The Gamilaraay, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland.
Gamilaraay, also spelled Kamilaroi, is an Australian Aboriginal language which was spoken over a vast area of north-central New South Wales when Europeans began colonising Australia.
KAMILAROI/GAMILAROI/GOMEROI COUNTRY
Different pronunciations of the nation's name have stemmed from oral traditions and the sharing of knowledge through many generations, and are all recognised as correct.
Assimilationist terms such as 'full-blood,' 'half-caste' and 'quarter-caste' are extremely offensive and should never be used when referring to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The Kamilaroi believe in a large number of supernatural beings. Among them, the most important are: Baiame, Dharramulan and Garriya. Baiame, pronounced BYE-umme, is believed to have the greatest of Powers.
These sounds are both pronounced in the same part of the mouth, but “g” has voice added. You can feel this if you put your hand on your throat and say “k” and “g” in English. These sounds do not make any difference to the meaning of words in Gamilaraay, so "g" was standardised for use in the dictionary.
The Gamilaraay, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Australia.
To make direct eye contact can be viewed as being rude, disrespectful or even aggressive.To convey polite respect, the appropriate approach would be to avert or lower your eyes in conversation.
Son/daughter-in-law and mother-in-law. In what is the strongest kinship avoidance rule, some Australian Aboriginal customs ban a person from talking directly to their mother-in-law or even seeing her. A mother-in-law also eats apart from her son-in-law or daughter-in-law and their spouse.
Is it OK to call Indigenous Australians 'Aborigines'? 'Aborigine' is generally perceived as insensitive, because it has racist connotations from Australia's colonial past, and lumps people with diverse backgrounds into a single group.
Two totems of the Kamilaroi or Gamilaroi nation (people of the Liverpool Plains – Narrabri, Gunnedah, Moree) are the eagle and the crow. Under the eagle the clan totems include ringtail possum, red kangaroo, quoll, wallaroo, platypus, quail, barking owl, emu, brolga and death adder.
This led to several massacres of which Myall Creek was the most infamous. As early as 1855 the missionary William Ridley found that the Kamilaroi were “much reduced” through introduced diseases, massacre, and deprivation of traditional tribal lands and foods.
Gomeroi¹ Country extends broadly from the Queensland/NSW border region to Tamworth, Aberdeen/Muswellbrook, Coonabarabran and Walgett.
A typical talking point is when a woman is "Bunti Up" (pregnant).
Meanwhile, “yaama” means “hello” in the Gamilaraay language spoken in northern NSW.
Bunda- title of a marital class; a man of that class {Kabi} (Watson 1944: 26) Bundaberg - The city name is thought to be an artificial combination of bunda, the Kabi Aboriginal word denoting important man and the German suffix berg indicating mountain. Bunda is one of the moieties attributed to the Kabi Language Group.
In Aboriginal culture it is taboo to mention (or in some cases write) the name of a deceased person. Aboriginal people believe that if the deceased person's name is mentioned, the spirit is called back to this world.
Examples of Religious Taboos
Homosexuality – Several of the major religions have rules against homosexuality. Abortion – Most religions continue to forbid abortion. Adultery – Prohibition of adultery is one of the ten commandments. People who commit adultery usually keep it a secret because their actions are taboo.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
More than 68% of Aboriginal people live in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria while Western Australia and the Northern Territory contribute only 22% of the Aboriginal population.
The Wiradjuri are the largest Aboriginal group in central New South Wales, by area and population, and second largest in Australia, with lands stretching east from the Great Dividing Range, to Hay and Nyngan in the west, Gunnedah to the north and Albury to the south.
Aboriginal people learn about their totem through ceremonies, Dreaming stories and by watching them. Today, we can read their stories and do projects about them. Aboriginal people sing songs and tell stories so that everyone knows about their totem.