Nunggubuyu

The Nunggubuyu are an Aboriginal Australian people of eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, whose traditional lands ran south from Cape Barrow and Harris Creek to the coast facing Edward Island. Their language, Wubuy, is a non-Pama-Nyungan tongue of the Gunwinyguan group, marked by intricate verb prefixes and noun classes.

By the 1700s the Macassan trepang trade had reached their coast, and Wubuy retains at least twenty-eight Makassarese loanwords from that exchange. Nunggubuyu society is divided into the Mandayung and Mandaridja moieties, and the Mandayung moiety holds the Gunabibi cult; clans of the neighbouring Warndarang, whose language died out, were absorbed into Nunggubuyu communities.