Theethnonym Gamilaroi is formed fromgamil, meaning "no", and the suffix-(b)araay, bearing the sense of "having". It is a common practice among Australian tribes to have themselves identified according to their respective words for "no".[1]
Gamilaraay language is classified as one of thePama–Nyungan languages. The language is no longer spoken, as the last fluent speakers died in the 1950s. However, some parts have been reconstructed by late field work, which includes substantial recordings of the related language, Yuwaalaraay, which continued to be spoken down to the 1980s. Analysing these materials has permitted a good deal of reconstructive work.Robert M. W. Dixon and his studentPeter Austin recorded some aroundMoree, while Corinne Williams wrote a thesis on the Yuwaaliyaay dialect spoken atWalgett andLightning Ridge.[3]
The Gamilaraay, like many other tribes, taught young men asecret language, calledtyake, during their rites of initiation. In these systems, the normal profane terms used in everyday speech had to be substituted with the special mystical vocabulary.[4][5]
The Kamilaroi were hunters and agriculturalists[7] with a band-level social organisation. Important vegetable foods were yams and other roots, as well as asterculia grain, which was made into a bread. Insect larvae, frogs, and eggs of several different animals were also gathered. Various birds, kangaroos,emus, possums,echidnas, andbandicoots were among the important animals hunted. Fish were also consumed, as were crayfish, mussels, and shrimp. Men typically hunted, cleaned, and prepared the game for cooking. Women did the actual cooking, in addition to fishing and farming. Individual Kamilaroi did not eat animals that were their totems.
The nation was made up of many smaller family groups who had their own parcels of land to sustain them. One of the great Kings of this tribe was "Red Chief", who is buried nearGunnedah. The Kamilaroi were regarded as fierce warriors and there is ample evidence of intertribal warfare. The Northern Gamilaroi people have a strong cultural connection with theBigambul people, and the tribes met regularly for joint ceremonies atBoobera Lagoon near the present-day town ofGoondiwindi.
Kamilaroi tradition includesBaiame, the ancestor or patron god. The Baiame story tells how Baiame came down from the sky to the land, and created rivers, mountains, and forests. He then gave the people their laws of life, traditions, songs, and culture. He also created the first initiation site. This is known as a bora; a place where boys were initiated into manhood. When he had finished, he returned to the sky, and people called him the Sky Hero or All Father or Sky Father. He is said to be married toBirrahgnooloo (Birran-gnulu), who is often identified as an emu, and with whom he has a sonTurramūlan.[8] In other stories Turramūlan is said to be brother to Baiame. It was forbidden to mention or talk about the name of Baiame publicly. Women were not allowed to see drawings of Baiame nor approach Baiame sites,[8] which are often male initiation sites. Women were instead instructed by Turramūlan's sister,Muni Burribian. In rock paintings Baiame is often depicted as a human figure with a large head-dress or hairstyle, with lines of footsteps nearby. He is always painted in front view; Turramūlan is drawn in profile. Baiame is often shown with internal decorations such as waistbands, vertical lines running down the body, bands and dots.
In Kamilaroi star-lore myth it is recounted thatOrion, known asBerriberri[a] set out in pursuit of the Pleiades (Miai-miai) and cornered them in a mother-tree where they were transformed intoyellow and white cockatoos. His attempts to capture them were blocked by Turramūlan, a one-eyed, one-legged legendary figure associated with thepole star.[9] They calledOrion's Belt,ghūtūr,[8] a girdle that covered his invincible boomerang.[10][8] The seventh of Miai-miai, being less beautiful, was shy and afraid and she was thus transformed into theleast visible of the seven Pleiades.[8]
Therite of passage whereby Gamilaraay youths are inducted by initiation into full membership of the tribe was conducted at aBora ceremony on abora site especially prepared for the occasion. Tribes ready to participate in such rituals are contacted, and the ceremonies lasted several days.
The majorbora, calledBaiame's ground, was cleared on loamyumah soil, roughly 23 metres (75 ft) in diameter, with the scraped earth used to create an embanked ring about 20–23 centimetres (8–9 in) high to fence off the sacred space,[11] apart from one opening which led into athunburran or narrows pathway that ran some 250 metres (270 yd) off to a smaller circle, some 14 metres (47 ft) in diameter, called agoonaba, constructed in a similar fashion,[12] Inside this ring two stumps (warrengahlee) formed from uprooted trees, one acoolabah the other abelar, trimmed and turned upside down so that the roots, decorated with twists of bark, flared out.
The pathway leading novices from the larger to the smaller circle was adorned withyammunyamun, figures cut into the exposed sapwood of trees along the route, or drawn on the ground. On the occasion observed by Mathews, on the right hand side, 82 metres (90 yd) down the track, was a mocked upbowerbird's nest, and 2.7 metres (3 yd) further on a scarecrow figure with trousers and jacket stuffed with grass, representing a white man. As the youths passed along this track, the significance of the symbols and their relevance to tribal beliefs was explained.[13][14] Further down the path, a yammunyamun image of a bullock was formed from bark, dirt and the animal's skull. At 131 metres (143 yd), a 2.7-metre (9 ft) long representation of Baiame and his spouseGooberangal lay, moulded from the earth, respectively on the right and left of the track.[15] Further on, still on the left, was a carved figure of the Emu,[b] apparently crouching, its head pointed towards the large bora. To its right, a further 2.7 metres (3 yd) on, wasGoomee, Baiame's fire, a 30-centimetre (1 ft) high mound with a lit fire on top. A further 16 metres (18 yd) on, parallel to the track and on Goomee's side, acodfish was depicted, and after it theCurrea, a serpentine creature, and, 14 metres (15 yd) on the other side of the path, twodeath adders, followed then by a turkey's nest, an earth-stuffed porcupine's skin, and akangaroo rat's nest. At last, there was a carving of a full tribal man on one side of the track, and an aboriginal woman on the other.[16]
The Sandstone Caves (within the Pilliga Nature Reserve) are co-managed by the Gamilaraay people together withNPWS.[17] All interpretive signage is in theGamilaraay language followed by English. A small example, created by the Coonabarabran Gamilaraay Language Circle (Suellen Tighe, Maureen Sutler, Sid Chatfield & Peter Thompson), is given below. (See adjoining image.)[18][better source needed]
^Greenway states that the term means "young men" (Greenway 1878, p. 243).
^According to a recent study of Kamilaroi cosmological lore, for them "the appearance of the Emu began at theCoalsack under the starα Crucis, which formed the Emu's head, thenβ and α Centauri, which form the start of the neck, down the dust lanes of the Milky Way toη Lupus andγ2 Norma, at which point the dust lanes expand with the body of the Emu, reaching the maximum thickness withε Scorpii andλ Scorpii, and tapering towards36-Ophiuchi and3-Sagittarii, eventually ending nearμ Sagittarii." (Fuller et al. 2014, pp. 174–175)
^In ritual speech these terms were substituted respectively with the corresponding sacred words,ungogirgal, andgungumoal, for example (Mathews 1902, p. 159).
^Tighe, S., Sutler, M., Chatfield, S., Thompson, P. & National Parks & Wildlife Service. Notice Board at entrance to Sandstone Caves walk (observed 8 May 2018)
