Girramay


The Girramay were an Australian Aboriginal tribe of northern Queensland.

Name

The Girramay ethnonym is formed from jir:a, meaning 'man.'

Language

The Girramay spoke the most southerly dialect of Dyirbal.

Country

The Girramay people's traditional lands extended over some south from Rockingham Bay to Cardwell. Northwards, their boundaries reached close to the upper Murray River and the Cardwell Range, and also took in inland areas of the Herbert River.

Society

The Girramay lived in a mixture of rainforest and open forest environments.

Foods and artifacts

Girramay territory had trees with a variety of bark that could be beaten into a cloth to fashion a 'rain shield' and neighbouring tribes such as the Dyirbal and Ngajanji therefore called this device a keramai, their pronunciation of the Girramay ethnonym.