Turrbal Explained

The Turrbal are an Aboriginal Australian people from the area now known as Brisbane. The boundaries of their traditional territory are unclear and linguists are divided over whether they spoke a separate language or a dialect of the Yuggera language. The Turrbal/Yuggera toponym for the central Brisbane area is Meanjin.

Name

The ethnonym Turrbal is an exonym which is thought to derive from the root turr/dhur (bora ring) and -bal, signifying "those who say turr or dhur for a bora ring", rather than using the other tribe's customary term bool. It was the toponym used in 1841 by native guides from Nundah who led the group of German Lutheran missionaries to the Ningy Ningy at what became Toorbul Point, in the area where they established the Zion Hill Mission.

Language

Turrbal is considered either a dialect of the Yuggera language, or a separate language, one of five subgroups of the Durubalic branch of the Pama-Nyungan languages. Tom Petrie, son of one of the founding families of the Brisbane area settlements, mixed freely with the Turrbal, and mastered the language and the contiguous dialects from an early age. He stated that Turrbal was spoken from Gold Creek and Moggill, north as far as North Pine, and south to the Logan River. Connors, however, states that the Yaggera (Yuggera) language group spread south of the Brisbane River from the Brisbane River Valley to the present South Bank almost to Morton Bay.

Meanjin (also Meeanjin, Mianjin) is a Turrbal/Yuggera word whose various etymologies suggest a meaning of "spike place" or "tulip wood". It was used for the area now covered by Gardens Point and the Brisbane central business district. The Turrbal called the early Brisbane settlement "Umpi Korrumba" meaning "many houses".

Country

The Turrbal people's traditional lands lay around the Brisbane River. Tom Petrie stated that their land coincided with the territorial range of their language. Ford and Blake, however, state that the Turrbal and Jagera were distinct peoples, the Jagera generally living south of the Brisbane river and the Turrbal mostly living north. The group comprised a number of family clans, such as the Ngundari. Neighbouring Aboriginal peoples include the Gubbi Gubbi and Wakka Wakka to the north, the Dalla to the northwest and the Quandamooka of Moreton Bay.

At the time of European settlement, the Turrbal comprised local groups each of which had a "head man" and a specific territory. The European names for the locality groups, sometimes called clans, of the Brisbane area include the Duke of York's clan, the North Pine (or Petrie), the Coorpooroo, Chepara, Yerongpan and others.

Despite collective title to a stretch of land, the Turrbal permitted private ownership of specific sections of land. Petrie states:

Though the land belonged to the whole tribe, the head men often spoke of it as theirs. The tribe in general owned the animals and birds on the ground, also roots and nests, but certain men and women owned different fruit or flower-trees and shrubs. For instance, a man could own a bonyi (Araucaria bidwilli) tree, and a woman a minti (Banksia amula), dulandella (Persoonia Sp.), midyim (Myrtus tenuifolia), or dakkabin (Xanthorrhoea aborea) tree. Then a man sometimes owned a portion of the river which was a good fishing spot, and no one else could fish there without his permission.

Mythology

In Turrbal thought, the origins of the division of the sexes was attributed to two nocturnal flying creatures. Menfolk all came from the billing (a small house bat). Women in turn had their descent from a wamankan (night-hawk). Given their mythic function, they could not be eaten, but capturing and killing them was permitted.

History

The explorer John Oxley, on first sighting the Turrbal in 1824, called them "about the strongest and best-made muscular men I have seen in any country".

The Turrbal's tracks form the basis of many modern-day roads. Waterworks Road from Ashgrove is built on a Turrbal track that leads to Mount Coot-tha. Turrbal people would go to Mount Coot-tha to collect honey (ku-ta) from the bees there; it is the place of the honey-bee dreaming. Similarly, Old Northern Road from Everton Hills is built on a Turrbal track that led to the site of a triennial Bunya feast in neighboring Wakka Wakka country.

Many suburbs and places in Brisbane have names derived from Turrbal/Yuggera words. Woolloongabba is derived from either woolloon-capemm meaning "whirling water", or from woolloon-gabba meaning "fight talk place". Toowong is derived from tuwong, the onomatopoeic name for the Pacific koel. Bulimba means "place of the magpie-lark". Indooroopilly is derived from either nyindurupilli meaning "gully of leeches", or from yindurupilly meaning "gully of running water". Enoggera is a corruption of the words yauar-ngari meaning "song and dance".

Hunting and gathering economy

The Turrbal exploited a large range of local species of animals and insects as part of their daily cuisine. These may be divided into sea- and riverine food, mainland victuals, and vegetables.

Vegetables and fruit

Meats

They often sought out goanna (magil) eggs, which could be found near ant nests in soft soil. The Turrbal would occasionally hunt marine animals, such as dugongs (yangon), porpoises (talobilla), tailor fish (punba), and mullet (andakal).

Alternative names

Turubul, Turrubul, Turrubal, Terabul, Torbul, Turibul.

Native title

Descendants of both the Turrbal and the Jagera (Yugara) consider themselves traditional custodians of the land over which much of Brisbane is built. Native claim applications were lodged respectively by the Turrbal in 1998 and the Jagera in 2011, and the two separate claims were combined in 2013. In January 2015, Justice Christopher Jessup for the Federal Court of Australia, in Sandy on behalf of the Yugara People v State of Queensland (No 2), rejected the claims on the basis that under traditional law, which was now lacking, none of the claimants would be considered to have such a land right. The decision was appealed before the full bench of the Federal Court, which on 25 July 2017 rejected both appeals, confirming the 2015 decision that native title does not exist in the greater Brisbane area.

Notable people

See also

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

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