The Bundjalung people (a.k.a. Bunjalung, Badjalang & Bandjalang) are Aboriginal Australians who are the original custodians of northern coastal areas of New South Wales (Australia), located approximately 550 kilometres (340 mi) northeast of Sydney, an area that includes the Bundjalung National Park and Mount Warning, known to the Bundjalung people as Wollumbin ("rainmaker").
Bundjalung people all share descent from ancestors who once spoke as their first, preferred language one or more of the dialects of the Bandjalang language.
The Arakwal people are a sub-group or tribe of the Bundjalung people of Byron Bay.
Video Bundjalung
Language
Bandjalang
Maps Bundjalung
Country
According to Norman Tindale, Bundjalung tribal lands encompassed roughly 2,300 square miles (6,000 km2), from the northern side of the Clarence River to the Richmond River, including Ballina with their inland extension running to Tabulam and Baryugil. The coastal Widje horde(Widje) ventured no further than Rappville.
Initiation ceremony
According to R. H. Mathews, the Bundjalung rite of transition into manhood began with a cleared space called a walloonggurra some distance from the main camp. On the evening the novices are taken from their mothers around dusk, the men sing their way to this bora ground where a small bullroarer (dhalguñgwn) is whirled.
Religious beliefs
The Bundjalung people believe the spirits of wounded warriors are present within the mountains, their injuries having manifested themselves as scars on the mountainside, and thunderstorms in the mountains recall the sounds of those warriors' battles.
Wollumbin itself is the site at which one of the chief warriors lies, and it is said his face can still be seen in the mountain's rocks when viewed from the north.
Nowadays people gather annually in the Bundjalung national park as a community to celebrate as a Bundjalung People's Gathering.
"We want to celebrate our Aboriginal traditions and customs. We want to share them with other people and show them our beliefs and our culture is still alive today, it hasn't been lost" - Chris Phillips, event organizer
On these occasions traditional garments are often worn by the Bundjalung peoples, who partake in custodial dances and other performances.
Land claim
In November 2007 the Federal Court made a positive determination regarding the existence of native title within Githabul country.
Musical instruments
Medicine
Spiritual medicine
Throughout Australia, Aborigines believe that serious illness and death is caused by spirits or persons who intentionally and deliberately cause or inflict harm towards others. Even trivial ailments, or accidents such as falling from a tree, are often attributed to malevolence. Aboriginal cultural cosmology is too constraining in meaning to allow the possibility of accidental injury and death, and when someone succumbed to misfortune, a woman or man versed in magic is called in to identify the culprit.
These spiritual doctors ware men and women of great wisdom and stature with immense power. Trained from an early age by their elders and initiated into the deepest of tribal secrets, they are the supreme authorities on spiritual matters. They can visit the skies, witness events from afar, and fight with serpents. Only they can pronounce the cause of serious illness or death, and only they, by performing sacred rites, can effect a cure.
Medicine men and women usually employ plants and herbs in their rites, occasionally practising secular medicine.
Secular medicine
The healing of trivial non-spiritual complaints, using herbs and other remedies, is still practiced by most Aboriginal People, although older women were usually the experts. To ensure success, plants and magic were often prescribed side-by-side.
Plants ware prepared as remedies in a number of ways. Leafy branches are often placed over a fire while the patient squats on top and inhaled the steam. Sprigs of aromatic leaves might be crushed and inhaled, inserted into the nasal septum, or prepared into a pillow on which the patient sleeps. To make an infusion, leaves or bark are crushed and soaked in water (sometimes for a very long time), which is then drunk, or washed over the body. Ointment is prepared by mixing crushed leaves with animal fat. Other external treatment includes rubbing down the patient with crushed seed paste, fruit pulp or animal oil, or dripping milky sap or a gummy solution over them. Most plant medicines are externally applied.
Medicine plants are always common plants. Aboriginal People carried no medicine kits and have remedies that grow at hand when needed. If a preferred herb is unavailable, there is usually a local substitute. Except for ointments, which were made by mixing crushed leaves with animal fat, medicines are rarely mixed. Very occasionally two plants are used together.
Aboriginal medicines are never quantified; -- there are no measured doses or specific times of treatment. Since most remedies are applied externally, there is little risk of overdosing. Some medicines are known to vary in strength with the seasons. One area of Aboriginal medicine with no obvious Western parallel was baby medicine. Newborn babies are steamed or rubbed with oils to render them stronger. Often, mothers are also steamed.
A notable feature of Aboriginal medicine is the importance placed upon oil as a healing agent, an importance that passed to European colonists, and is reflected today in the continuing popularity of Australian Blue Cypress oil (Callitris intratropica), Eucalyptus oil, Emu oil, Goanna oil, Mutton Bird oil, Snake oil and Tea tree oil (Melaleuca oil).
Earth, mud, sand, and termite dirt are also taken as medicines. In many parts of Australia, wounds are dressed with dirt or ash. Arnhem Land aboriginal people eat small balls of white clay and pieces of termite mound to cure diarrhoea and stomach upsets.
Notable people
Notable Bundjalung people include:
- Margaret Williams Weir - Margaret Williams Weir - first Indigenous Australian to enrol in University, graduated in 1959 with a Diploma in Physical Education, becoming the first Aboriginal with a university qualification. She went on to do a bachelor of education, becoming a teacher, and then a researcher after completing a Masters and finally a PhD. Dr Williams-Weir taught in Canada in the late 1960s, where she met her husband, and served for three years in the Royal Canadian Navy as a Commissioned Officer. Margaret Williams died in 2015, not long after she was recognised for her contribution to the development of Indigenous education policy by the University of Melbourne through the naming of the Dr Margaret Williams-Weir Lounge in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, and the Dr Margaret Williams-Weir Vice-Chancellor's Fellowship, of which Noel Pearson is the inaugural recipient.
- Troy Cassar-Daley - born at Grafton to an Aboriginal mother and a Maltese-Australian father.
- Ruby Langford Ginibi - author, lecturer in Aboriginal history, culture and politics, whose grandfather 'Sam' Anderson, in a game of cricket in 1928 at Lismore, became one of only two Aboriginal cricketers to ever get Sir Donald Bradman out, for a duck.
- Anthony Mundine - professional boxer and multiple-time world champion. He is also a former New South Wales State of Origin representative footballer who played for St. George Illawarra Dragons and Brisbane Broncos in the Australian NRL. Before his move to boxing he was the highest paid player in the NRL.
- Warren Mundine - an advisor to the current Prime Minister, former National President of the Australian Labor Party and also a Director of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.
- Mark Olive - also known as the 'Black Olive' & 'Bush food crusader', a Wollongong born chef who trained in Europe, with over twenty years cooking experience, and he has his own pay TV indigenous cooking show, The Outback Cafe and is also the author of cookbooks such as Olive's Outback Cafe: A Taste of Australia.
- Johnny Jarrett (Patten) - former Australian Bantamweight boxing champion (1958 - 1962).
- Wes Patten - actor, television host, and former NRL player with the South Sydney Rabbitohs, St.George Dragons, Balmain Tigers and Gold Coast Chargers. Roles in television and film include playing opposite Cate Blanchett in Heartland (1994) and Hugo Weaving in Dirt Water Dynasty (1988). Other roles include stints on A Country Practice, Wills & Burke, and G.P.
- Albert Torrens - a former international rugby league footballer who played for the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, Northern Eagles and St. George Illawarra Dragons in the Australian NRL and for the Huddersfield Giants in the European Super League.
- Bronwyn Bancroft (born 1958) is an Australian artist, notable for being amongst the first Australian fashion designers invited to show her work in Paris. Born in Tenterfield, New South Wales, and trained in Canberra and Sydney, Bancroft worked as a fashion designer, and is an artist, illustrator, and arts administrator.
- Joyce Clague - political activist
Alternative names
- Badjelang.(paidjal = badjal = man)
- Budulung
- Buggul.
- Paikalyung, Paikalyug.
- Bandjalang, Bandjalong.
- Bunjellung.
- Bundela, Bundel.
- Widje. (horde or hordes at Evans Head)
- Watchee.
- Woomargou.
See also
- Bundjalung Nation Timeline
- Dirawong
Notes
Citations
Sources
External links
- Badjalang portion of Norman Tindale's Aboriginal Tribes of Australia map Accessed 21 May 2008
- Bundjalung of Byron Bay Aboriginal Corporation, representing the Bundjalung and Arakwal people, land and waters
- Bibliography of Bundjalung language and people resources, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- Bibliography of Arakwal language and people resources, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- "Australia's Sacred Sites Part 5 - Byron Bay" ABC Radio's Spirit of Things (October 2002; Accessed 21 May 2008
- A Walk in the Park Series: "New South Wales - Arakwal National Park" ABC Radio (December 2004) Accessed 21 May 2008
- "Badjalang" AusAnthrop Australian Aboriginal tribal database. Accessed 20 May 2008
- Bunjalung of Byron Bay (Arakwal) Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) Accessed 21 May 2008
- New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change Aboriginal cultural heritage webpage Living on the frontier Accessed 21 May 2008
- New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change November 2007 Media Release Wollumbin Aboriginal Consultative Group Accessed 21 May 2008
Source of article : Wikipedia
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