MAGNT_ABETH_2785

Title: A message stick from the Cadell/Mann River

Description: From MAGNT catalogue: "Meaning unrecorded. Given to Cooke with a message from a Kunwinkju Outstation to someone in Maningrida"

Message: no message can be determined so far

Creator of Object: Unknown

Date Created: 1979

Notes on date created: exact year

Item type: message stick in a collection

Subtype: traditional

State/Territory: NT

Linguistic area 1: Chirila: Gunwinggu Austlang: N65 - Kunwinjku Glottolog: guma1252

Linguistic area 2: Chirila: Gunibidji Austlang: N74 - Ndjebbana Glottolog: djee1236

Notes on linguistic areas: MAGNT linguistic area is given as Kunwingku Note that MAGNT catalogue lists Cadell/Mann river but these two rivers do not intersect with one another and are quite distant. Mann river is more certainly within the Gunwinggu area, and the Cadell river in the Burarra area. What are the outstations on the Mann River that are Gunwinggu? Murray Garde (2014, 104-105) wrote: "Using a ‘big placename’ to refer to an outstation can in some contexts create confusion when such big names have also become designations for other focal sites in the ‘estate’. An example of this involves the kun-bolkngeykimuk or ‘big placename’ of Kubumi, which was used to refer to an outstation on the Mann River established in the early 1980s by people of the Kulmarru clan. The kun-bolkngeyyahwurd or ‘small placename’ for the location of the outstation is Yikarrakkal. The focal place for Kubumi is a stretch of the Mann River where the river widens and white sandy banks are a popular camping place for people from the outstation, which is located only a kilometre upstream to the south. In the period of 1990 to 1997 when I lived at Yikarrakkal, movement between the outstation and the river camp was constant. With both the outstation and the river camp both being referred to by the name Kubumi, it became very difficult to disambiguate reference to these two places when speaking to people who did not live at Yikarrakkal. In 1990 the community decided to deal with this confusion by using the kun-bolkngeyyahwurd of Yikarrakkal for the outstation and the kun-bolkngeykimuk Kubumi, for the river camp. Kuninjku people in the Mann River region will refer to the outstation as either Yikarrakkal or Kubumi depending on their assessment of shared knowledge with interlocutors. ‘Big names’ are more widely known outside of the local sphere of interaction." This is from Garde, Murray. 2014. "Doing things with toponyms: The pragmatics of placenames in Western Arnhem Land." In Indigenous and minority placenames: Australian and international perspectives, edited by Ian D Clark, Luise Hercus and Laura Kostanski, 97-121. On this basis, my best guess for the Mann river outstation is Yikarrakkal (also, and formerly known as Kubumi). This is Linguistic area 1. For Linguistic area 2, I have assigned Gunibidji (Ndjebbana) on the basis that this is the traditional language of Maningrida

Cultural region: TopEnd_arnhem_west

Institution/Holder file: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

Collector: Peter Cooke

Coordinates: 12°30'13.600800"S,134°06'41.500800"E  (-12.503778, 134.111528)

Notes on coordinates: Absolute coordinates for Yikarrakkal outstation

Notes: PK to ask Peter Cooke if he was the messenger, and if the sender gave him a verbal message that he had forgotten or whether Cooke was asked to pass on the message

Media Files:

Data Entry: Piers Kelly