The Wunambal (Unambal), also known as Wunambal Gaambera, Uunguu (referring to their lands), and other names, 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

Kimberley region The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy Desert, Great Sandy and Tanami Desert, Tanami deserts in t ...

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 ...

People

The Wunambal were, according to

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 ...

, "perhaps among the most venturesome of Australian aborigines". They learnt part of the craft of building

raft A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is usually of basic design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barre ...

s that could withstand the high rips and tides of the sea, the latter rising as much as , from

Makassan Makassar ( ), formerly Ujung Pandang ( ), is the capital of the Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, and Ba ...

visitors to make sailing forays out to reefs (''warar'') and islets in the Cassini and Montalivet

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

es, and as far as the northerly Long Reef. The Wunambal bands who excelled in this were the Laiau and the Wardana. The Wunambal,

Worrorra The Worrorra, also written Worora, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley area of north-western Australia. The term is sometimes used to describe speakers of the (Western) Worrorra language, and sometimes groups whose traditiona ...

, and

Ngarinyin The Ngarinyin or Ngarinjin are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley (Western Australia), Kimberley region of Western Australia. Their language, Ngarinyin language, Ngarinyin, is also known as Ungarinyin. When referring to their tradit ...

peoples form a

cultural bloc In anthropology and geography, a cultural area, cultural region, cultural sphere, or culture area refers to a geography with one relatively homogeneous human activity or complex of activities (culture). Such activities are often associa ...

known as Wanjina Wunggurr. The shared culture is based on the

dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology. It was originally u ...

mythology and law whose creators are the Wanjina and Wunggurr spirits, ancestors of these peoples. The Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation represents the Wunambal Gaambera people; Uunguu refers to their "home", or country.

Social organisation

The Wunambal were organised into

groups A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...

: * ''Laiau'' * ''Wardana'' (now extinct) * ''Winjai'' (eastern) * ''Kanaria'' (northeastern group near Port Warrender) * ''Peremanggurei'' A people with an

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

identical to that of the Carson River Wilawila, known also as the ''Tjawurungari/Tawandjangango'', inhabited the Osborne Islands. They spoke a dialect variety of the language spoken by the

Kambure The Kambure, more commonly known now as ''Gamberre'', were an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Language The Kambure spoke a dialect of Wunambal. Country Norman Tindal estimated Kambure lands to extend o ...

Language

Country

The traditional lands of the Wunambal are around

York Sound York Sound is a sound located in the Kimberley region of Western Australia opening into the Indian Ocean. The sound is bounded by Cape Pond to the North and Hardey Point with the Coronation Islands to the South. The nearest populated town to the ...

estimated their tribal domains to encompass roughly , running north from Brunswick Bay, as far as the

Admiralty Gulf Admiralty Gulf is a gulf in the Kimberley region of Western Australia that opens into the Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth# ...

and the Osborne Islands. Their inland extension reached about –, as far as the divide of the

King Edward River The King Edward River is a river in the Kimberley (Western Australia), Kimberley region of Western Australia. The headwaters of the river rise below Poonjurra Hill and flows in a northerly direction almost parallel with the Kalumburu, Western ...

. They were at Cape Wellington peninsula, Port Warrender, and somewhat further east. The

lay to the south; the

Ngarinjin The Ngarinyin or Ngarinjin are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Their language, Ngarinyin, is also known as Ungarinyin. When referring to their traditional lands, they refer to themselves as Wilinggin ...

to their west, while on their north-western frontier were the

Native title

As part of the same native title claim lodged in 1998 by Wanjina Wunggurr

RNTBC A Registered Native Title Body Corporate (RNTBC) is a corporation nominated by a group of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people for the purposes of native title in Australia, to represent their native title rights and interests, once that ...

known as the Dambimangari claim, which included claims for the three peoples in the Wanjina Wunggurr cultural bloc, referred to as Dambimangari, Uunguu and Wilinggin (see

above Above may refer to: *Above (artist) Tavar Zawacki (b. 1981, California) is a Polish, Portuguese - American abstract artist and internationally recognized visual artist based in Berlin, Germany. From 1996 to 2016, he created work under the ...

), the "Uunguu and Uunguu B" parts of the claims were determined on 23 May 2011. This gave native title to the Wunambal people over , most of which was determined as exclusive possession. The Unguu land stretches along the coastal waters from the Anjo Peninsula in the north, includes the waters of

and

, down to

Coronation Island Coronation Island is the largest of the South Orkney Islands, long and from wide. The island extends in a general east–west direction, is mainly ice-covered and comprises numerous bays, glaciers and peaks, the highest rising to . History T ...

. Inland, it includes parts of the Mitchell River National Park and the

Prince Regent National Park Prince Regent National Park, formerly the Prince Regent Nature Reserve, is a protected area in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. In 1978 the area was nominated as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. Land The national park covers a tota ...

. A native title claim filed on 21 October 1999 (Uunguu Part A) over an area of in the

Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley Shire () is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries. It is generally synonymous with county (such as Cheshire and Worcestershire). British counties are among the oldes ...

was discontinued, while a second one for the same area (Uunguu Part B) was determined on 27 November 2012, giving native title rights over part of the area claimed. In both of these the people were represented by the

Kimberley Land Council Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, known as Kimberley Land Council (KLC), is an association of Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The land council was formed at a meeting at Noonkanbah Station in May 19 ...

. The Wanjina Wunggurr RNTBC acts on behalf of the Ngarinyin/Wilinggin, Worrora/Dambimangari, and Wunambal Gaambera native title holders with regard to their rights and interests.

Boab tree carving, 1820

In September 1820, on

Phillip Parker King Phillip Parker King (13 December 1791 – 26 February 1856) was an early explorer of the Australian and Patagonian coasts. Early life and education King was born on Norfolk Island, to Philip Gidley King and Anna Josepha King ''née'' Coo ...

's third voyage of exploration around Australia, he ordered the crew of his ship to beach the ship for repairs sustained earlier in the voyage at a spot north-east of present-day Broome, now known as

Careening Bay Coronation Island, also known as Garlinju, is located off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia. It encompasses an area of . It is located off Port Nelson in the Bonaparte Archipelago, as a part of the group of islands known as the Coronatio ...

, on

. The crew did not meet any of the local Wunambal people while they were stranded there for 18 days doing the repairs, but made observations in his journal on the other signs of life that they observed. He described not only bark shelters on the beach, but more larger and more substantial buildings on top of the hill. He also observed the remnants of

sago palm Sago palm is a common name for several plants which are used to produce a starchy food known as sago. Sago palms may be "true palms" in the family Arecaceae The Arecaceae () is a family (biology), family of perennial plant, perennial, flowerin ...

nuts, which were commonly eaten along the coast. Under orders from King, the ship's carpenter was instructed to inscribe "Mermaid 1820" on an ancient boab tree, which still stands today. The Wunambal Gaambera people administer permits for visitors to the area in which the tree is located, and the Uunguu Rangers, a team of

Indigenous ranger Indigenous ranger programs enable First Nations people across Australia to protect and manage their land, sea and culture through a combination of traditional knowledge with Western science and conservation practices. Introduced by the Australia ...

s, build and maintain facilities such as a

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway typically built with wooden planks, which functions as a type of low water bridge or small viaduct that enables pedestrians to ...

to help protect the environment.

Alternative names

* ''Jamindjal, Jarmindjal'' (Worrorra exonym meaning "northeasterners" * ''Kanaria'' * ''Laiau'' (Institut islands) * ''Peremanggurei'' (head of Prince Frederick Harbour) * ''Unambal, Unambalnge'' * ''Wanambal'' * ''Wardana'' (Montlivet islands) * ''Winjai'' * ''Wonambul, Wumnabal, Wunambulu'' * ''Wunambulu, Wunambullu''

References

Citations

Sources

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