LETTER TO THE EDITOR

LTTE: Points to Magnetic Island National Park name.

Hello all,

In 1998 I put my hand up as Chairman of the Native Title subcommittee of Magnetic Island Ratepayers Association to understand and see the honesty of the Native Title claims and to promote that understanding to my community to quell any mis construed truths that would or could divide the community. My point was to promote the honesty.

I have only very recently heard about Charles Price’s account of the Coonambella language and find it very interesting that the formal descriptions of his work “language of the Townsville area (Coonambella)” and “Vocabulary of the Coonambella tribe”.

There are quite a few native languages in the whole of the Townsville region.

This to me means he is describing the language of the aboriginal “Tribe  of Coonambella”. In his work prior to presentation in 1887, he describes on pages 184/185, “Yoonbanoon” as Magnetic Island. That to me is really quite definitive but as usual, it is always open to contradiction.

To understand the connection between Wulgurukaba (Rowes Bay mob), Nyawagi (Pallarenda),Bindal and Coonambella is another story but the main thing is that Price is saying that the Coonambella Tribe called Magnetic Island “Yoonbanoon”.

Using Price’s book I split Yoonbanoon back into three and explored each of the three in the Coonambella alphabet arranged words and phrases to find that ……(which I might have it all wrong)

 Yoon ……………pages 182/183…. Line 10 down…..Yoon ga na………………………………Sing Song.

 …………………………………………….Line 11 down …...Yoon gool……………………………… One

 …………………………………………….Line 12 down….. Yoor oong ghar go…………………….Sing for sick (chanting)

Ban…..pages 22/23…..line 4 down .. Ban ghan………………………………………………….Temple…(side of your head)

………………………………Line 5 down…Ban a na……………………………………………………Cut a large heap of fire wood.

………………………………Line 6 down…Bang ing ………………………………………………….. Far away, foreign, a long distance off.

………………………………Line 7 down…Ban ghall………………………………………………….. Many bullocks

 Oon…………….pages 142/143 ….. Oon ghal………………………………. Green Frog. Not sure if oon is Frog or green, suspecting Frog.

This, above, made me wonder did the Coonambella mob call Magnetic Island for “ Far away Many singing Green Frogs”………. Yoonbanoon? Does Yunbenum mean the same thing?

If this is the case then they would have been quite intimate, you would think, with the Island, or their neighbours who spoke of it.

Can I ask that the Department of Environment, Science and Innovation in it’s proposal to rename the Magnetic Island National Park, that it educates the people of Magnetic Island and interested others to the realities behind the name Yunbenum as compared to Yoonbanoon given that the real name may give a fuller historical truth that people of whatever persuasion may embrace with real meaning instead of having secretive/divisional/separatist/specialist/bureaucratic only knowledge, tucked away inside the Department. You might find the community are really interested.

I have confidence that the community could go along with the name change if they could understand other than what appears to be placating. It might even bring an embellishment, to delight the tourists and bring new industry and emerging restaurateurs breeding new green dietary consumables. ()

I plead to the Department, to bring all of the Magnetic Island community, along for the journey of understanding, before any formal name changes.

Sincerely

Michael Schmidt.              MAGNETIC ISLAND.