Kuku Nyungkal people - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Kuku Nyungkal people (or Annan River Tribe) are a group of Aboriginal Australians

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

who are the original custodians of the coastal mountain slopes, wet tropical forests

Wet Tropics of Queensland

The Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site consists of approximately 8,940 km² of Australian wet tropical forests growing along the north-east Queensland portion of the Great Dividing Range, stretching from Townsville to Cooktown, running in close parallel to the Great Barrier Reef...

, waters, and waterfalls of the Upper Annan River, south of Cooktown, Queensland

Cooktown, Queensland

Cooktown is a small town located at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs in 1770. At the 2006 census, Cooktown had a population of 1,336...

All Kuku Nyungkal people share in common social descent from ancestors who back to time immemorial

Dreamtime

In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...

have transmitted, from generation to generation, their Kuku Nyungkal

Kuku Nyungkal language

Kuku Nyungkal is an AustralianAboriginal language and the language of the Kuku Nyungkal people of Far North Queensland. It is one of the Kuku Yalanji languages still being spoken...

dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

, knowledge

Indigenous intellectual property

Indigenous intellectual property is an umbrella legal term used in national and international forums to identify indigenous peoples' special rights to claim all that their indigenous groups know now, have known, or will know....

, names (for people, places, and things), traditions, heritage

Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...

, plus lore

In 1995 Queensland's Aboriginal Land Tribunal, relying on Kuku Nyungkal genealogical material

Family tree

A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. The more detailed family trees used in medicine, genealogy, and social work are known as genograms.-Family tree representations:...

submitted to them, estimated the total population of Kuku Nyungkal people to be "at least 900" (not including those people who had married into Kuku Nyungkal families)

Country

Norman Tindale's (1974) Catalogue of Australian Aboriginal tribes identifies Kokonyungal country as covering from
"Annan River; south to Rossville; west to Annan-Normanby

Normanby River

The Normanby River is a major river in northern Queensland, located on the edge of the Wet Tropics and flowing in a generally north-northwestward direction through seasonally flooded savanna grassland to Princess Charlotte Bay about 150 kilometres from Cooktown....

Divide"

Kuku Nyungkal people, in their own country

Country

A country is a region legally identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or one that is occupied by another state, as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with a previously...

based Strategic Plan, describe the extent of their country as follows:

Kuku Nyungkal Country lies in the northern part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area
Wet Tropics of Queensland
The Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Site consists of approximately 8,940 km² of Australian wet tropical forests growing along the north-east Queensland portion of the Great Dividing Range, stretching from Townsville to Cooktown, running in close parallel to the Great Barrier Reef...

. The boundaries of our Country stretch from Annan River, Kings Plain, Rossville, Shiptons Flat and Mount Amos/Archer Point
Archer Point
Archer Point is a rocky headland on the coast marking the west side of Harald Bay, Antarctica. It was discovered in February 1911 by Lieutenant H.L.L. Pennell, Royal Navy, in the Terra Nova, expedition ship of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13, under Robert Falcon Scott, and named after...

to Cedar Bay
Cedar Bay National Park
Cedar Bay is a national park in Queensland, Australia, northwest of Brisbane, south of Cooktown and accessible only by boat or foot. The park is one of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area series of national parks, and is a gazetted World Heritage site. It is also known as Mangkal-Mangkalba in...

and includes Hope Islands
Hope Islands National Park
Hope Islands National Park is a national park in Queensland 1,521 km north-west of Brisbane. The park consists of four islands: East Hope and West Hope, Snapper Island and Struck Island....

A locally informed and produced "Bama Way" map acknowledges Kuku Nynungkal country and advises it is bounded to the north by the lower Annan River (aka Yuku Baja), and to the south by Russell Creek (aka Ngarrilmurril')

Lore

Kuku Nyungkal local lore for their country has been described to anthropologist

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

Dr Christopher Anderson as follows

The Upper Annan River area was divided into [between nine and twelve ] patrilineal clan estates. Each estate was based on a discrete part of the Annan drainage basin... These ... estates formed a linguistically and culturally distinctive bloc over which travel and access to resources were relatively free for any person associated with the estates

here was a tendency for all adult men to attempt to stay on their own patrilineal estates ... [and] the land-using groups consisted ... of people related in a variety of ways….based on a ‘core element’ consisting of a focal male, known as maja maja, his wives and children. The maja maja were identified with particular semi-permanent camps within their own patrilineal clan estate. These men would try to stay as much as possible at their own camps within their own estates, for it was there that their power was greatest

The maja maja were particular individuals of high achieved status and power ... who by virtue of their age, their knowledge of and supposed connections with the supernatural forces emanate in the ngujakura (law’ or ‘dreaming’)... were charged with the ‘minding’ and ‘looking after’ of their respective countries and the people associated with them. They ensured the health and well being in the human world and order in the natural world – particularly the steady supply of resources from the land .. by overseeing the maintenance of law’ by everyone. The breaking of social and cultural regulations was seen almost always to have ecological consequences, and moral knowledge and subsistence knowledge were seen as inextricably linked

With their perceived special relationship to the yirru or ‘nature-spirit’ which was said to live in the ground at certain sites ...the old men were able to ... sanction or punish ... breaches of the moral code

History

Prior to the 1880s, Kuku Nyungkal people had, since time immemorial

Dreamtime

In the animist framework of Australian Aboriginal mythology, The Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation.-The Dreaming of the Aboriginal times:...

, possessed, occupied, used and enjoyed their country in accordance with their lore as follows:

Our Bama lore was strong in the past years ... The lore was made and enacted by Elders .. Everyone has responsibility for passing the lore down to the next generation and for carrying it out ... Some lagoons, swamps, springs and beaches are special story places with lores associated with them. Some are sickness places, some are healing places, some are special places of birds, or feeding areas for other animals. There are special places for hunting and gathering seasonal food such as crab, mussels, bird eggs and certain fish etc

In 1885 tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

was discovered at Mount Amos, within Kuku Nyungkal country, following which Kuku Nyungkal people first experienced a small scale "invasion" by tin miners, then decades of sustained tin mining of their country

Looking back, in retrospect, Kuku Nyungkal people living in the area, reflected on the tin mining era, leading anthropologist Dr Christopher Anderson to conclude:

A major effect of tin mining was the disturbance if not outright destruction of ... sites of significance to Kuku Nyungkal people. Almost all important sites in this region are (or were) associated with waterholes and/or waterfalls.

Much of the illness and accidents which Europeans suffered in this area were attributed by Kuku Nyungkul to these actions. Violent thunderstorms or big winds, as well as the failure of certain food resources to appear properly or on time were also said to have stemmed from these actions.

The disturbances which tin-mining brought to these sites could possibly also have had some kind of spiritual or psychological ill-effect for Kuku-Nyungkal people. Because the sites were foci for power of which old mean were meant to have exclusive control, the flouting of site entry restrictions and site disturbance by Europeans ... had important effects

Over the decades that followed Queensland authorities felt it necessary to progressively encourage and often forcibly remove Kuku Nyungkal people from the tin mining areas and associated external settlement, into lands specially reserved for the purpose such as Ayton, Hopevale

Hopevale, Queensland

Hopevale, , Queensland, Australia is an Aboriginal community on Cape York Peninsula about 46 km northwest of Cooktown by road, and about 10 km off the Battlecamp Road that leads to Lakefield National Park and Laura...

, Yarrabah

Yarrabah, Queensland

Yarrabah is an Aboriginal community situated approximately by road from Cairns CBD on Cape Grafton. It is much closer by direct-line distance but is separated from Cairns by the Murray Prior Range and an inlet of the Coral Sea. At the 2006 census, Yarrabah had a population of 2,371...

, and other reserves.

During the 1950s Lutheran Church of Australia

Lutheran Church of Australia

The Lutheran Church of Australia is the major Lutheran denomination in Australia, it also has a presence in New Zealand. It has 320 parishes, 540 congregations, 70,000 baptized members in Australia, 1,130 baptized members in New Zealand, 52,463 communicant members and 450 active pastors. Its...

properly established an Aboriginal mission on the Bloomfield River

Bloomfield River

The Bloomfield River is a river situated in Queensland, north of Daintree. The river enters the sea north of Cape Tribulation and is noted for its Bloomfield River cod fish species, found only in the river...

, into which the remnant Kuku Nyungkal population still living on their country were moved. The Lutheran Church described the situation as follows:

The Bama [trans. people] are deeply hurt (the degree can hardly be described) that across the years they have been 'evicted' from their traditional lands by the encroachment of white settlers. From their traditional hunting grounds they were gradually herded into camps along or near the Bloomfield River
Bloomfield River
The Bloomfield River is a river situated in Queensland, north of Daintree. The river enters the sea north of Cape Tribulation and is noted for its Bloomfield River cod fish species, found only in the river...

. Finally they have been constricted within the confines of a 250 acre reserve at Wujal Wujal. The depth of their feelings was variously expressed: "We are like a crane standing on one leg (no room for two feet on the ground) on a little island" : "we are like animals in a wild cage"

Present

By 1995, one century after the initial "invasion" by tin miners, an Aboriginal Land Tribunal inquired into the extent to which Kuku Nyungkal traditions, beliefs, and people had been impacted by the colonization of their country. At that time Kuku Nyungkal representatives submitted, and the Tribunal agreed:

Aboriginal culture in south eastern Cape York Peninsula has changed considerably since the arrival of the first European land visitor in 1872 ... Technological innovations and introductions have altered many aspects of Kuku-Nyungkul life and their economic and political system has also been affected by the social forces of a dominant way of life imposing itself on a previously independent people. Living away from country in a centralised community much of the time has also meant changes. The culture of the Kuku-Nyungkul people is not the same as it was one hundred years ago.

On 9 December 2007, the Kuku Nyungkal people were included within an overarching Federal Court

Federal Court of Australia

The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law , along with some summary criminal matters. Cases are heard at first instance by single Judges...

native title determination

Native title

Native title is the Australian version of the common law doctrine of aboriginal title.Native title is "the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs"...

in which their legal right to their own lands and waters was retrospectively acknowledged, and new exclusive rights to possess, occupy, use and enjoys some of their original lands along the Annan River was restored

External links

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