Limilngan

The Limilngan, also known by the exonym Minitja and (based on a language dialect) Buneidja, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Earlier ethnologists such as Norman Tindale referred to the group as Puneitja or variants of that spelling.

Language

Limilngan, now extinct, was spoken by the people of that name, who are also referred to as Limil and Manidja / Manitja, the latter being an exonym. Buneidja is regarded as the same language, and the people are sometimes referred to by this name.

Country

In Tindale's calculations, the Puneitja's territorial lands covered some 900 square miles (2,300 km²) on the western side of the South Alligator River, running approximately 50 miles inland and along Coirwong Creek. Ronald and Catherine Berndt also placed them at the headwaters of the East Alligator River, a view queried by Tindale, who thought this located them beyond their eastern boundaries.

The area is now in Kakadu National Park, and the people are part of a group to whom native title was granted in March 2022.

Dreamtime origin

In the dreamtime legends of this area, a woman, Imberombera, and a man, Wuraka, are foundational figures. They came to the mainland separately by walking southwards across the sea, and Imberombera landed at Malay Bay (Wungaran). Both originally spoke Iwaidja. She encountered Wuraka and wished him to accompany her, but Wuraka, tired by the burden of his heavy penis, which he carried slung over his shoulder, demurred. Imerombera pressed on, heavily pregnant, and on her journey, left spirit children at various points, together with yams, or cyprus bulbs or bamboo, and chanted the language to be spoken in each area. In what became Puneitja ground, she said: Puneitja ngeinyimma tjikaru, gnoro Jaijipali, the first word indicating the language.

Alternative names

Tindale supplied the following list of alternative spellings and names:

• Peneitja
• Baneidja
• Bani:dja
• Buneidja
• Banidja
• Minnitji
• Punuurlu
• Punaka

Sources

• Eylmann, Erhard (1908). Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (PDF). Berlin: D.Reimer.
• Gibson, Jano (24 March 2022). "Nearly half of Kakadu National Park to be handed back to Aboriginal traditional owners". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
• Harvey, Mark (2001). A Grammar of Limilngan: A Language of the Mary River Region, Northern Territory, Australia (PDF). Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. ISBN 978-0-858-83461-3.
• "Limilngan". AIATSIS.
• Spencer, Baldwin (1914). Native tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (PDF). London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Spencer, Baldwin (1928). Wanderings in wild Australia. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Puneitja (NT)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University.