also the country on the northern slopes of the Dandenong Mountains. The third division was the "real Wurunjerri," who dwelt on the western side of the Saltwater River, and as far as Mt. Macedon, under their Headman Bungerim.
Immediately adjoining the Wurunjerri country, on the west side, was that of the Kurnung-willam[1] who were also Woëworung, and whose Headman was called Ningu-labul,[2] but was named by the white men "Captain Turnbull." He was a great maker of songs, which, as Berak said, "made people glad when they heard them," but when he sang one of them to me, it had the contrary effect, for it made him shed tears. Ningu-labul came of a family of gifted singers, for his father and grandfather had been renowned song-makers, and this, as well as his own poetical power, was the cause of his great authority as a Ngurungaeta, not only in his own tribe, but also in those adjoining. The case of this man shows how headmanship was hereditary in a family, whose members were gifted beyond their fellows.
On the northern side of Mt. Macedon were the Gal-gal-bulluk part of the Jajaurung tribe, whose Headman was known by the white people as "King Bobby," and who was the "partner"[3] of Ningu-labul. If the latter wished to bring people from further north, he sent "his word" to Bobby, who in his turn sent it on by the next near Headman. To the westward of Ningu-labul was the country of the Kri-balluk, whose Headman was a great medicine-man called Doro-bauk mentioned in Chap. VIII.
To the south of the Wurunjerri was a clan of the Bunurong tribe, called the Yalukit-willam, whose Headman was Benbu.[4]
Most of the Headmen were related to each other by marriage, and thus in a family such as that of Ningu-labul, where there was a tendency for authority to become hereditary, there was the germ of a practice which, under
