A humpy, also known as a gunyah, wurley, wurly, wurlie, mia-mia, or wiltija, is a small, temporary shelter, traditionally used by

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

. These impermanent dwellings, made of branches and bark, are sometimes called a

lean-to A lean-to is a type of simple structure originally added to an existing building with the rafters "leaning" against another wall. Free-standing structures open on one or more sides (colloquially referred to as lean-tos in spite of being unattac ...

, since they often rely on a standing tree for support.

Etymology

The word humpy comes from the Jagera language (a Murri people from

Coorparoo Coorparoo ( ) is a suburb in the inner City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Coorparoo had a population of 18,132 people. Geography Coorparoo is by road south-east of the Brisbane GPO. It borders Camp Hill, Holland Park, Ston ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

); other

language groups A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics anal ...

would have different names for the structure. In

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, such a shelter is known as a "wurley" (also spelled "wurlie"), possibly from the

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kau ...

language. They are called wiltjas in

Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are v ...

and

Yankunytjatjara The Yankunytjatjara people, also written Yankuntjatjarra, Jangkundjara, and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of South Australia. Language Yankunytjatjara is a Western Desert language belonging to the Wati lan ...

languages, mia-mia in

Wadawurrung The Wadawurrung nation, also called the Wathaurong, or Wathaurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in the area near Melbourne, Geelong, and the Bellarine Peninsula in the state of Victoria. They are part of the Kulin alliance. The W ...

language.

Usage

They were temporary shelters made of bark, branches, leaves and grass used by Indigenous Australians. Both names were adopted by early white settlers, and now form part of the Australian lexicon. The use of the term appears to have broadened in later usage to include any temporary building made from any available materials, including canvas, flattened metal drums, and sheets of corrugated iron. In ''

Dark Emu ''Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?'' is a 2014 non-fiction book by Bruce Pascoe. It re-examines colonial accounts of Aboriginal people in Australia, and cites evidence of pre-colonial agriculture, engineering and building cons ...

'',

Bruce Pascoe Bruce Pascoe (born 1947) is an Australian writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. As well as his own name, Pascoe has written under the pen names Murray Gray and Leopold Glass. Pascoe identifies as Abor ...

argues that contrary to popular perception of Aboriginal dwellings being only temporary, some gunyahs in the

Channel Country The Channel Country is a region of outback Australia mostly in the state of Queensland but also in parts of South Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales. The name comes from the numerous Braided river, intertwined rivulets that cro ...

could accommodate up to 50 people and formed part of permanent agricultural communities.https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-our-new-archaeological-research-investigates-dark-emus-idea-of-aboriginal-agriculture-and-villages-146754

Gallery

File:Aboriginal family group, Eugene Von Guerard, ca. 1859.jpg, Aboriginal family and their temporary bark ''gunya'' (shelter), File:Aboriginal woman in front of bark gunya (shelter), Johns Album ca. 1872.jpg, Aboriginal woman in front of bark gunya (shelter), Victoria, c. 1872 File:Two Aboriginal woman in front of bark gunya (shelter) wrapped in traditional pelt cloaks, John Hunter Kerr. ca. 1850s.jpg, Two Aboriginal woman in front of bark gunya, c. 1850s File:Aboriginals under temporary bark gunya (shelter), ca. 1888.jpg, Temporary lean-to bark gunyah, c. 1888 File:Aboriginal temporary bark gunyah (shelter), ca. 1870.jpg, Temporary lean-to bark gunyah, 1889 File:Four Aboriginal people at the entrance to their dwelling, Western Australia, Gustav Riemer ca. 1876.jpg, Aboriginal people at the entrance to their dwelling, Western Australia, c. 1876 File:Humpy, Gunyah, south west Queensland. part of scenes of far western Queensland, Fred McKay gulf patrol, 1937 - (John Flynn?) (19306853893).jpg, Framework of a humpy in far western Queensland, 1937 File:Native Wurley.jpg, Native Wurley, 1886 File:StateLibQld 1 113072 Bushman with his dog and horse outside a humpy, Hughenden district^, 1910-1920.jpg, Bushman humpy, 1910s File:StateLibQld 2 239273 Bark humpy on Cleveland Road, Brisbane, 1874.jpg, Bark humpy, Brisbane, 1874 File:Govers 067.tif, boriginal peopleand wurlie near Alice Springs (Mparntwe), c. 1930s. File:Govers 193.tif, Aboriginal wurlie near Alice Springs, c. 1930s

Notes

External links

State Library of Victoria photo of Aboriginal people and humpy
Australian Aboriginal bushcraft Australian Aboriginal cultural history Huts in Australia Human habitats Indigenous architecture Architecture in Australia Australian Aboriginal words and phrases House types {{IndigenousAustralia-stub

Etymology

Usage

Gallery

See also

Notes

External links