Yunggor
The Yunggor were an
Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory
.
Language
The Yunggor spoke a dialect of
Matngele, one of the Daly languages. The language has died out, and was recorded in the 1960s only from two aborigines who remembered it as a second language.[1]
Country
According to Norman Tindale, the Yunggor were one of several small tribes, with an estimated 100 square miles (260 km2) of land covering the swampland west of Hermit Hill, and south of the Daly River.[2]
People
The Yunggor may have been a clan of the Ngolokwangga, a view which seems to be implied, according to Tindale, by the work of Herbert Basedow. Tindale adds however that W. W. H. Stanner, who did intense fieldwork in area some decades later, was of the opinion that the Yunggor were a fully-fledged tribe.[2]
Mythology
The Yunggor shared the traditional stories of creation, recited on
ceremonial occasions, which were common to that area, in which the Wawalag (Wauwaluk)[3] sisters figured prominently and were closely linked to the Gunabibi legendary mother figure.[4] The Wawalag sisters have a key function in three distinct rituals: (a) the djunggawon ceremony, where dancers perform the swallowing of the two by a python; (b) the kunapipi story, which is reenacted to relate the swallowing of young men, and (c) the ngurlmag rite which concerns details about the Wawalag sisters' shelter.[4]
Alternative names
- Junggor[2]
Notes
Citations
- ^ Tryon 1974, p. 56.
- ^ a b c Tindale 1974, p. 228.
- ^ Meletinsky 2014, pp. 166, 217.
- ^ a b Berndt 1974, p. 4.
Sources
- Basedow, Herbert (1907). "Anthropological notes on the Western Coastal tribes of the Northern Territory of South Australia". Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. 31. Adelaide: 1–62.
- ISBN 9004037276.
- Meletinsky, Eleazar M. (2014). The Poetics of Myth. ISBN 978-1-135-59913-3.
- JSTOR 40327457.
- JSTOR 27976164.
- Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Junggor (NT)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University.
- Tryon, Darrell T. (1974). Daly family languages. Pacific Linguistics.