Bilinarra
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The Bilinarra, also spelt Bilingara and Bilinara, are 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
Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...
.


Language

The
Bilinarra language Bilingara, also known as the Bilinarra, is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by the Bilinarra people of the Northern Territory. It is classified as an eastern variety of one of the Pama-Nyungan Ngumpin languages. It is mutually intelli ...
is classified as an eastern variety of one of the Pama-Nyungan Ngumbin languages. It is mutually intelligible with Gurindji and the dialect spoken by the neighbouring Ngarinman people. Bilinarra is considered a dialect of Ngarinyman, though it shares more vocabulary with Gurindji. There are no structural features that are unique to Bilinarra and linguists would consider all three languages to be dialects of a single language, but speakers of these languages consider them to be different. Elements of their tongue were first recorded by a police constable W. H. Willshire (who was later charged with murder) in 1896. By 2013, only one person was alive who spoke it as their primary language though it inflects the variety of Kriol spoken by Bilinarra children. Bilinarra is native to the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory of Australia. The name of the language most likely refers to the surrounding country, as ''bili'' means 'rock' or 'hill', followed by an unknown suffix. Massacres by early colonists, poor treatment on the cattle stations, and mixing of languages at the cattle stations caused Bilinarra to lose prominence as more dominant languages took over, leading to the endangerment of Bilinarra.


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 ...
estimated Bilinarra tribal land to cover some covering the areas of the Moray Range, Delamere, and, in its southern extension, down to the Victoria River Downs and Pigeon Hole stations and the junction where the Victoria and Armstrong rivers join. Its eastern boundaries lay beyond
Killarney Killarney ( ; , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Killar ...
. Numbers lived around the Billiluna Station in the 1920s. Bilinarra territory was predominantly characterized by blacksoil plains, limestone gorges and sandstone outcrops. Their neighbours are the Mudburra to the east, the Gurindji people to the southwest, and the Ngarinyman to the northwest. Most Bilinarra people now live at Pigeon Hole (''Balarrgi'')


Cultural practices and beliefs

In order to manufacture a gum for use in fixing tufts of flax to the bodies of dancers in their corroborees, the Bilingara used to call on one of the clan who would not be participating in the dance itself. Once handed a piece of string woven from human hair, the person who was to supply his blood used it as a ligature of his biceps, and then cut into an artery with a stone, jabbing away until an ample flow was secured, which was caught in a bark basin at his feet. What was not used for making gum was given to dingos to lap up. Their native
pharmacopeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (or the typographically obsolete rendering, ''pharmacopœia''), meaning "drug-making", in its modern technical sense, is a reference work containing directions for the identification of compound med ...
drew on things like lemon grass (''gubuwubu'') and Dodonaea polyzyga (''yirrigaji'') for preparing a medicinal drink or lotion, mixed with a slurry of termite mound earth (''mardumardu'') to treat congestion, for example. With regard to conception, the Bilinarra consider that children pre-exist their actual births, in the form of spirits that linger around an outcrop of rocks at a site called ''Gurdurdularni'' ('the place of women's children). Even the spirits of the dead (''yirrmarug'') may reincarnate themselves by shifting into the foetus of a pregnant woman. Numerous foods were taboo for such women, the bans being related to beliefs that such meats might damage the unborn child. Turtle (''gurwarlambara'') meat for example was forbidden because it was thought that, were it consumed, the child would grow up walking with a turtle-like waddle.


History of contact

The first non-Aboriginal (''gardiya''), that is, European, to venture into the Victoria Downs area was
John Lort Stokes Admiral John Lort Stokes (1 August 1811 – 11 June 1885) was a Royal Navy officer who served onboard for almost eighteen years.Although 1812 is frequently given as Stokes's year of birth, it has been argued by author Marsden Hordern that Stok ...
in 1839. The first major exploratory expedition followed in 1855-1856 when the area was surveyed by Francis Gregory and his brother Henry, and they reported favourably on its prospects for pastoral development. In 1883 Charles Fisher and Maurice Lyons set up the Victoria River Downs Station on an area that extended over Bilingara and Karrangpurru lands. The Bilinarra suffered from massacres during the period of their dispossession as their land was taken over for pastoral development, and even thereafter, on the stations where they sought employment, were treated harshly. Like other tribes in the area, they suffered from the standard three successive waves of colonial devastation: introduced disease, land-clearing massacres, and
forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
on the new pastoral leases. Meakins and Nordlinger state that with the establishment in 1894 of a police station run by Willshire "massacres became the officially sanctioned method of population control." Their numbers rapidly declined. In Bilinarra
oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...
accounts, two massacres in particular are recorded for this early period. One group of tribesmen were rounded up and brought into the Gordon Creek police station, where they were tethered and then shot, with their bodies then burnt and dumped into a rubbish tip for cattle bones. In a further incident, a cook prepared a stew for some Bilinarra, lacing it with
strychnine Strychnine (, , American English, US chiefly ) is a highly toxicity, toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, ...
. Thereafter the site was named Poison Creek. Survivors eventually made their way into Ngarinman territory, where many were killed as intruders, while women were taken as wives. Those women returned to Bilinarra lands on the demise of their husbands. Some time around 1922 a Bilinarra youth nicknamed "Banjo" killed the Billiluna station manager Condon and his white stockman, Sullivan, after the latter had abducted his woman for sexual purposes. Banjo remonstrated with the usurper, but to no effect, other than being dressed down. When the time came for the annual calf-branding, Banjo snuck into the station and, seizing a rifle on a table, shot Sullivan in the thigh, and he died of the wound soon after. He then aimed at Condon, who asked him not to shoot, and killed him. The other blacks thought of spearing him, but he had the upper hand with a rifle, and ordered some of them to report the murder to the manager of another station, while he slipped off to 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 ...
with his girl. Jack Flinders eventually tracked him down near Mary River and Louisa Downs, and shot him dead. Bilinarra people joined Gurindji and other workers in the Wave Hill walk-off in 1967, to protest poor working conditions on the
cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stati ...
.


Alternative names

* ''Bilinara'' * ''Bilinurra'' * ''Billianera'' * ''Bilyanarra'' * ''Bilyanurra'' * ''Boonarra'' * ''Bringara'' * ''Bulinara'' * ''Pillenurra'' * ''Plinara'' Source:


Some words

* ''girrawa''. (goanna) * ''jamud''. ( bush turkey) * ''jiya'' (kangaroo) * ''yinarrwa''. (
barramundi The barramundi (''Lates calcarifer''), Asian sea bass, or giant sea perch (also known as dangri, apahap or siakap) is a species of catadromous fish in the family Latidae of the order Carangiformes. The species is widely distributed in the I ...
) Source:


See also

* Ngumpit, a name used by the Gurindji, Malngin, Bilinara, Mudburra and Ngarinyman peoples to refer to themselves as a group


Notes


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory