Djerimanga

"Wuna" redirects here. For other uses, see Wuna (disambiguation).

Djerimanga people
Wulna, Woolna, Woolner
Photograph of Liallon, a Djerimanga man, taken in 1880 by Paul Foelsche
Language
Language family:	Darwin Region languages
Country
Region	Adelaide River
Location:	Northern Territory

The Djerimanga (also known as the Wulna, Woolna or Woolner) are an Indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory.

Country

Wulna country consisted of some 1,200 square miles (3,100 km²) on the coastal plain where the Adelaide River debouches into the Timor Sea, north to the tip of Cape Hotham, west to Gunn Point and the Coolalinga Region, south to Manton Dam. Including Acacia Aboriginal Community and eastwards as far as the Mary River floodplains. Humpty Doo Station, Koolpinyah Station and Djukbinj National Park are also situated within these traditional boundaries. Historically, the Wulna had a southern inland extension of their land as far as the Margaret River and the Ringwood Range, but lost it to the eastern Djowei.

Alternative names

• Djeramanga, Jermangel
• Waak
• Wulna, Woolna, Woolnah, Woolner, Wulnar, Wolna

Language and culture

The Djerimanga spoke Wulna (Wuna) an Indigenous language that is now extinct. John W. O. Bennett managed to compile a brief vocabulary of their language in 1869.

Before British colonisation, the Djerimanga built well-thatched wet season huts and occasionally wore capes and skirts made of woven coarse grass. The men also adorned themselves with long wooden piercings placed through perforations made below the cartilage of the nasal septum. The Djerimanga manufactured bark canoes up to fifteen feet in length and also bottle-shaped baskets to hold ochre pigments.

Upon reaching adulthood, both male and female Djerimanga had two upper incisor teeth ceremoniously removed.

History since British colonisation

The Djerimanga seem to have had only very limited or no contact with the Dutch and the Makassans who interacted more regularly with other Indigenous peoples of northern coastal Australia. The first documented contact with non-Aboriginal foreigners was in 1839 when the British vessel HMS Beagle arrived at Cape Hotham under the command of John Clements Wickham and John Lort Stokes.

Sketch of Mr Fitzmaurice and Mr Keys of HMS Beagle performing a dance while fleeing armed Djerimanga at Escape Cliffs in 1839

These expeditioners named the Adelaide River (known to the Djerimanga as Windindin) and also Escape Cliffs (originally called Patter purrer). Escape Cliffs received its name after two crew members of the Beagle were able to escape from a group of armed Djerimanga men at the location after distracting them with a dance.

See also

• Wulna language

Sources

• Basedow, Herbert (1907). "Anthropological notes on the Western Coastal tribes of the Northern Territory of South Australia". Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia. 31: 1–62.
• Bennett, John W. O. (1869). Vocabulary of the Woolner District Dialect, Adelaide River, Northern Territory. Adelaide: W.C. Cox.
• Eylmann, Erhard (1908). Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (PDF). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
• Ford, Lysbeth Julie (1998). A description of the Emmi language of the Northern Territory of Australia (PDF) (Doctoral thesis). Australian National University.
• Stokes, John Lort (1846). Discoveries in Australia Vol. 1. London: T & W Boone.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Djerimanga (NT)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University. Archived from the original on 20 March 2020.
• "Wulna". Ethnologue. Retrieved 12 September 2022.