Comments on: Yiman does not have a word for ‘massacre’

By: Jim Kable

Jim Kable — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 21:44:11 +0000

Over the years since writing this comment above I learn that while Tom Wills (born in New South Wales – his education in England at Rugby School) had something to do with coaching the First Australians cricket team which went to England – that in fact he did NOT accompany them and in very recent years there has been a revising of his former character as one not so positive – though I think it was more due to a deep depression which engulfed him in the years back in Victoria after the loss of his family at Springsure. I stand to be corrected.

By: Jim KABLE

Jim KABLE — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 21:34:59 +0000

In reply to David Smith.

I suggest you get in touch with Professor Marcia Langton – she is a descendant of the Yiman people, too – and should be able to point you in the right direction. Professor Langton is one of the proponents of The Voice Referendum – if you don’t know her name. Best wishes to you and your wife!

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 21:15:00 +0000

In reply to David Smith. Thank you for your interest, David, and good luck finding resources! I'm sure you are aware of the AIATSIS database, although the entry for Yiman is rather slim. This article contains some recent discussion of classification problems given scarce resources: Breen, G. (2009). The Biri Dialects and their Neighbours. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 133(2), 219-256. doi:10.1080/03721426.2009.10887121

By: David Smith

David Smith — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 10:48:13 +0000

I would like to know the jiman language as my wife is a defendant of the jiman people. We are looking up their history. Thank you

By: mick smith

mick smith — Sun, 07 Apr 2019 13:19:07 +0000

In reply to Jess. Jess indigenous words were not written in english

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 04:38:09 +0000

I work in Native Title as a researcher in the area being discussed. There are a couple of important points to clarify here; firstly there are in fact quite a number of Iman (Yiman, Emon) surviving today and as I type this are headed towards a successful Native Title claim – which means they have maintained a continuing practice of their traditional laws and customs as is a required element of proof in Native Title claims.

Secondly although it is generally relevant, relying on Ted Strehlow’s work with the Aranda of central Australia is not the most appropriate use of the ethnographic record. Much more reliable and applicable to this area of Australia would be the writings of R.H. Matthews, A.W. Howitt and J. Mathew. In these works there are references to groups from a broader region that shared close cultural similarities to the Iman and others in the Dawson River region at times annexing the territory and totemic sites of other groups. This process more often occurred through a process of a kind of succession, but this succession to estates and territory often may have followed a period of sustained and heavy conflict. I raise this point only to highlight the diversity which exists in Aboriginal Australia and warn against drawing inferences too broadly from the general body of ehtnographic literature available.

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 06:42:42 +0000

The bodies were buried without an official investigation being conducted, which also included expert examination to determine cause of death and trauma suffered, so how can it be said that one of the men was castrated? If that is what happened, how come the name of the man was not provided?

Andrew Scott took up Goongarry in 1853, renaming it Hornet Bank which he rented to John Fraser in 1854. When John died in 1856, his eldest son, William, took over the rent. All of this happened before Scott was granted a lease for the run in 1858. Hornet Bank was well-established when the tragedy happened in 1857!

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 09:24:53 +0000

It is noted that the memorial above was placed in Wallumbilla not Taroom, which is synonymous with the Hornet Bank massacre. It is doubtful whether it’s placement would have been permitted. Taroom was cursed by the Jiman people, after Hornetbank and no aboriginies will live in and/or around Taroom. This is a fact that is little known to this day. I must look at the memorial on my next trip through.

By: Ingrid Piller

Ingrid Piller — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:21:45 +0000

In reply to Jess. Intriguing claim ... how do you think 'correctness' would be established in this case? All we can say is that there are spelling variants in English (Jiman, Yiman, Yeeman etc.) and, not being an aboriginal linguist, I've chosen what seems to be the most frequent spelling (see, e.g., Selected Bibliography of Material on the Yiman language and people held at the AIATSIS Library).

By: Jess

Jess — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 08:36:18 +0000

The correct way to spell is Jiman the is silent.

By: Jim KABLE

Jim KABLE — Sun, 06 May 2012 13:54:54 +0000

A friend alerted me to “Japanese on the Move” (I’ll listen on Wednesday evening) – then I followed up a link to Kimie T whom I met at a Japan Foundation evening last year – Dr Ian McARTHUR interviewing Sayuki – an Australian 芸者. (I was some 16 years in western Japan.) And found this reference to Hornet Bank/and the subsequent massacre of Yiman/Jiman people. At the end of last year I was tracking some of my paternal kinfolk (First Fleet arrivals) from Bathurst to Central Queensland – one of whom joined in the immediate vengeance murders of the Yiman – post the 1857 Hornet Bank attack. The “Frazer Massacre” as Egon Kisch rightly calls it. It is salutary to contrast William Frazer’s “filial devotion” with that of Tom WILLS following the slaughter of his family and others (19 in all) by local Indigenous people whose land was being taken – at Springsure in 1861 – the “Cullin-La-Ringo” aka the “Wills Massacre”. He did not join in the the subsequent slaughter – but went back to Western Victoria where he’d grown up – and created a cricket team from local Indigenous men whose language/s he spoke – and took them to England (see Greg de MOORE’s recently published biography of Tom) – in the late 1860s – where they won 14 games, lost 14 games and drew 19 games! I am just back from a trip to Lake Mungo – where I heard of the Rufus River Massacre of Indigenous people further to the west – then there’s the Myall Creek Massacre – and one in Port Stephens – in fact far too many! History!

By: khan

khan — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:04:03 +0000

A thought provoking post triggers thoughts on historiography: ‘what is of real interest in intercultural communication is whose point of view gets recorded, whose voice matters’. Thank you very much Professor Ingrid. I think the celebrated histories are often the histories of elites written by their paid historians. I would like to give you the example of Indian History because I am more familiar with it. The history of India has been written by historians who were employees of East India Company, a commercial group that came to India for trade in seventeenth century and later became the master of this land for two centuries. Before British the patrons of historians were invaders from Arab, Afghanistan, Persia who came and ruled India in different times. What we find in these histories is the account of few great leaders who have done everything for enlightening the ‘dark, static Indian society bound to a caste system, without any dynamics for change’. These messiahs came and brought candle to the dark world and now the dark worlds have become bright. In this historiography,’ the subaltern ‘ (Gramsci) voices are missing because they are constructed as barbarians, savages with very crude languages.
I find Linguistic relativity as an important inquiry point but what is more important is ‘whose voice matters and whose gets recorded.

By: Jane Simpson

Jane Simpson — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:53:01 +0000

One of a number of terrible stories, the Hornet Bank massacre of the Frasers and the subsequent massacre of many Aborigines have been retold in books with sensational titles, e.g. “Murder!: 25 True Australian Crimes”, as well as by Henry Reynolds, Bruce Elder and Judith Wright. Perhaps that’s why this book has had less airtime.

On looking for a name – the “secret war” is a recent name given to the frontier battles in Queensland – made peculiarly hideous by the role of the “Native Police”.

The name of the people concerned, Yiman, gets variously spelled as Iman, Jiman and Emon. There are fragments in the linguistic and ethnographic records about them, about their social system, but not much; it is hard therefore to know how much their language differed from those of their neighbours, about whom more is known.