Ngambri

Ngambri or Kamberri is the name of the ancestral group and their descendants after whom the capital of Australia, Canberra, is named.

Since the Native Title Act was passed in 1994, the mainly Yass- and Boorowa-based Ngunnawal (also spelled Ngunawal, which is the name of a language not a people)^[vague] have been asserting their claims to be the 'rightful traditional custodians' of the area now incorporating the Australian Capital Territory and surrounds, mainly through their kinship connections to Ngambri descendants, many of whom also identify as Ngunnawal through non-Ngambri kinship lines. The Ngunnawal claims are mainly based on the linguistic map published by Dr Norman Tindale in 1974, Aboriginal Tribes of Australia, yet even Tindale did not place the 'Ngunawal' south of the Molonglo River. The area south of the Molonglo River was, according to Tindale, the country of the Walgalu speaking peoples, made up of two close kin groups, the Ngambri and the Ngurmal. These two groups merged under the leadership of Onyong (Ngambri) and Noolup, aka Jimmy the Rover (Ngurmal) soon after white settlement in the 1820s.

The current ACT Government, however, supports the Ngunnawal claims. In response to a recent question in the ACT Government about the 'official' status of the Ngambri, ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope stated that "Ngambri is the name of one of a number of family groups that make up the Ngunnawal nation," and that his government "recognises members of the Ngunnawal nation as descendants of the original inhabitants of this region. There is no specific recognition of the Ngambri group outside of this broader acknowledgement."^[1]

However, while some Ngambri descendants married into the Yass and Boorowa-based Ngunnawal and can refer to themselves as Ngunnawal through those lines, this does not necessarily mean that Ngunnawal descendants can claim a Ngambri identity.^{[citation needed]}

The name, Canberra, is a corruption of the original name written in Roman script of this region, Canberry, also spelled Canburry, which is itself a corruption of the original Aboriginal name for both the local people and country in the region that now incorporates the Australian Capital Territory: Ngambri.^{[citation needed]}

The European invasions not only devastated and decimated the original Aboriginal populations in New South Wales and the modern ACT, they also created new political and geographical constructs and under 19th century NSW policies deliberately moved Aboriginal peoples around to disassociate them from their ancestral countries.^{[citation needed]} Many Ngambri had fled to the mountains and to the tops of trees when they heard through the trading links that the white explorers were on their way past Weereewaa (Lake George) and were about to enter Ngambri country in 1821.

Matilda House is a Ngambri-Ngunnawal elder. Black Harry Williams, also known as Ngoobra, House’s great-grandfather, and Harry Williams her grandfather, both identified as Ngambri. House is the Chair of the Ngunnawal Local Aboriginal Land Council in Queanbeyan and the Joint Chair of the Interim Namadgi National Park Committee. In 2006 she was named as the Canberra Citizen of the Year.^[2]

References

1. ^ Parliamentary Debates, Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, 6 May 2005.
2. ^ Russell, Roslyn (2007). "House, Matilda (1945 - )". Australian Women Biographical entry. National Foundation for Australian Women on Australian Women's Archives Project Web Site. http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE2101b.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-06. 

• Ann Jackson-Nakano, The Kamberri: a history from the records of Aboriginal families in the Canberra-Queanbeyan district and surrounds 1820-1927 and historical overview 1928 -2001 Aboriginal History Monograph 8, ANU Press, 2001.