Murrinh-Pathan

The Murrinh-Patha, also called the Murinbata, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory whose traditional lands covered about 2,100 square kilometres inland from Port Keats, stretching east to the Macadam Range and south to Keyling Inlet and the mouth of the Fitzmaurice River.

In historical times they expanded southward and absorbed the Muringura people, and were themselves divided into eight groups, the Nagor among them. Their language served as a lingua franca for neighbouring peoples whose own tongues were dying out.

Initiation centred on the Karwadi, or Punj, a bullroarer ceremony lasting one to two months in which young men were shown the emblem of the Mother of All and brought to full adult standing.