Mingin
Norman Tindale'
s Aboriginal Tribes of Australia places the Mingin (alternatively Mingginda, Mingir (misprint), Minikin, Minkin, Myngeen) on around 6700 square kilometres in the Gulf Country's savannah plains south of Burketown, east of Moonlight Creek, extending as far east as the Leichhardt River and south to Augustus Downs and Gregory Downs. Their sole contact with the coast was around the Albert River's mouth.
To the east, their neighbours were the Kukatj, with the Mayi-Kutuna to the south and the Ganggalidda people to the west.
Their eastern boundary (the Leichhardt River) seems to have been the divide between Aboriginal cultures practising circumcision (west of the Leichhardt) and those that did not. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Mingin had practised circumcision but dropped the procedure from their initiation ceremonies shortly before the first settlers arrived in the area in the middle of the 19th century.
Although their language affiliation remains uncertain, it probably belonged to the Tangkic language family. It would have been closely related to the languages of the Wellesley Islands and the neighbouring Ganggalida.
Although they spoke distinct languages, the Mingin had close ties to their southern neighbours — the Mayi-Kutuna — with both groups reputedly splitting from the Kalkadoons further south and subsequently holding them in contempt.
With the focal point of early European settlement in the middle of their territory, the Mingin were decimated by a combination of violence and introduced diseases. The yellow fever that ravaged Burketown in its early days probably contributed to a rapid decline. In any case, they were considered extinct by the 1930s, with the Ganggalida people spreading eastwards to occupy the vacant niche. Subsequent native title claims to Mingin territory around Burketown by the Ganggalida and Garawa peoples are based on the principle of succession.
Sources:
AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia
Norman Tindale, Aboriginal Tribes of Australia, p. 181
Wikipedia:Mingin people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingin_people
Missing links:
Gulf Country
savannah
Burketown
Moonlight Creek
Leichhardt River
Augustus Downs
Gregory Downs
Albert River
Mayi-Kutuna
Tangkic language family
Mayi-Kutuna
Kalkadoon
Garawa
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