Dalabon people
The Dalabon or Dangbon are an
Name
Traditionally the people now called Dalabon had no collective name for themselves, and the term itself derives from the language which members of the community speak.[1]
Language
The Dalabon language is classified among the far East Arnhem Land language group,[2] and as belonging to the Gunwinyguan language family.[3] It is under severe threat of extinction.[4] One feature of its linguistic culture, the relative absence of nouns for emotions, combined with its rich repertoire (160 lexemes) of emotional verbs and adjectives.[5]
Country
At the time of European colonialisation, the tribal territory of the Dalabon is thought to have covered some 2,000 square miles (5,200 km2),[6] in south-western Arnhem Land.[3] The anthropologist, Norman Tindale, placed their northern boundary at the upper Goyder River, and their heartland around the headwaters of the Phelp, Rose and Hart rivers.[6] Linguistics scholar, Maïa Ponsonnet, states that, before the colonial period, the Dalbon people were located in Central Arnhem Land, with clan estates extending further north in the direction of the Arafura Sea.[3]
Their immediate tribal environment consisted of several peoples: the
Lifestyle
The Dalabon were semi-nomadic hunter gatherers, with access to abundant food resources culled throughout a mixed savannah and forest area which experienced three seasonal changes: a humid wet monsoonal period from December to April, followed by three cool dry months (May to July), and closing with the gradual onset of warming from August to November as a prelude to the return of the rainy summer season.[8]
Social organization
Dalabon society had 8
The structure of these moieties and semi-moieties affects the ritual choreography of two major ceremonies, Gunabibi and Yabuduruwa, held on alternating years by the Dalabon and some contiguous tribes.[10]
Mythology
In the earliest times, according to Dalabon cosmology, men passed the night-time under water, and had stumps for legs. The crocodile was master of the secret of fire. This changed when the kingfisher managed to filch a firebrand from the crocodile, and set fire to the landscape, and men were burnt, leading them to learn the art of cooking and also acquire the legs they now have. Two pairs of immemorial, ancestral people (Nayunghyungkig), the Yirritja men Bulanj and Kodjok, and the Duwa women Kalidjan and Kamanj, -collectively referred to as the Nakoorkko - wandered the earth, laying down the law (walu-no) inscribed in the nature of the Dalabon landscape and its reflex in Dalabon social customs.[11]
Modern times
The Dalabon today mainly live in an area east of
Customs
Ethnographic studies
Alternative names
Tindale's Dangbon
Norman Tindale posited the existence of a 'tribe', the Dangbon whom he considered distinct from the Dalabon, but was unable to furnish an estimate for their tribal lands, other than locating these Dangbon to the east of the Liverpool River's headwaters and at those of the Cadell and Mann rivers.[14] He also provided a list of alternative names for this group:[14]
- Gundangbon
- Dangbun
- Dangbar. (typo)
- Gumauwurk
Contemporary scholarship now regards Dangbon as an alternative name for the Dalabon.[15]
Some words
Nicholas Evans notes that the Dalabon root √men, with more or less the general sense of 'social conscience /awareness', emerges in an adjectival compound form like men-djabalarrk (obedient) that is applied also to non-human beings like a dog.[16]
Notes
- Yolngu) as Duwa/Yirridjdja (Ponsonnet 2014, p. 34)
- ^ Evans, arguing that √beng covers more or less the idea of 'mind' in English, though perhaps etymologically related to a word for 'ear', writes:'The propound √beng, .. hardly ever occurs outside verbal formations. The main use of this word as a free form is with the specialized meaning ('(taboo on)(a man) swearing at, concerning or in presence of sister.' (Evans 2007, pp. 72, 76)
- ^ Burbank studied the same practice among the Nunggubuyu. (Burbank 1985, p. 47)
Citations
- ^ Maddock 1989, p. 82.
- ^ Dixon 2002, p. xl.
- ^ a b c d Ponsonnet 2014, p. 28.
- ^ Ponsonnet 2014, p. 1.
- ^ Ponsonnet 2014, pp. 2, 18.
- ^ a b c Tindale 1974a, p. 222.
- ^ Ponsonnet 2014, pp. 28–29.
- ^ a b Ponsonnet 2014, p. 30.
- ^ Ponsonnet 2014, p. 34.
- ^ Maddock 1989, pp. 83–84.
- ^ Ponsonnet 2014, pp. 36–37.
- ^ Maddock 1970, pp. 165–176, 165, 167.
- ^ Maddock 1970, p. 165.
- ^ a b Tindale 1974b, p. 222.
- ^ Garde 2013, p. 14.
- ^ Evans 2007, pp. 71–71.
Sources
- Burbank, Victoria K. (September 1985). "The Mirriri as Ritualized Aggression". JSTOR 40330847.
- JSTOR 40327959.
- JSTOR 40327973.
- JSTOR 40329205.
- JSTOR 40329241.
- ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
- ISBN 978-9-027-22375-3.
- Garde, Murray (2013). Culture, Interaction and Person Reference in an Australian Language: An ethnography of Bininj Gunwok communication. ISBN 978-9-027-27124-2.
- JSTOR 40329867.
- ISBN 978-0-472-08086-1.
- Ponsonnet, Maïa (2014). The Language of Emotions: The case of Dalabon (Australia). ISBN 978-9-027-26920-1.
- ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.
- ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.
- Warner, William Lloyd(1937). A Black Civilization: A Social Study of an Australian Tribe. Harper & Brothers.