71

Grosvenor Street,
Toowong S.W.1.
June, 19th, 1940.

Mr. Sydney May,
Hon. Secretary,
Place names Committee,
University of Queensland.

Dear Sir,

With reference to two place names which you submitted
to me, I have to advice you as follows.

Coom(?)babah. Said to be a pocket of land impinging on a swamp.
This is not the literal meaning although a certain place
may be so-called. The meaning of the name is "Place of
wood grubs, from goombo, the teredo or, as it is frequently
termed by whites, cobra. The place in question was probably
so-named because the blacks had a practice of collecting the
grubs from decayed timber in the swamps and thereafter putting
into the water more fresh timber, chiefly oak, to accommodate
grubs for future use.

Boobyjan. At the time of writing to you, I did not know
know that there was a place of this name to the
south of Brisbane, but had in mind a cattle station of that
name in the Burnett district, but knowing of no such word in
the local tongue, I could not give any definite information
there on. Mr E. Armitage of Maryborough has interpreted
the name as "where the blacks stood". I think, however,
the translation has been arrived at the deduction and not by
local knowledge. It seems to be interpreted from bubai, to
stand, and tyan, black men.

To show the falacy of such deductions, I may say that,
in the language of the blacks at the Albert River, bo-be
means ashes or fine dust, and in the locality, no doubt, the
name means place of ashes.

Sice my last letter to you, I have found that Messrs
Lawless brothers, in the forties of last century, left
Ninduin-ba Station in the Albert River District and took up
land in the Burnett District which they named Boobyjan,
probably using a term that they had learned at the Albert
River. Ninduinba means "place of charcoal or embers".

By a flight of fancy one could imagine that, when naming
the Burnett property, Lawless Brothers had in mind the
mythological Phoenix rising from the bu-be (ashes) of the
ninduin (charcoal or Embers).

Yours faithfully.
(F.J.Watson).