Yir-Yoront
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Australia | |
| Languages | |
| Yir-Yoront,English | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Yirrk-Thangalkl,Kokopera,Thaayorre,Uw Olkola,Uw Oykangand |
TheYir-Yoront,also known as theYir Yiront,are anIndigenous Australian peopleof theCape York Peninsulanow living mostly inKowanyama (kawn yamaror 'many waters')but also inLirrqar/Pormpuraaw,both towns outside their traditional lands.
Language
[edit]Yir-Yorontbelongs to thePama-Maric groupof thePama-Nyungan language family.[1]Etymologically their language and the ethnonym derived from it are composed ofyirrq(speech) andyorront.Several roots forYorronthave been proposed, one suggesting it is derived fromyorr(l)(thus, like this), this-style denominations for tribal languages being not infrequent in Australia. Alpher argues that the more convincing etymon isyorr(sand), sandridges constituting the core geomorphic feature of Yir Yoront traditional territory. To support this interpretation he notes that an alternative voice for both the people and the language isYirr-Thuchm,wherethuchdenotes a sandridge.[2]
The Yoront adopt sign language when people withdraw from their social world, or are ashamed of themselves.[3]
Country
[edit]The earliest explorers came across the Yir-Yoront in their traditional lands, each sectioned according to patrilineal clan divisions, at the separate mouths of theMitchell River,and also the mouth of the Coleman River, and the land on the coastal strip between them.Norman Tindaleestimated their overall tribal grounds as covering approximately 500 square miles (1,300 km2).[4]
Mythology
[edit]Pam-nhingwere the ancestral supernatural beings responsible for both the creation of the world and for the way the group was organized socially. Every site was associated with its ancestralpam-nhingowner, to whom living Yir-Yoront owners were related through the male line. The word also signified a doppelganger or guardian spirit, distinct from both one'smang(reflection, image) and thepam-ngerrror inner soul, pulse, breath of a person.[5]
Society
[edit]Yir-Yoront land divisions were based on patrilineal clans, each of which had a swathe of territory segments of which, on the birth of individual clan-members was then assigned to members according to their respective conceptiontotems(lerrn nerp).[6]That is, their names (nhaprr) were drawn from their clan totems (purrn).[7]This territory extended into the tribal areas of the Kuuk-Thaayorre and Yirrq-mayn (Bakanh) to their north and northwest through political alliances and exogamous marriages that led to Yir-Yoront people adopting other languages ).[8]Their clan system was composed of two moieties, thePam-Pipand thePam-Lul.[9]
Ontology
[edit]The Yir-Yoront distinguishes ordinary humans (pam-morr) wheremorrdenotes 'real', from beings in the other world or realm of the dead, spirits and malevolent beings (wangrr), from dreamed entities (pitthar), and the ancestral beings of the primal time of Creation (pam-wolhlvm, pam-nhing, pam-kopw, pam-ngulgl). By metaphoric extension whites fall outside the category of real beings (morr) and are classified underwangrr,vagrant other world beings of malevolent intent.[10]
Lerrn nerp,literally spirit-child, was the animating figure at conception, the natural object that was the agent of concept was conceived of as an 'image' (mang).[11]While the father's role in conception is acknowledged, pregnancy itself takes place only when thelerrn nerpimmigrates into the body during copulation.[12]
History
[edit]TheDutch exploratory missionunderJan Carstenszoonlanded in 1623 on the coast where the Yir-Yoront dwelt, in order to trade for necessities. The logbook reports that the Dutch found a people who had "no knowledge of precious metals or spices".[13]All the goods the Dutch gave in exchange were still in use among the Yir-Yoront save for pieces of iron and beads.[14]The iron had never been incorporated into their totemic ideology.[15]
A clash that in white man's memory became known as the "Battle of the Mitchell River," in 1864 between European colonists driving cattle underFrancis Lascelles Jardineto the newly established station atSomersetand the probable forebears of the Yir-Yoront led to the death of some 30 odd tribesman with many more probably injured.[14]It is judged to have been one of the rare instances in which Australian aboriginals stood their ground in the face of withering European gunfire for any length of time.[14]During intensive field work in 1933–1935 the American anthropologistLauriston Sharpfailed to elicit any hint of a memory that the incident had occurred.[16]The Australian anthropologistW.E.H Stannercited the essay to question the very notion of a perduring and stable tradition within Aboriginal society, since it appeared that crucial events could vanish from memory within a brief period.[17][18]Nonie Sharp however stated much later that the event was still fresh in the memories of the dispersed tribes living in Kowanyama down to the present day.[19]
Down to the 1930s the Yir-Yoront were relatively autonomous, living in areas not at that time subject to pastoralist expropriation. They were then drawn into theMitchell River Missionand also, soon after, in 1942, atEdward River Mission(known to the Yir-Yoront asLirrqar,though now known by itsKuuk-Thaayorrename, Pormpuraaw), with the ready availability of steel axes and fishhooks living on the missions afforded, together with sugar and tobacco.[20]The introduction of steel tools, it is argued, radically disrupted the culture, since even rock axes were not fashioned by the Yir-Yoront, whose territory was short on suitable rock outcrops, and who had to get them through long-distance trade and exchange networks. Once nearby purchase became accessible, the facility had a revolutionizing ripple down effect of disruption on the earlier exchange system, breaking the monopoly of the elders.[21]Older men avoided initially the missions, and thus the young men and women could obtain the much-sought axes there without having to wait on their male elders, obey the ritual traditions, but simply in exchange for their labour at the missions.[22][15]
"They don't work"
[edit]In 1958 Lauriston Sharp argued that the Yir-Yoront were devoid of politics because they could only think of relationship in terms of kinship system.[23]This was cited in turn byMarshall Sahlinsin hisStone Age Economics[24]who argued that while what we call institutional differentiation exists among them, they do not, as civilized people do, draw a clear line between work and play. The economistRobert L. Heilbronertook this to mean that the concept of work was absent from the most primitive societies, such as theTrobriand Islanders,the!Kungand, citing for this Sahlins' ostensible authority, also the Yir-Yoront, who, he asserted 'use the same word for work and play'.[25]Barry Alpher showed that though their word 'woq' looks like a post-colonial borrowing from English 'work', it can be paralleled in other aboriginal languages cf. 'wuku' attested in theDjabugay language.For the Yir-Yoront, therefore,woqis applied to 'activity of any kind done for a Boss and/or (for) pay.' Heilbroner's prominent claim was flawed from the start.[26][27]
Alternative names
[edit]- Koka-mungin
- KokoMandjoen, Koko-manjoen
- Kokomindjan
- KokoMindjin, Kokominjan, KokoMinjen
- Yir-yiront
Source:Tindale 1974,p. 171
Some words
[edit]- wart'(bad)
- wart'uwər(woman)[a]
Notes
[edit]- ^The word for 'woman' comes from the reduplication of the word for 'bad'. Alpher notes:'It is probably through some such associations ('fertility' or 'taboo'- perhaps via the prohibition against women viewing sacred things) that 'woman' has come to be expressed by a reduplicated form of 'bad' in Coastal Southwest Pama.' (Alpher 1972,p. 83)
Citations
[edit]- ^Alpher 1991,p. 4.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 3.
- ^Kendon 1988,pp. 46, 67.
- ^Tindale 1974,p. 171.
- ^Alpher 1991,pp. 389–391.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 1.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 86.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 2.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 87.
- ^Alpher 1991,pp. 89–90.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 336.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 94.
- ^Roberts 2005,pp. 3–4.
- ^abcSharp 1968,p. 117.
- ^abSchiffer 2016,p. 219.
- ^Stanner 2014,p. 274.
- ^Stanner 2014,p. 278.
- ^Sharp 1968,p. 118.
- ^Sharp 2002,p. 240.
- ^Alpher 1991,pp. 1–2.
- ^Mitchell 2003,p. 188.
- ^Sharp 1968.
- ^Sharp 1958,pp. 1–8.
- ^Sahlins 1974,p. 18, n.14.
- ^Heilbroner 1989,p. 83.
- ^Alpher 1991,p. 629.
- ^Shershow 2005,p. 231 n.3.
Sources
[edit]- Alpher, Barry (1972). "On the Genetic Subgrouping of the Languages of Southwestern Cape York Peninsula, Australia".Oceanic Linguistics.11(2): 67–87.doi:10.2307/3622803.JSTOR3622803.
- Alpher, Barry (1991).Yir-Yoront Lexicon: Sketch and Dictionary of an Australian Language.Walter de Gruyter.ISBN978-3-110-87265-1.
- Heilbroner, Robert L.(1989).Behind the Veil of Economics: Essays in the Worldly Philosophy.W. W. Norton & Company.ISBN978-0-393-24263-8.
- Kendon, Adam (1988).Sign Languages of Aboriginal Australia: Cultural, Semiotic and Communicative Perspectives.Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-36008-1.
- Mitchell, Scott (2003)."Guns or barter? Indigenous exchange networks and the mediation of conflict in post-contact western Arnhem Land".In Clarke, Anne; Torrence, Robin (eds.).The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania.Routledge. pp. 187–220.ISBN978-1-134-82842-5.
- Roberts, Tony (2005).Frontier Justice: A History of the Gulf Country to 1900.University of Queensland Press.ISBN978-0-702-24083-6.
- Sahlins, Marshall(1974) [First published 1968].Stone Age Economics.Transaction Publishers.ISBN978-0-202-36931-0.
- Schiffer, Michael B. (2016).Behavioral Archaeology: Principles and Practice.Routledge.ISBN978-1-134-90372-6.
- Sharp, Nonie (2002).Saltwater People: The Waves of Memory.University of Toronto Press.p.240.ISBN978-0-802-08549-8.
- Sharp, R. Lauriston(June 1934). "The Social Organization of the Yir-Yoront Tribe, Cape York Peninsula (Part 1. Kinship and the Family".Oceania.4(4): 404–431.doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1934.tb00120.x.JSTOR27976162.
- Sharp, R. Lauriston(1958). "People without Politics: The Australian Yir Yoront". In Ray, V. F. (ed.).Systems of Political Control and Bureaucracy in Human Societies.American Ethnological Society. pp. 1–8.
- Sharp, R. Lauriston(1968)."Steel Axes for Stone–Age Australians".In Cohen, Yehudi A. (ed.).Man in Adaptation: The Cultural Present(2nd ed.). Transaction Publishers. pp. 116–127.ISBN978-0-202-36721-7.
- Shershow, Scott Cutler (2005).The Work and the Gift.University of Chicago Press.ISBN978-0-226-75257-0.
- Stanner, W. E. H.(2014).On Aboriginal Religion.Sydney University Press.ISBN978-1-743-32388-5.
- Tindale, Norman Barnett(1974)."Jirjoront (QLD)".Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names.Australian National University Press.