About Nyarima

Nyarima – Mununjali Men’s Group Bird Names Project

 

Wunman Njinde (hello all) my name is Dale Anderson, I’m Gunnai-Kurnai Kaurna and a member of the Mununjali Mens group, welcome to our site.  I initiated and led the Nyarima Bird Names Project. The Mununjali Mens group have always been! In recent times we are indigenous men from multiple tribes who reside in south east Queensland’s Scenic Rim area.  We have about 50 regular attendees to our meetings and hundreds more for special occasions. We provide a safe place for support and we also have cultural activities.

 

Maibin Jahyilah Yahgilah Inc (MJYinc) was set up by the unincorporated Mununjali Men’s Group to facilitate our projects.  One of these projects was a Traditional Burn Training Program.  Part of the program was revisiting plant and animal ecology and traditional lore, including birds. Birds are important indicators of seasonal changes and other aspects of reading country.  From this project we identified issues around the indigenous names for birds. Sometimes where our stories and lore featured birds, the western name we used often did not match the actual bird we were referring to, or the western name we selected for a bird while similar looking to the bird we were referring to,  according to ornithology did not inhabit our language area.  Further, our research on the very few published lists of indigenous names for birds found they often have local western names that do not match a name used for any birds and for many birds we could not find a traditional name.

That might explain why for the 700 plus birds in Australia only 13 have an indigenous common name in use by the wider community ( think Galah, Kookaburra, Currawong, Emu, can you name some others?)

If we couldn’t match our language names to birds and these lists were not available elsewhere how would others do the same. We thought a modern tool that helps resolve these issues would be worthwhile.

With this objective, MJYinc applied, and was awarded funds from Department of Seniors, Disability Services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships 2021 Indigenous Languages Grants to develop a pilot web based tool. We named this project NYARIMA (to give a name) see below.

Web based tools are generally expensive to develop. Our grant would not have been able to be delivered if it were not for the extra volunteer work over and above the contract funds from our developer and ornithology/project manager.   So a very big thankyou to the skilled web developer Lance Solomon of GetLucid Solutions and the incredibly brilliant project manager – skilled ornithologist Simone Powell.

The pilot examples are based on the Yugambeh Language area, and a special thanks to the contributions from Kombumerri’s Clinton Brewer and Mununjali’s Germaine Paulson.  Publishing indigenous stories or lore always requires understanding and respect especially during times of Native Title were the legislation is designed to disenfranchise mob from mob and create division and where the legislation forces knowledge to not be about learning but about power and control.  So the support and guidance given was very much appreciated. 

Please enjoy Nyarima. We pay respect to the Traditional Custodians and First Peoples of Australia, and acknowledge their/our continued connection to their/our country and culture.

Nyarima – what does it mean?

The word Nyarima is derived from Nyari which in the Yugambeh language means ‘name’ or ‘totem’ and the verbal suffix –ma ‘to make or do’.

 

More specifically ‘Nyari’  in the Yugambeh language refers to one’s mother’s mother’s totem, i.e. one’s flesh. Traditionally, a person took a name that was reflective of this matriline totem, for example, a man of the Frog totem may have a name like ‘Jaranggir’ (leg-one) because the frog has long legs (jarang), and Jarang also sounds like ‘Jarany’ which means Frog. Nyari is an ancient Proto-Australian word as well and can be found in many languages in various forms denoting things like name, totem or flesh/meat. In the central Queensland area, a totem is often known as one’s Yuri.

Thanks to Shaun Davies (Yugambeh Language centre) for this definition. 

 

Thanks to all our Contributors

Sincere thanks to the following people who have worked on or generously volunteered their time and works helping to make Nyarima what it is:

Waylene Currie – Contemporary ArtistWRLC Arts Mununjali wangerriburra 

Dave Stewart – Sound Recordist

Ron Ricketts – Photographer

Eliza Scott – Photographer

Ailie Henson – Photographer

Jarred Coolwell – Artist