Gooniyandin

The Gooniyandi are an Aboriginal people of the Kimberley in Western Australia, whose country centres on the Fitzroy River around Fitzroy Crossing. Their language forms, with Bunuba, the small non-Pama-Nyungan Bunuban family, the two tongues as close as English and Dutch.

Inland foragers organised in bands, they divided their land into walibiri river country of pools and watercourses rich in fish, crustaceans and reptiles, pindiri scrub plains where kangaroos were hunted, and ka:waro hill country holding euros; men took bustards, echidnas and emus while women gathered vegetables, honey, frogs and witchetty grubs.

Commanding the Fitzroy crossing, they were intermediaries in long-distance trade: pressure-flaked stone knives known as tjimbila and sea shells called tjakuli, the latter brought from the coast, passed through their hands to the Gija and the Western Desert peoples.