The Umpila people 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 eastern

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

in northern

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

. The majority of the remnant of the Umpila now live in Lockhart.

Language

Umpila is classified as one of the

North Cape York Paman languages The North Cape York Paman languages are a subdivision of the Paman languages consisting of forty languages, all spoken on the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia. The languages are grouped largely according to R. M. W. Dixon. The only ...

. It is one of 6 dialects which are often collectively referred to as Umpila, and, though classified as moribund, it is still spoken by elders, along with Kuuku Ya'u/Koko Yao and

Kaantju The Kaantyu people are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula in north Queensland. They live in the area around the present-day town of Coen. Most of their traditional tribal land has been taken over for cattle stations. ''Ka ...

, and efforts are being made to revitalize it. The process of

reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...

in Umpila is used for the

progressive aspect The continuous and progressive aspects (abbreviated and ) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects. In the grammars of many l ...

, creating forms that are "bewilderingly varied".

Country

Umpila country has been called 'one of the most ecologically intact indigenous domains on earth.' It stretches over some around Cape Sidmouth north to Night Island, and to the

Chester River The Chester River is a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay on the Delmarva Peninsula. It is about long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 and its waters ...

. Their territory is very rich in its biodiversity heritage, with some 260 plant species unique to their region. To their north were the Uutaalnganu, while their southern borders ran up to those of the Lama Lama.

History

The Umpila were forcibly removed from their land in the 1940s. Most now live in the Lockhart River Community.

Society

The Umpila call themselves ''Umpila pama malngkanichi'', "people of the sand beach", a term which refers to their belonging to the ethnocultural group of Kawadji of north-eastern Queensland coastal dwellers. Their society had two exogamous patrimoieties, ''kaapay'' (karrpiya/ karpeya) and ''kuyan'' (koiyan), two terms which are also used to classify flora and fauna. The two patrimoieties marry their opposite moiety, resulting in the acquisition of the resulting children to the father's moiety. Strict rules also govern social interaction between certain grades of affine relationship. Two of the most knowledgeable informants, the tribal elder Horace Rocky and the young park ranger Johanne Omeenyo cannot speak to each other, since a classificatory nephew like Johanne is forbidden to speak directly to his 'uncle', and they must use clan intermediaries.

Native title

The descendants of the Umpila people had their rights to

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty to that land by another colonising state. The requirements of proof for the recognition of ab ...

recognised by a Federal Court decision in 2008. They were recognised as custodians of and as freehold owners of half of this land.

Some words

* ' (red) * ' (white) * ' (black)

Alternative names

* ''Koko-umpilo'' * ''Ompeila Ompela, Oombilla'' Source:

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of Queensland