The Marri Ngarr, also spelt Maringar, Murrinnga, Muringa or Maringa are an Aboriginal 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 ...

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 ...

's estimate the Maringar had about midway along the

Moyle River The Moyle River is a river in the Northern Territory, Australia. Course The river rises on a plateau area near the Wingate Mountains and flows in a north westerly direction through mostly uninhabited country through a narrow valley then across t ...

and its contiguous swamplands and various tributaries.

Language

The language of Maringar Country is

Yan-nhaŋu The Yan-nhaŋu, also known as the Nango, are an indigenous Australian 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 s ...

Social organisation

The Maringar are composed of six

clans A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Many societie ...

- the Bindararr, Ngurruwulu, Walamangu, Gamalangga, Malarra and Gurryindi (Gorryindi) peoples. Their society was described in a monograph by the Norwegian ethnographer Johannes Falkenberg, based on fieldwork done in 1950, a work judged by

Rodney Needham Rodney Needham (15 May 1923 – 4 December 2006 in Oxford) was an English social anthropologist. Born Rodney Phillip Needham Green, he changed his name in 1947; the following year he married Maud Claudia (Ruth) Brysz. The couple would collaborat ...

to be 'a masterly monograph which must immediately be ranked with the classics of Australian anthropology'.

References

{{Authority control Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory