Traditional lands of Australian Aboriginal Tribes around Derby

The Nimanburu were an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

people of the

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

Language

The Nimanburu language was one of the

Nyulnyulan languages The Nyulnyulan languages are a small family of closely related Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Western Australia. Most languages in this family are extinct, with only three extant languages, all of which are almost extinct. I ...

. Their speech was described by other Aboriginal informants as a "heavy" dialect of the language spoken by the

Warrwa The Warrwa, also spelt Warwa, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Language Warrwa is an eastern Nyulnyulan language, sufficiently closely related to Nyigina to be classified as a dialect of the l ...

Country

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. He is best remembered for his work mapping the various tribal groupings of Aboriginal Australians ...

estimate Nimanburu tribal lands to extend over roughly from the

King Sound King Sound is a large gulf in northern Western Australia. It expands from the mouth of the Fitzroy River (Western Australia), Fitzroy River, one of Australia's largest watercourses, and opens to the Indian Ocean. It is about long, and averag ...

coast, around Repulse Point southwards to the swamp plain where the

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

debouches into the sea. Their inland extension ran as far as the headwaters of that river.

People

Despite being territorially a coastal people, the Nimanburu refrained from seafaring, and were not known to employ rafts as other contiguous groups in the King Sound did.

Alternative names

* ''Nimanboro, Nimanbur, Ninambur'' * ''Wadiabulu'' (

Nyigina The Nyikina people (also spelt Nyigina and Nyikena, and listed as Njikena by Tindale) are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They come from the lower Fitzroy River (which they call ''mardoowarra''). ...

exonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

)

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia Kimberley (Western Australia)