 1938 one episode alone in 1884, during a week long campaign to round up the tribes, Queensland police and native troopers, encircled a Yidinji camp at what became known as Skull Pocket, several miles north of Yungaburra. At dawn, a shot was fired from one side into the camp to make them scatter, and then as they rushed into the ambushing forces elsewhere, were shot down. The native police then stabbed or smashed the brains of the children.^[4]

Starting around 1910, even those who remained in the area of white settlement were the object of a Queensland government policy of shifting them into the Anglican mission at Yarrabah on the Cape Grafton peninsula.^[5] As each tribe was weakened by dispersal and fragmentation, the elders formed a counter plan in the 1920s to organize themselves into a more viable political unit, in the shape of a macro-tribe, but the merger failed to take hold, given the notable linguistic differences between groups.^[2]

Native title

In 2014, 40 members of the Yidinji tribe, led by Murrumu Walubara Yidindji (formerly Jeremy Geia) renounced legal ties with Australia to form the Sovereign Yidindji Government, claiming sovereignty over the lands from south of Port Douglas to Cairns and the Atherton Tablelands, including territorial waters reaching eastwards 80km in the Pacific. The government thus formed presented itself as similar to that of Vatican City. Australian Professor of Law Megan Davis commented that there were no legal problems in the Australian government entering into a treaty with such groups. The issues were purely political, in her view. She likened the project to that of the scenario in the film Field of Dreams, stating that what you imagine can take on its own reality.^[6]

Some words

bunggu. 'Knee,' but more extensively: 'That part of the body of anything which, in moving, enables the rest of the body or object to be propelled.' This is used of the hump in a snake's back as it wriggles, the swish point of a crocodile's tail, or the wheel of a car or tractor.^[7]
jilibura. 'Green (tree) ant'. It was squeezed, and the 'milk' it yielded was then mixed with the ashes of a gawuul (blue gum tree), or from a murrgan (quandong) or a bagirram tree, and the concoction then drunk to clear headaches. The classifier used for ants,munyimunyi was used for all species, such as the gajuu (black tree ant) and burrbal, (red ant), but never for a jilibura because it was different, having a medicinal use.^[8]

Notes and references

Notes

↑ Though Yidin is often given, the language has a final palatal nasal, not dissimilar to the Spanish ñ.^[1]

↑ Dixon 2011, p. 211.
1 2 Dixon 2015, p. 315.
↑ Dixon 1977, pp. 27–29.
↑ Bottoms 2013, pp. 217–218.
↑ Dixon 2011, p. 209.
↑ Howden 2015.
↑ Dixon 2011, p. 291.
↑ Dixon 2011, pp. 298–299.

References

Bottoms, Timothy (2013). Conspiracy of Silence (PDF). Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-743-31382-4.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1977). A Grammar of Yidin. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-21462-9.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1991). Words of Our Country:Stories, Place Names and Vocabulary in Yidiny, the Aboriginal language of the Cairns-Yarrabah region (PDF). University of Queensland Press. ISBN 0 7022 2360 3.
Dixon, R. M. W. (2011). Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a Field Worker. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-02504-1.
Dixon, R. M. W. (2015). Edible Gender, Mother-in-Law Style, and Other Grammatical Wonders: Studies in Dyirbal, Yidiñ, and Warrgamay. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-191-00742-2.
Howden, Saffron (2 November 2015). "Murrumu Walubara Yidindji renounces citizenship to reclaim Australia". The Age.

Indigenous Australian peoples in Queensland
Aboriginal	Ayapathu Bakanambia Bigambul Biria Butchulla Bwgcolman Dalla Darumbal Djabugay Djagaraga Djindubari Djiru Dyirbal Ganggalida Garrwa Gia Giabal Goeng Goreng goreng Gubbi Gubbi Gumakudin Guugu Yimithirr Injilarija Injinoo Jagera Jupangati Kaantju Kaiadilt Kalkadoon Kangulu Kaurareg Kawadji Koinjmal Kokangol Kooma Kugu Nganhcara Kuku Nyungkal Kuku Yalanji Lama Lama Lardil Mamu Manbarra Mandandanji Mbabaram Mingginda Murri Ngajanji Ngaro Nguburinji Ngugi Nunukul Nyawagyi Olkola Otati Pakadji Pontunj Quandamooka Tagalag Thaayorre Tjongkandji Totj Tulua Turrbal Umpila Umpithamu Undanbi Unduyamo Uw Oykangand Waanyi Wakka Wakka Warrongo Wik Wik-Mungkan Wiri Woppaburra Wulgurukaba Yadhaigana Yidinji Yiman Yintyingka Yir-Yoront Yirrganydji Yugambeh Yuibera Yurlayurlanya
Torres Strait Islanders	Badu Kaurareg‎ Mabuiag Mua
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