Yawuru people

The Yawuru, also spelt Jawuru, are an Indigenous Australian people of Western Australia.

A Japanese linguist, Hosokawa Kōmei (細川弘明), compiled the first basic dictionary of the Yawuru language in 1988, and followed it up with a comprehensive descriptive grammar in 2011.

Their territory encompasses the area south of Roebuck Plains through to the southern end of Thangoo Station.

The Yawuru people in Broome also include the Djugun and the two are distinguished only by minor dialectal differences.

In Yawuru cosmology, the primordial time and its world (bugarrigarra) is still present in its creative force, governing social relations, informing the way one interacts with the maritime and continental landscape within their traditional territory, and securing the well-being (liyan) of the community (ngarrungunil). The traditional kinship structure, typical also of other contiguous tribal groups such as the Karajarri, Nyikina and Mangala, is fourfold, consisting of the Banaga and the Burungu, the Garimba and the Barrjarri, the first two in each case form the binary unit of optimal marriage choice. Children assume their kin-tribal identity through the mother. Thus, a child born to a Banaga father and a Burungu woman is classified as Barrjarri, while a Garimba woman married to a Barrjarri man produces Banaga offspring.

The Yawuru recognize six seasons in the year: Barrgana, Wirlburu, Laja, Marrul, Wirralburu and Man-gala. The drycold season (Barrgana) coincides with a change of fishing from the open sea to the native salmon in creeks; after a brief transitional phase (Wirlburu), the Laja period, encompassing September to November, kicks in, called "married turtle time" where abundance caches of eggs can be harvested from the beaches, and reef fishing feasible. The humid Marrul period follows, when one fishes for whiting, trevally, queenfish and mullet.

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