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Yawuru
The Yawuru, also spelt Jawuru, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
A Japanese linguist, Hosokawa Kōmei (細川弘明), compiled the first basic dictionary of the Yawuru language in 1988, and followed it up with a comprehensive descriptive grammar in 2011.
Their territory, much of it of open saltmarsh, encompasses the area from the eastern shores of Roebuck Bay south of Roebuck Plains through to the southern end of Thangoo Station and within 5 miles of Cape Villaret. Their inland extension ran close to Dampier Downs. Norman Tindale's overall estimate of their territory posits a domain of roughly 2,100 square miles (5,400 km2).
Their neighbouring tribes were the Jukan to the north, and, running clockwise, the Warrwa northeast, the Nyigina on the eastern hinterland, and on their southern frontier the Karajarri. The border with the latter is marked by an ecological transition from the coastal saltmarsh plains to the dense, sandy pindan scrubland occupied by the Karajarri.
The Yawuru people in Broome also include the Djugun and the two are distinguished only by minor dialectal differences.
In Yawuru cosmology, the primordial time and its world is still present in its creative force, governing social relations, informing the way one interacts with the maritime and continental landscape within their traditional territory, and securing the well-being of the community. The traditional kinship structure, typical also of other contiguous tribal groups such as the Karajarri, Nyikina and Mangala, is fourfold, consisting of the Banaga and the Burungu, the Garimba and the Barrjarri, the first two in each case form the binary unit of optimal marriage choice. Children assume their kin-tribal identity through the mother. Thus, a child born to a Banaga father and a Burungu woman is classified as Barrjarri, while a Garimba woman married to a Barrjarri man produces Banaga offspring.
The Yawuru recognize six seasons in the year: Barrgana, Wirlburu, Laja, Marrul, Wirralburu and Man-gala. The dry cold season (Barrgana) coincides with a change of fishing from the open sea to the native salmon in creeks; after a brief transitional phase (Wirlburu), the Laja period, encompassing September to November, kicks in, called "married turtle time" where abundance caches of eggs can be harvested from the beaches, and reef fishing feasible. The humid Marrul period follows, when one fishes for whiting, trevally, queenfish and mullet.
The Yawuru are a coastal people whose basic diet consisted of seafood – fish, turtles, stingrays, dugong, crabs and mangrove shells – but also sand monitors, flying foxes, and bush food foraged in the semi-arid pindan scrub country, divided into edible bush fruits for which they have over 90 terms, covering such things as wattle seed and native tubers, to wallabies, goanna and varieties of birds from native hens and crested pigeons to the bush turkey. Maritime fruits were prepared, after fermentation, by heating them in a baler shell over hot coals.
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Yawuru
The Yawuru, also spelt Jawuru, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
A Japanese linguist, Hosokawa Kōmei (細川弘明), compiled the first basic dictionary of the Yawuru language in 1988, and followed it up with a comprehensive descriptive grammar in 2011.
Their territory, much of it of open saltmarsh, encompasses the area from the eastern shores of Roebuck Bay south of Roebuck Plains through to the southern end of Thangoo Station and within 5 miles of Cape Villaret. Their inland extension ran close to Dampier Downs. Norman Tindale's overall estimate of their territory posits a domain of roughly 2,100 square miles (5,400 km2).
Their neighbouring tribes were the Jukan to the north, and, running clockwise, the Warrwa northeast, the Nyigina on the eastern hinterland, and on their southern frontier the Karajarri. The border with the latter is marked by an ecological transition from the coastal saltmarsh plains to the dense, sandy pindan scrubland occupied by the Karajarri.
The Yawuru people in Broome also include the Djugun and the two are distinguished only by minor dialectal differences.
In Yawuru cosmology, the primordial time and its world is still present in its creative force, governing social relations, informing the way one interacts with the maritime and continental landscape within their traditional territory, and securing the well-being of the community. The traditional kinship structure, typical also of other contiguous tribal groups such as the Karajarri, Nyikina and Mangala, is fourfold, consisting of the Banaga and the Burungu, the Garimba and the Barrjarri, the first two in each case form the binary unit of optimal marriage choice. Children assume their kin-tribal identity through the mother. Thus, a child born to a Banaga father and a Burungu woman is classified as Barrjarri, while a Garimba woman married to a Barrjarri man produces Banaga offspring.
The Yawuru recognize six seasons in the year: Barrgana, Wirlburu, Laja, Marrul, Wirralburu and Man-gala. The dry cold season (Barrgana) coincides with a change of fishing from the open sea to the native salmon in creeks; after a brief transitional phase (Wirlburu), the Laja period, encompassing September to November, kicks in, called "married turtle time" where abundance caches of eggs can be harvested from the beaches, and reef fishing feasible. The humid Marrul period follows, when one fishes for whiting, trevally, queenfish and mullet.
The Yawuru are a coastal people whose basic diet consisted of seafood – fish, turtles, stingrays, dugong, crabs and mangrove shells – but also sand monitors, flying foxes, and bush food foraged in the semi-arid pindan scrub country, divided into edible bush fruits for which they have over 90 terms, covering such things as wattle seed and native tubers, to wallabies, goanna and varieties of birds from native hens and crested pigeons to the bush turkey. Maritime fruits were prepared, after fermentation, by heating them in a baler shell over hot coals.