The Girramay are 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 extend over some south from Rockingham Bay to Cardwell. Northwards, their boundaries reach close to the upper Murray River and the Cardwell Range, and also take in inland areas of the Herbert River.
Society Before European settlement, the Girramay lived in a mixture of rainforest and open forest environments.
Foods and artefacts Girramay territory has 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. wila (cakes of brown walnut)
Alternative names Kiramai Giramai, Giramay, Giramaygan Kirrama, Kirrami, Kerrami Wombelbara (Warakamai exonym)
Some words gamu (water) cf. Dyirbal bana gumbul (woman) cf. Dyirbal jugumbil garba (ear) cf. Dyirbal manga wuyan, a verb meaning to "keep on taking bit by bit from a group, or from a pile of objects, until scarcely any remain" whoyerr (tame dog)
Notes
Citations
Sources
External links
Girramay Language Recordings and Language Recording Workshop, State Library of Queensland