Manbarra

The Manbarra (also recorded as Manburra or Mun-ba-rah) are the Aboriginal Australian original owners of the Palm Island group and surrounding sea country in northern Queensland. Their traditional maritime and island estate covers approximately 5,498 square kilometres (2,123 sq mi), extending across the Palm Islands out to the 200-metre depth contour of the Great Barrier Reef.

Name

The Manbarra are the original owners of the Palm Island group, known originally in the local language as Dhanu mira.

Morphologically, the name Manbarra is formed with the regional suffix -barra (or -bara), a common feature across central and eastern Queensland languages including Nyawaygi, Warrgamay, and Dyirbal signifying "belonging to", "people of", or "pertaining to" a specific geographic territory or ecological feature. Within this regional naming tradition, Manbarra designates the people belonging specifically to the Palm Island archipelago.

Language

Main article: Wulguru language

The language spoken by the Manbarra was part of the Wulguru language group, which Robert M. W. Dixon classified alongside Nyawaygi as one of two Nyawaygic languages of the Herbert River region. Lexicostatistical analysis indicates a 58% lexical overlap between the Wulguru language complex and Nyawaygi, compared to 40% with Warungu and 28% with Biri.

Across the Palm Island group, two distinct dialects were traditionally spoken: Buluguyban and Mulgu. In comparative analysis, Buluguyban represents the most conservative branch of the language, retaining distinctive vocabulary (such as dhalmal for "water", compared to gamu in Mulgu and on the mainland) and preserving word-initial consonants that underwent initial-dropping in mainland dialects.

The surviving vocabulary of the Palm Island varieties was documented in early recordings by French anthropologists Houzé and Jacques (1885), Ernest Gribble (1932), Peter Sutton (1970), and Tasaku Tsunoda (1974).

Country

The traditional country of the Manbarra covers the Palm Islands and their surrounding waters in Halifax Bay, about 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Townsville. Their combined land and sea estate spans roughly 5,498 square kilometres (2,123 sq mi), reaching out from the islands to the 200-metre depth line of the Great Barrier Reef.

Archaeological digs show that Aboriginal people have lived on these islands and fished the reefs for at least 4,000 years. Culturally, the Manbarra are part of the broader Southern Rainforest (Girringun) group, sharing long-standing family and social ties with mainland neighbours around Townsville, Ingham, and the Herbert River region.

In the 20th century, anthropologist Norman Tindale grouped the Palm Islands into a wide mainland region of 1,000 square miles (2,600 km²) under the name Wulgurukaba. However, historical and language studies show that the Palm Islanders maintained their own distinct island identity, separate sea country, and local dialects.

History of contact

At the time of James Cook's passage through Halifax Bay aboard the Endeavour in June 1770, the Manbarra population has been estimated at approximately 200 people. During the late 19th century, the population declined severely due to violent incursions, abductions, and forced labour by European and Japanese pearling and bêche-de-mer crews operating in coastal waters.

Despite these disruptions, Manbarra families continued to inhabit Great Palm Island into the 20th century. Official inspections by the Queensland Chief Protector of Aborigines between 1907 and 1910 recorded a permanent camp maintaining traditional subsistence through hunting and fishing. In June 1913, Manbarra resident Dick Palm Island formally petitioned Townsville authorities to protest white pastoral leaseholders shooting their hunting dogs and encroaching on their living areas.

In 1916, under the provisions of the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, the Queensland Government forcibly removed the remaining Manbarra community to the Hull River Aboriginal Settlement on the mainland. Following the destruction of Hull River by the cyclone of 10 March 1918, the surviving Manbarra were returned to Great Palm Island alongside displaced mainland Aboriginal people to establish the Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement under government control.

Dreamtime mythology

The primordial creative serpent of the Manbarra dreamtime legends, a carpet snake named Gubbal, is said to have slithered down the Herbert River, and, swimming across the sea, to have disintegrated, leaving pieces of his back as Palm Island and his head as Magnetic Island.

Recent events

Tambo (Kukamunburra), a Manbarra man was shipped by the showman R. A. Cunningham to the United States in 1883, in response to a call by P.T. Barnum for specimens of "savage races" to be put into a display in his traveling circus act. He died the following year in Ohio. His mummified remains were first put on exhibition in a dime museum and then stored in the basement of a Cleveland funeral parlour and were only discovered a century later when the business closed down. The Manbarra community appealed for the repatriation of his remains and they were duly restored to the people in 1994. His reburial there according to traditional funeral rites that had fallen into abeyance for decades played an important role in the cultural renewal and reconsolidation of Manbarra identity, and also that of the Bwgaman.

Native title

Further information: Native title in Australia

In July 2012, a six hectare section of Magnetic Island was granted to the Wulgurukaba people under freehold native title. The Queensland government also stated it would grant trusteeship of a further 55 hectares (140 acres) to the Wulgurukaba Yunbenun Aboriginal Corporation.

The Manbarra have not been given legal status as traditional owners of the Palm Islands, as the people known as the Bwgcolman, drawn from over 40 tribes on the mainland and Torres Strait Islands, were forcibly moved to the Palm Island Aboriginal Settlement from 1918 onwards, and it is their descendants (the "historical people", who now inhabit the island.

Alternative names

• Buruku'man, Burugu'man (native toponym for Great Palm Island)
• Korambelbara (Warakamai exonym)
• Mun-ba-rah

Notes

Sources

• Cassady, James; Johnstone, R. (1886). "Halifax Bay" (PDF). In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent. Vol. 2. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 424–431.
• Dixon, Robert M. W. (1983). "Nyawaygi". In R. M. W. Dixon and Barry J. Blake (ed.). Handbook of Australian Languages. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 430–525. ISBN 978-90-272-2002-8.
• Dixon, Robert M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
• Donohue, Mark (2007). Wulguru: A Salvage Study of a North-Eastern Australian Language from Townsville. Languages of the World/Materials 463. München: Lincom Europa. ISBN 978-3-89586-327-1.
• Downes, G. (18 March 2004). "The Manbarra People and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Anor [2004] AATA 268". Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia.
• Garond, Lise (2014). "'Forty-plus Different tribes': Displacement, Place-making and Aboriginal Tribal Names on Palm Island, Australia". In Hermann, Elfriede; Kempf, Wolfgang; van Meijl, Toon (eds.). Belonging in Oceania: Movement, Place-Making and Multiple Identifications. Berghahn Books. pp. 49–70. ISBN 978-1-782-38416-8.
• Gregory, E. (1866) [First published 1865]. Sketch of the residence of James Morrill among the aborigines of Northern Queensland for seventeen years. Brisbane: Courier General Printing Office.
• Hubert, Jane; Fforde, Cressida (2005). "The reburial issue in the twenty first century". In Corsane, Gerard (ed.). Heritage, Museums and Galleries: An Introductory Reader. Psychology Press. pp. 107–122. ISBN 978-0-415-28945-0.
• Meston, Archibald (1896). Report on the aborigines of Queensland (PDF) (Report). AIATSIS. pp. 723–740.
• "Native title granted on Magnetic Island". news.com.au. 2 August 2012.
• National Native Title Tribunal (14 March 2023). Registration Decision: Walter Palm Island & Ors on behalf of the Manbarra People v State of Queensland (QC2022/003 / QUD331/2022) (Report). Commonwealth of Australia.
• Poignant, Roslyn (2004). Professional Savages: Captive Lives and Western Spectacle. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10247-5.
• Roginski, Alexandra (2015). The Hanged Man and the Body Thief: Finding Lives in a Museum Mystery. Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-1-922-23566-4.
• Taylor, Christopher (2014). A History of the Bohle Plains, 1865-2012 (PDF) (Report). Townsville City Council.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Wulgurukaba (QLD)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press.
• Tsunoda, Tasaku (2006). Language Endangerment and Language Revitalization: An Introduction. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-089658-9.
• Watson, Joanne (2010). Palm Island: Through a Long Lens. Aboriginal Studies Press. ISBN 978-0-85575-703-8.

[[Category:North Queensland]