Unjadi Explained

The Unjadi (Unyadi) were an indigenous Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula of northern Queensland.

Language

According to Lauriston Sharp, the Unjadi language differed only marginally from that spoken by the neighbouring Okara.

Country

The Unjadi's traditional lands, embracing some 500mi2 of territory, lay around the upper Dulhunty tributary of the Ducie river as far north as the headwaters of the Jardine River.

Social organization

The American anthropologist R. Lauriston Sharp described the Unjadi as belonging to what he called the Jathaikana type with regard to their totemic organization. By this he meant that the Unjadi lacked a moiety and section division. Their totemic clans were patrilineal whose totems were not normally tabu, tabus being applied rigorously only to personal totems from the mother's clan, which were assigned to male and female individuals with the onset of puberty.

Alternative names

• Unyadi
• Onyengadi
• Oyungo, Oyonggo (a Tjongkandji exonym).
• Empikeno (a Jathaikana exonym)
• Umtadee (?)
• Wundjur (?)

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Social Organization of the Tribes of Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland . McConnel . Ursula H. . Ursula McConnel . . 10 . 1 . 54–72 . September 1939 . 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1939.tb00256.x . 40327720 .
• Social Organization of the Tribes of Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland (Continued) . McConnel . Ursula H. . Ursula McConnel . . 10 . 4 . 434–455 . June 1940 . 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1940.tb00305.x . 40327867 .
• Book: Parry-Okeden, William . Report on the North Queensland aborigines and the native police . William Parry-Okeden . 1897 . Edmond Gregory, government printer .
• Tribes and Totemism in North-East Australia . Sharp . R. Lauriston . Lauriston Sharp . . 9 . 3 . 254–275 . March 1939 . 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1939.tb00232.x . 40327744 .
• Hero cult, initiation and totemism on Cape York Peninsula . Thomson . Donald Fergusson . Donald Thomson . . 63 . 453–537 . July–December 1933 . 10.2307/2843801 . 2843801 .
• Notes on a Hero Cult from the Gulf of Carpentaria, North Queensland . Thomson . Donald Fergusson . Donald Thomson . . 64 . 217–235 . July–December 1934 . 10.2307/2843808 . 2843808 .
• Book: Tindale, Norman Barnett . Unjadi (QLD) . Norman Tindale . Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names . 1974 . . http://archives.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindaletribes/unjadi.htm . 978-0-708-10741-6 .