Gia people

The Gia people, also known as Giya, Kia, Bumbarra, and variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Queensland. Little is known of them.

Language

Main article: Giya language

The Gia spoke Giya/Bumbarra, a dialect of the Biri language, belongs to the Proserpine subgroup of the Maric languages.^[1]

AIATSIS, in its AUSTLANG database, assigns a separate code to Ngaro, but its status is shown as unconfirmed, as the only source for it is a wordlist by Norman Tindale.^[2]

Country

According to Tindale, the Gias' lands extended over some 4,100 square kilometres (1,600 sq mi) of land from Bowen to St. Helens and Mount Dalrymple. Inland they reached the Clarke Range. They were present at Proserpine, Gloucester Island, and Repulse Bay.^[3][4]

Tindale registered this as a distinct tribe, directly south of Port Denison, but this has been questioned by Barker.^[5]

Although Ngaro is given as a synonym for Gia, and vice versa, it appears that the Ngaro people inhabited the Whitsunday Islands.

The Yuwibara people occupied land to their south.

The Traditional Owner Reference Group consisting of representatives of the Yuwibara, Koinmerburra, Barada Barna, Wiri, Ngaro, and those Gia and Juru people whose lands are within Reef Catchments Mackay Whitsunday Isaac region, helps to support natural resource management and look after the cultural heritage sites in the area.^[6]

Earliest description

In response to inquiries made by Edward Micklethwaite Curr, Sergeant B. Shea, a resident of the Gia area, provided a sketch of the natives of his district.^[7] He identified them as the Bumbarra tribes. He provided the names of the tribal divisions: those applying to men were Karilla and Whychaka, while women belonged either to the Denterbago or Helmerago. Marriage was contracted when girls reached the age of 12.^[8]

Alternative names

• Kia
• Bumbara,^[a] Bumbarra

Some words

• wina (fish)
• pigina (mosquito)
• kroopulla (fly)
• worniwoma (black woman)
• yaboo (father)
• yanga (mother)
• koloona (young man)
• kutha (old man)
• kummi (old woman)
• korea (head)
• dilli (eye)
• wolloo (ear)^[8]
• dongalla (excrement)
• nikkana (food)
• kangoola (thirsty)
• wangalla (boomerang)^[9]

Notes

1. Bumbara is a toponym, and Tindale thought it might refer to a horde of the Gia people^[3]

Citations

1. Dixon 2002, p. xxxiii.
2. E59 Ngaro at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
3. Tindale 1974, p. 168.
4. E58 Giya at the Australian Indigenous Languages Database, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
5. Barker 1995, pp. 29–30.
6. "Traditional Owners". Reef Catchments. 9 September 2020. Archived from the original on 20 October 2020. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
7. Shea 1887, pp. 4–7.
8. Shea 1887, p. 4.
9. Shea 1887, p. 7.

References

• Barker, Bryce (1995). The Sea People: Maritime Hunter-gatherers on the Tropical Coast: a Late Holocene Maritime Specialisation in the Whitsunday Islands, Central Queensland. Pandanus Books.
• Davidson, Daniel Sutherland (1938). "A preliminary register of Australian tribes and hordes". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 79 (4): 649–679.
• Dixon, Robert M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
• Shea, B. (1887). "From port Denison to Cape Gloucester" (PDF). In Curr, Edward Micklethwaite (ed.). The Australian race: its origin, languages, customs, place of landing in Australia and the routes by which it spread itself over the continent. Vol. 3. Melbourne: J. Ferres. pp. 4–7.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Gia (QLD)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. Archived from the original on 2 July 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2017.