Djirbalngani

The Djirbalngani, or Dyirbal, are rainforest Aboriginal people of the Atherton Tableland in northern Queensland, once holding some one thousand one hundred square miles from Herberton south to the headwaters of the Herbert River, with Tully Falls as their eastern boundary.

Their language, of the Dyirbalic branch of Pama-Nyungan, sorts every noun into four genders, masculine, feminine, edible and neuter, and speakers once switched from everyday Guwal into a special mother-in-law speech, Dyalnguy, whenever their mother-in-law or father-in-law was present.

The people were organized into four named sections, each with its own totem, the black eel, kite hawk, large eel and eaglehawk, and a strict rule that each section marry only into its prescribed partner section, children belonging to a third.