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The Ngunnawal people, also spelt Ngunawal, are an Aboriginal people of southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in Australia.
Ngunnawal and Gundungurra are Australian Aboriginal languages from the Pama-Nyungan family, the traditional languages of the Ngunnawal and Gandangara peoples respectively. The two varieties are very closely related, being considered dialects of the one (unnamed) language, in the technical, linguistic sense of those terms. [1] One classification of these varieties groups them with Ngarigo, as one of several southern tableland languages of New South Wales. [2]
When first encountered by European colonisers in the 1820s, the Ngunawal related people lived around the Yass , the great majority where the result of relationships between male convicts and settlers with Aboriginal women.
Their tribal country according to the early ethnographer, R. H. Mathews, stated their country extended from Goulburn to Yass and Boorowa southwards as far as Lake George to the east and Goodradigbee to the west. [3] To the south of Lake George was the county of the Nyamudy speaking a Ngarigo dialect. Recent research by Harold Koch (2011) and others shows that the Ngunnawal country was primarily the land surrounding the Yass River extending between Lake George to the east and the Murrumbidgee to the west, while the southern boundary of the Ngunnawal people was north of Canberra, approximately on a line from Gundaroo to Wee Jasper. Sometimes the whole of the Burragorang language speaking area as far north as near Young is included as Ngunnawal, giving them a population in the 1830s of well over a thousand people.
A major battle for ownership of the country was fought at Sutton between an invading Ngunnawal band and the Nyamudy inhabitants, which the latter won, establishing the Ngunnawal country, which did not extend further south along the Yass River than Gundaroo.[ citation needed ]
The Ngunawal people were northern neighbours of the Nyamudy/Namadgi people who lived to the south on the Limestone Plains. The Wiradjuri (to the west) and Gundungurra (to the north) peoples also bordered the Ngunnawal.[ citation needed ]
At present,[ when? ] three groups contest ownership in the Canberra area: the Ngambri, the Ngarigo, and the Walgalu speaking Ngambri-Guumaal, represented by Shane Mortimer, with widespread connections from across the Snowy Mountains down to the Blue Mountains.[ citation needed ]
According to settlers living in the area in the 1830s, such as quoted in the Queanbeyan Age , there were three groups in the region: the Ngunnawal, the Yass mob, the Nyamudy/Namadgi , the Limestone Plains Blacks and the Ngariga, the Manaro mob .[ citation needed ]
The present dispute originated when the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory at the time, Jon Stanhope, inaccurately stated that "Ngambri is the name of one of a number of family groups that make up the Ngunnawal nation." He went on to say that "the Government recognises members of the Ngunnawal nation as descendants of the original inhabitants of this region." He made the error after talking with multiracial people of part Ngunnawal descent whose forebears had come from Yass in the 1920s to find work.[ citation needed ]
In 2012 research for the ACT Government, "Our Kin, Our Country", found "there is no basis within the description of the country supplied by Tindale. The research confirmed that the language spoken in the Canberra region was a dialect of Ngarigu, 'related to but distinguishable from the dialects spoken at Tumut and Monaro'". The report stated that evidence gathered from the mid-1700s onward was too scant to support any family's claims to be original owners. [4]
Some Canberra-area Aboriginal people in inland southeast Australia, including Matilda House, identify as Ngambri. Shane Mortimer defines himself as one of the Ngambri-Guumwaal, Guumwaal being a language name said to mean "high country". [5] This claim to be a distinct nation is disputed by many other local Aboriginal people who say that the Ngambri are a small family who took their name from the Sullivan's Creek area located to the east of Black Mountain in the late 1990s. [6]
The earliest direct evidence for Aboriginal occupation in the area comes from a rock shelter near the area of Birrigai near Tharwa, which has been dated to approximately 25,000 years ago. However, it is likely (based on older sites known from the surrounding regions) that human occupation of the region goes back considerably further.[ citation needed ] There is no evidence what Aboriginal people lived in the area then as peoples have constantly changed their country as climate has altered significantly.
Many were gradually displaced from the Yass area beginning in the 1820s when graziers began to occupy the land there. However some people worked at properties in the region.
Historical records of Australia record the last "full-blooded" Ngunnawal person, Nellie Hamilton, dying in 1897.
Namadgi National Park is a protected area in the south-west of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), bordering Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales. It lies approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) southwest of Canberra, and occupies approximately 46 percent of the ACT's land area.
Lake George is an endorheic lake in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia. It is approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) north-east of Canberra located adjacent to the Federal Highway en route to Goulburn and Sydney. Lake George is also the name of a locality on the western and southern edges of the lake, within the area of the Queanbeyan–Palerang Regional Council.
The history of Canberra details the development of the city of Canberra from the time before European settlement to the city's planning by the Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin in collaboration with Marion Mahony Griffin, and its subsequent development to the present day.
Gunning is a small town on the Old Hume Highway, between Goulburn and Yass in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, about 260 km south-west of Sydney and 75 km north of the national capital, Canberra.
Dalton is a small inland country town in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia in Upper Lachlan Shire.
Ngunnawal/Ngunawal is an Australian Aboriginal language, the traditional language of the Ngunnawal. Ngunnawal is very closely related to the Gandangara language and the two were most likely highly mutually intelligible. As such they can be considered dialects of a single unnamed language, but this is the technical linguistic usage of these terms and Ngunnawal people prefer to describe their variety as a language in its own right, as also do the Gandangara.
The history of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) as a separate administrative division began in 1911, when it was transferred from New South Wales to the Australian federal government. The territory contains Australia's capital city Canberra and various smaller settlements. Until 1989, it also administered the Jervis Bay Territory, a small coastal region.
Gundaroo is a small village in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia and in Yass Valley Council. It is situated to the east of the Yass River, about 16 kilometres (10 mi) north of Sutton, about 15 kilometres (9 mi) west of the Lake George range. At the 2016 census, Gundaroo "state suburb" had a population of 1,146. At the 2006 census, its "urban centre/locality" had a population of 331.
The Gundungurra people, also spelt Gundungara, Gandangarra, Gandangara and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia. Their traditional lands include present day Goulburn, Wollondilly Shire, The Blue Mountains and the Southern Highlands.
Burra is an Australian locality of rural smallholdings lying 20 kilometres to the south of Queanbeyan, New South Wales in the Queanbeyan-Palerang Region. At the 2021 census, Burra had a population of 790 people.
The Walgalu are an Aboriginal people of highland southeast New South Wales, Australia. The Ngambri may belong to the Walgalu grouping, but are often treated separately.
The Ngambri are an Aboriginal people of the Ngarigo nation who claim traditional ownership of the Australian Capital Territory area. The area includes the three plains, Ginninderry, Isabella, and Limestone, plus the mountainous areas further to the south. They are represented by the Ngambri Local Aboriginal Land Council base in Queanbeyan.
The Murring–Kuric languages are a family of mainly extinct Australian Aboriginal languages that existed in the south east of Australia.
The Wandandian are an Aboriginal Australian people of the South Coast of New South Wales with connections to the Yuin and Tharawal nations.
Matilda Williams House was born in 1945 on the Erambie Aboriginal Reserve at Cowra, New South Wales (NSW), and raised in her grandfather’s house at Hollywood Aboriginal Reserve in Yass, NSW. When she was 12, House spent a year in Parramatta Girls' Home. House was one of ten children.
The Ngarigo People are Aboriginal Australian people of southeast New South Wales, whose traditional lands also extend around the present border with Victoria.
The Djilamatang were thought to be a distinct Indigenous Australian people of the state of Victoria, Australia. This has recently been questioned by Ian Clark.
The Jaitmatang, also spelled Yaithmathang, are an Indigenous Australian people of the State of Victoria.
The Walbunja, also spelt Walbanga and Walbunga, are an Aboriginal Australian people of New South Wales, part of the Yuin nation.
The Djiringanj, also spelt Dyirringañ, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the southern coast of New South Wales. They are one of a larger group, known as the Yuin people, who all speak or spoke dialects of the Yuin–Kuric group of languages.