Binbinga
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| several hundred (less than 1% of the Australian population, about 1% of the Aboriginal population) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Australia(Northern Territory) |
|
| Languages | |
| Wambaya language, English | |
| Religion | |
| Aboriginal mythology |
The Binbinga, also pronounced Binbinka, are an Indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory of Australia.
Binbinga is a dialect classified as a variety of the Ngurlun branch of the Mirndi languages, closely related to Wambaya, to the degree that Wambaya, Binbinka and Gudanji are often treated as dialects of a single language. The Binbinga were among these tribes, and today only 89 speakers of Wambaya remain. When someone died, the widow, mother and a number of other female kin were banned from speaking until the deceased had undergone his second, final burial rite.
The Binbinga's traditional lands consisted of some 4,400 sq. miles running southeast from the Old Bauhinia Downs, encompassing; the McArthur River Station and Campbell Camp, and the upper limits of the McArthur and Glyde Rivers. Their camps on the McArthur river were described as very picturesque, with miamias pitched among shady native figs, Leichhardt pines, paperbarks and screw pines, close to the banks of the river.
Baldwin Spencer and F. A. Gillen described the physical appearance of the Binbinga as follows:
The men.. have very little hair on the face, and that non the head is allowed to grow to a considerable length and is then made into plaits which are wound round the crown so as to produce the appearance of a close-fitting cap or helmet.
In Binbinga metaphysics Ulanji was a supernatural being in the primordial world of the Mungai times, similar to the Bobbi-Bobbi of the Anula people. He was a huge snake, who emerged from a hole at a site called Makumundana. After making a water-hole full of water lilies, he began to move across the country, creating springs and creeks, and also the upper reaches of the Limmen river, and forming hills and ranges. At each creative point in his journey, he conducted ceremonies during which spirit-children came forth from his body who were left to inhabit these localities. At a certain point, at a site called Kuriella-dat-kaulu, he decapitated flying foxes he had observed handing from the rocks. Withdrawing from his body two of his own ribs, he shaped two trees (Lamara) from them which he planted in the ground. At Tutita, he left behind maitjama(quartzite) so that knives and spear-heads could be fashioned from them. He altered the name of a place called Nanawandula, having created waterholes there rich in crocodiles, after removing his heart there, thus giving it the name for heart, Kurta-lula. Thereupon, he sunk underground to continue travelling, emerging only at Uminiwura, the end of his journey, and finally dissppeared into the earth.
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Wikipedia