Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/136

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110
NATIVE TRIBES OF SOUTH-EAST AUSTRALIA
CH.
UNGORRI TRIBE[1]
Classes. Sub-Classes. Totems.
Urgilla Ngorgu kangaroo
Anbeir Bondum bandicoot
Wungo Tonga opossum
Bulbora flying fox
Ubur Tambul brown snake
Abboia lizard

The Ungorri are another instance of the totems being divided between the sub-classes. They appear to me to be incomplete as to number, but my informant gave them as complete, and his long experience entitles his statements to be accepted with respect. In the absence of a tabulated statement of a number of marriages and descents, showing the respective inherited sub-classes and totems, I am unable to say more, and give the table as it was given to me.

Neither in the Emon nor in the Ungorri tribe were the two class names obtainable.

The Emon tribe probably represents the western example of tribes which extend from the Bunya-Bunya Mountains northwards to Wide Bay, and possibly even as far as Port Curtis, having four sub-class names differing slightly in accordance with their dialects. The Ungorri tribe represents a third large group of tribes, with four sub-classes, the names of which are substantially the same as those of the Ungorri. These sub-class names extend northwards, at least as far as the Maikolon tribe on the Upper Cloncurry River.[2] They occur on the coast at Gladstone, and extend westwards to the Thomson River and other sources of the Barcoo, as well as the Upper Diamantina and the Hamilton River.[3]

The social organisation of the Emon tribe is represented by that of the Kaiabara tribe which inhabited the Bunya-Bunya Mountains, and the latter connects this system with that of the Kamilaroi by its two class names; but, as male

  1. J. Lalor.
  2. F. Palmer.
  3. D. M'Donald.