Indigenous Australia

Nebinyan, c. 1877

Daisy Bates Collection, University of Adelaide

Nebinyan (c. 1840–1911), whaler, songman, and cultural informant, eldest son of Minang (Mirnang/Mineng) Nyungar (Noongar) parents Burduwun and Nungilan, was born in the early 1840s at Kattaburnap (Oyster Harbour) near Albany, Western Australia. Possibly due to the homophony with Napoleon, he was also known as Bonaparte or Boney. His paternal grandfather was present when Matthew Flinders brought HMS Investigator to King George Sound in December 1801. More than a century later, Nebinyan would describe to Daisy Bates, ethnographer and journalist, the koorannup (home of the dead) keniny (dance), a travelling corroboree based on a British military drill witnessed there.

From his early twenties to his late thirties, Nebinyan would have spent much of his time observing or participating in shore whaling. Between 1862 and 1877, and probably earlier, he was registered as boat-hand for whaling crews stationed at Middle Island, Doubtful Island Bay, and Cheynes Beach on the south coast of Western Australia. He may have worked for whaling crews on the west coast, too. The open boat whaling industry ceased in Western Australia in 1879, two years after the last record of Nebinyan’s whaling career. A studio portrait of him during this time is held in the Daisy Bates collection at the University of Adelaide.

Nebinyan had two wives, Nguranit and Ngurakoyt, a son, Karalit, and a daughter, Kaneran. Government records describe an individual in the Albany area named ‘Boney alias Bonaparte’ receiving rations in 1898. In 1901 one of his wives died and Karalit was removed to New Norcia mission. Four years later a fire at Albany destroyed his and other Nyungar camps.

By his late sixties Nebinyan had relocated to a reserve at Katanning, midway between Albany and Perth, together with Nyungar from across the south-west and Ngatjumaya (Ngadjumaya/Ngadju) from further east. He met Bates there in 1906 and again in 1908 when she visited to collect Aboriginal stories and vocabularies. She described him as a man of ‘great strength, height, fine health and strong physique’ (University of Adelaide Library MSS 572.994 B32t). Recognising him as ‘the chief song maker of his tribe’ (cited in White 1980, 35), she transcribed lyrics for a few of the many songs he had created based on his experiences as a hunter and whaler. According to Bates, these expressed ‘the whole gamut of native feeling’:

the sorrow of [Nebinyan], as he saw his fire (home) recede further and further away; the stealthy gliding over the water towards the resting whale, the sharp look out, the growing excitement as the huge fish was approached; the great seas that threatened to swamp the whale boat; the swift and sure harpooning; the final surrender of the whale; the triumphant towing back to ship or beach, and the great rejoicing over the whale feast—each of these formed a song in itself, and the actions peculiar to each ‘stage’ were faithfully rendered. (cited in White 1980, 35–36)

No existing musical notation or recorded audio of these songs has been found.

In 1909 Bates invited Nebinyan to the Perth Carnival as part of a contingent of performers from all over the south-west, and Roebourne, a town in the Pilbara region in the State’s north-west. A photograph of this group shows Nebinyan with grey hair and wearing a striped necktie when most other men are adorned with body art. Bates reported that Nebinyan had not visited Perth ‘since the whaling days,’ but that ‘he remembered being present at a dance given by the Perth natives at Minderup, near the present Causeway’ (Bates 1910, 44). Her description of informal singing at night outlined interactions between Nebinyan, the lead singer, and the rest of the group: the ‘song was always commenced by Nebinyan alone, the others only joining in the chorus, so to speak, or keeping up a sort of murmuring accompaniment throughout the melody’ (Bates 910, 45). Although Nebinyan was far from his south coast home, and his ‘old voice’ was ‘poor’ and ‘cracked’ (Bates 910, 45), all the other singers deferred to him to lead the performance. This was likely due to his seniority, knowledge of old songs, and position as a creator of newer repertoire.

Nebinyan died at Katanning in 1911. When Bates visited soon after his death, she witnessed individuals singing and carrying out ceremony associated with his passing: ‘a beemb, or “spirit” fire, was lighted every evening at a spot a little distance from the camp … to warm the spirit of Nebinyan’ (Bates 1911, 14). In 2022 an adult southern right whale, tagged as part of a research project tracking whale migration patterns, was named for him.

Clint Bracknell is a Noongar musician from Albany of Noongar and European heritage.