TheUmpithamu, also once known toethnographers as theKoko Ompindamo, are a contemporaryAboriginal Australian people of the easternCape York Peninsula in northernQueensland.Norman Tindale, transcribing theirethnonym Umpithamu asUmbindhamu, referred to them as ahorde of theBarungguan.[1]
They are one of severalLamalama peoples.
TheUmpithamu language belongs to thePaman subgroup of thePama–Nyungan languages.[2] By the early 2000s, there were only two completely fluent speakers of Umpithamu, one of them being Florrie Bassani.[3] In July 2020,A Dictionary of Umpithamu was published, compiled byFlemish linguist Jean-Christophe Verstraete, with main language consultants Florrie Bassani and her niece Joan Liddy.[4][5]
The Umpithamu were the southernmost group of theKawadji or "sandbeach peoples" (in Umpithamuma-yaandhimunu or "people who own the sandbeach".[6]), followed in order to their north, by theYintyingka, the Umpila, thePontunj (Yankonyu)[7] thePakadji(Koko Yao) and theOtati(Wuta(h)i).[8] Their territory embraced an estimated 700 square miles (1,800 km2) on the western coastline ofPrincess Charlotte Bay with its northern limits around Cape Sidmouth.[1]
For some years in the 1950s a cattle station owner in Umpithamu territory had been complaining of the presence of this Aboriginal people on his grazing lands, and after successful lobbying, he managed to have them removed in 1961. The Umpithamu were deported, reportedly by a ruse that deceived them, by the local police from their home country aroundPort Stewart to theAboriginal reserve nearBamaga, 400 km (250 mi) to their north. After decades they eventually managed to return south, toCoen, a mere 70 mi (110 km) from their tribal centre. Since then they have managed to set up threeoutstations in thePort Stewart area.[9]
They form one of the several peoples composing theLama Lama people.
Source:Tindale 1974