Welcome to Ngambri Country!
It’s Official – Announced at the Ngambri LALC meeting in Queanbeyan 11 08 2008
Your Local Area Aboriginal Land Council for the Canberra region is now Ngambri Local Area Land Council.
It is important to get this correct. Canberra, the nations capital, is named after the Traditional Owners, the Ngambri People. Ngambri, became Kamberri which became Canberra. NOW the ACT Government has the opportunity to correct the 1970’s errors of Anthropologist Norman Tindale and acknowledge the Ngambri People as the Traditional Owners. Like the signs at all entrances to the ACT saying ‘Welcome to Ngunnawal’! Onnawal (not Ngunnawal as Tindale coined it in the 1970’s) is a language spoken by our neighbours north of the Yass River around Boorowa. These signs are akin to the French erecting signs on their boarders saying, "Welcome to Genglish". Would that give the French a claim on Great Britain?
The fact is – There is no such thing as Ngunnawal People!
Acknowledging a miss spelt word that is a language that was not spoken in the area as the traditional owner and refusing to acknowledge that the Ngambri People are the Traditional Owners displays Jon Stanhope’s pig ignorance on this topic. Norman Tindale lumped together the Ngambri People, with, Pajong, Ngurmal, Monaroo, Moolingoolah, Parramarragoo, Wallabalooa, Mulwaree, People with distinctly different cultures, languages, customs and regions, all under the name Ngunnawal. Contact : Shane Mortimer for further information.
Ngambri is the traditional name of Canberra.
The Ngambri People are the Traditional Owners of the land, (part of which is occupied by the Australian Capital Territory), that takes in an area that goes north to the Yass River. East down the escarpment along Weereewa (Lake George), taking in Bungendore, Captains Flat and bordering on the Shoalhaven River. South to Bunyan, near Cooma and West to the Goodradigbee River. Canberra and Queanbeyan are at the very centre of Ngambri Country. Ngambri was first officially named ‘Camberry’ in 1832. Then Lady Denman proclaimed it ‘Canberra’, the Australian Capital, in 1913.
Ngambri People speak the Walgalu language, which we share with the Ngurmal People over the Brindabella’s near Gundagai/Tumut. Our Ngurmal Cousins very generously shared their land with Ngambri People who were displaced by European occupation in the 1820’s & 30’s, although Ngambri People have always had a presence in the area. James Ainslie was guided to the area by a Ngambri Woman, only ever referred to in history as "Ainslie’s lubra". They had a child named Jun-In-Mingo, we know her as Nanny. The first Aboriginal/Anglo born in Ngambri Country. Ainslie originally gave the area the name Pialigo, his pronounciation of the Walgalu word ‘Byalegee’ until his employer Robert Campbell renamed it Duntroon after his castle in Scotland. James Ainslie was only in Ngambri Country for ten years. He then abandoned his child and her mother and went back to Scotland never to return. Ainlie’s Lubra and her daughter Jun-in-Mingo remained. Jun-in-Mingo became the consort of the Ngambri Chief, Onyong and had a daughter named Sarah McCarthy Duncan. Sarah had eleven children with Ngurmal man, Black ‘Dick’ Lowe. They too remained in the area, until taken from Sarah and placed in Catholic orphanages.
It is important to get this right. Not acknowledging the Ngambri as Traditional Owners is as wrong as the act of stealing the children and ledt alone the land. Our people lived with this land for 25,000+ years, without gaols, churches, money, agriculture, hospitals, etc. We are of the land. European settlement took just 220 years to destroy 455,000,000 hectares of this country. The least you can do is get the story right.
