Goreng Goreng


The Goreng Goreng are an Australian Aboriginal people of Queensland, and also a language group. The Goreng Goreng area is between Baffle Creek to Agnes Water in the north, extending westerly as far as Kroombit Tops.

Language

Gurang Gurang, is member of the Waka-Kabic subgroup of the Pama–Nyungan languages. The word gurang means "nought", and, replicated, was used as a marker for the people. Despite the tribe's relative proximity to Rockhampton, Gureng gureng language had strong affinities to languages to its south such as Wakka Wakka and Gubbi Gubbi, an affinity that was also cultural.

Country

The precise borders of traditional Goreng Goreng lands have been disputed. Walter Roth, while collecting data on their language in the later 19th century, placed them in Miriam Vale, where their main camp was at that time. Norman Tindale distinguished them from a Goeng people and defined their land as extending over and embracing the eastern bank of the upper Burnett River from Mundubbera north to Monto and Many Peaks. It is possible that a confusion arose, taking two distinct dialect forms of the one cultural complex, to denote distinct and separate realities, with the Gureng Gureng taken to be an inland tribe, and the Goeng denoting their affines on the coast. A recent survey of the available evidence concludes that the Goreng goring's lands encompassed the 'whole of the area of Gladstone east of the ranges.

Society and culture

The Gureng gureng were divided into several clans, such as the Wakgun. Traditional lore was transmitted at a djaparlagin or a 'singing corroboree'.

History of contact

The Upper Burnett area first began to be settled by colonists in the 1840s. Grazing land was not available further down the river for some decades. Hostilities broke out as land seized for grazing denied aboriginals access to their food resources, and clashes were frequent, leading to several massacres in the Miriam Vale area. It is estimated that between 1847 and 1853, 28 squatters and shepherds were killed as the Burdekin people resisted the onset of the occupation. On each occasion, punitive raids were undertaken to punish the tribes, causing substantial loss of life among the latter. The severity of retaliation was sufficiently drastic to lead the Colonial Office to place the Burnett area's aborigines under official protection by the Native Mounted Police.

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