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The Jawoyn, also written Djauan, are an Australian Aboriginal people living in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Bagala clan are of the Jawoyn people.

Language

Jawoyn, known as Kumertuo, is a non-Pama–Nyungan language that belongs to the Macro-Gunwinyguan group of languages of Arnhem land. (It has recently been established that the Gunwinyguan and Pama-Nyungan languages are both branches of a proto-Macro-Pama–Nyungan language.) At one time, Kumertuo was a group of several closely related spoken dialects, but since resettlement in the post-war period, these dialects have been tending to converge into a single standardized language.

Country

. Historically, the land occupied by the Jawoyn, which Norman Tindale has estimated covered about 3,800 square miles (9,800 km), were in the Katherine Gorge area in the Northern Territory. The Jawoyn call this area Nitmiluk, a name derived from the word nitmi (which refers to the cicada song that Nabilil the crocodile is said to have heard when he set up camp at the entrance to a particular gorge) and the word luk, which means "place". “Nitmiluk” specifically denotes a 12 kilometre stretch there, consisting of a spectacular chain of chasms and ravines. It has been suggested that the Jawoyn people refers not only to those who speak a Jawoyn language, but also to those who are associated with the landscapes inscribed in the Jawoyn language according to their foundational mythology of the Dreamtime. The language itself, in several varieties was spoken along the Katherine River system as far as the Mainoru River. Their southern limits were around Maranboy, and their western extension came close to Katherine.

Mythology

A widespread belief in Aboriginal thought holds that each language emerged during the formative time of creation when a demiurgic totem figure moved through the landscape crafting it and, simultaneously, endowing each topological feature with its proper word. The creative being changed the language at certain transit points which then were taken as boundary markers between tribes speaking different languages. Thus, in Jawoyn thinking, the landscape of the Katherine Gorge was created in the primordial time (burr) by Nabilil (Crocodile), who named all of the area's distinctive features in the Jawoyn language. He came from the sea, furnished with his firestick (meya) and moved through what became Dagoman and Nangiomeri lands before reaching the gorge.

The Burr Dreamtime also contains other key figures of myth such as Boolong (the Rainbow Serpent) and Barraya (the kookaburra).

History of contact

Many Jawoyn moved to Tandandjal on the ridge affording spring water of a grassy plain 44 miles east-north of Maranboy in November 1948 when a short-lived government settlement for Aborigines had been established. The surrounding hills were thickly forested with lancewoods and eucalypts. While exploring the area in June of that year, 1948, Mr. Ivan Frazer came across a cave littered with stone artifacts, whose walls were adorned with paintings.

Notable people and events

• John Ah Kit
• Ngaree Ah Kit

Bangardi Robert Lee (1952–2005), a leader of the Bagala clan, initiated the Barunga Sport and Cultural Festival in 1985. It became an important forum for sharing ideas, showcasing the Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander cultures and talent, and to engage with social and political issues. At the 1988 event, the Jaowyn council met with representatives of the Northern and Central Land Councils, Galarrwuy Yunupingu AM and Wenten Rubuntja AM, and the Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Minister for Indigenous Affairs. At the event, Yunupingu and Rubuntja presented Hawke with the Barunga Statement, which asserted the rights of the Indigenous owner-occupiers of Australia.

Seasons

Alternative names

• Adowen
• Charmong
• Chau-an
• Djauun
• Djauwung
• Djawin
• Djawun
• Djouan
• Jawan, Jawony, Kumertuo, according to Ethnologue
• Jawin
• Tjauen
• Tweinbol

Some words

• Bobo. "Goodbye"
• Yowoyn. "Yes", "alright"

Source: Language 2016

See also

• Edith Falls
• Nitmiluk National Park

Notes

1. "Jawoyn people are Jawoyn not because they speak Jawoyn. But because they are linked to places to which the Jawoyn language is also linked". (Rumsey 2005, p. 200)
2. In Tindale's classification, Kumertuo refers rather to the Djowei (Tindale 1974, p. 224)

Citations

1. ^ Merlan 2016, p. 201.
2. ^ Tindale 1974, p. 223.
3. ^ Dunbar-Hall & Gibson 2004, p. 212.
4. Dunbar-Hall & Gibson 2004, p. 211.
5. Dixon 2004, p. 3.
6. Tsunoda 2006, p. 136.
7. Merlan 1998, p. 126.
8. Rumsey 2005, p. 200.
9. Merlan 1998, p. 125.
10. ^ Allam 2020.
11. ^ ABC: death 2020.
12. AIATSIS 2018.
13. Reid 1995.
14. Djauan 2016.

Sources

• Allam, Lorena (13 July 2020). "John Ah Kit: leader and tireless advocate for Aboriginal rights dies aged 69". The Guardian.
• Arndt, W. (June 1962). "The Nargorkun-Narlinji Cult". Oceania. 32 (4): 298–320. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1962.tb01784.x. JSTOR 4032938.
• Arndt, W. (March 1966). "Seventy Year Old Records and New Information on the Nargorkun—Narlinji Cult". Oceania. 36 (3): 231–238. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1966.tb00288.x. JSTOR 40329519.
• "The Barunga Statement". AIATSIS. 29 May 2018. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
• Davidson, D. S. (January–June 1935). "Archaeological Problems of Northern Australia". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 65: 145–183. doi:10.2307/2843847. JSTOR 2843847.
• Dixon, Robert M. W. (2004) . Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. pp. 201–228. ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
• "Djauan". Ethnologue. 2016.
• Dunbar-Hall, Peter; Gibson, Chris (2004). Deadly Sounds, Deadly Places: Contemporary Aboriginal Music in Australia. University of New South Wales Press. pp. 201–228. ISBN 978-0-868-40622-0.
• Eylmann, Erhard (1908). Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (PDF). Berlin: D.Reimer.
• "Language". Jawoyn Association Aboriginal Corporation. 2016. Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
• "The life and times of Aboriginal rights champion and political trailblazer John Ah Kit, dead at 69". ABC News. 13 July 2020.
• Macintosh, N. W. G. (March 1951). "Archæology of Tandandjal Cave, South-West Arnhem Land". Oceania. 21 (3): 178–204. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1951.tb00533.x. JSTOR 40328290.
• Macintosh, N. W. G. (June 1952). "Paintings in Beswick Creek Cave, Northern Territory". Oceania. 22 (4): 256–274. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1952.tb00182.x. JSTOR 40328351.
• Mathews, R. H. (1901). "Ethnological notes on the aboriginal tribes of the Northern Territory". Queensland Geographical Journal. 16: 69–90.
• McCarthy, F. D. (June 1939a). ""Trade" in Aboriginal Australia, and "Trade" Relationships with Torres Strait, New Guinea and Malaya". Oceania. 9 (4): 405–438. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1939.tb00247.x. JSTOR 40327761.
• McCarthy, F. D. (September 1939b). ""Trade" in Aboriginal Australia, and "Trade" Relationships with Torres Strait, New Guinea and Malaya (Continued)". Oceania. 10 (1): 80–104. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1939.tb00258.x. JSTOR 40327722.
• McCarthy, F. D. (December 1939c). ""Trade" in Aboriginal Australia, and "Trade" Relationships with Torres Strait, New Guinea and Malaya (Continued)". Oceania. 10 (2): 171–195. doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1939.tb00275.x. JSTOR 40327735.
• Merlan, Francesca (1998). Caging the Rainbow: Places, Politics, and Aborigines in a North Australian Town. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-824-82045-9.
• Merlan, Francesca (2016). "Correlation of Textual and Spatial Reference: This and That". In Verstraete, Jean-Christophe; Hafner, Diane (eds.). Land and Language in Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf Country. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 199–217. ISBN 978-9-027-26760-3.
• Parkhouse, T. A. (1895a). "Native tongues in the neighbourhood of Port Darwin" (PDF). Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. 19: 1–18.
• Parkhouse, T. A. (1895b). Native tribes of Port Darwin and its neighbourhood. Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science – via Trove.
• Reid, Alan J. (1995). Caging Banksias and Bilbies: Seasons of Australia: a Weekly Guide to Natural Events in Australia, with Space for Your Own Records. Gould League of Victoria. ISBN 978-1-875-68726-8.
• Rumsey, Alan (2005) . "Language and Territoriality in Aboriginal Australia". In Walsh, Michael; Yallop, Colin (eds.). Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal Studies Press. pp. 191–206. ISBN 978-0-855-75241-5.
• Spencer, Baldwin (1914). Native tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (PDF). London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Djauan (NT)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6. Archived from the original on 20 March 2020.
• Tsunoda, Tasaku (2006). Language Endangerment and Language Revitalization: An Introduction. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-110-89658-9.

• Aboriginal peoples of the Northern Territory
• Katherine, Northern Territory