Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/81

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II
THE TRIBAL ORGANISATION
55

there was what may be called a sub-tribe, who were reckoned as Wotjobaluk, but who called themselves Muk-jarawaint, and who were spread over the country defined by Ararat, Carr's Plains, the Richardson River, Horsham, Rosebrook, and back into the Grampian Mountains.

To the north of the Wotjobaluk was another sub-tribe with which they intermarried, the Banju-bunan, whose organisation was like theirs, a division into local hordes. To the east of the Wotjobaluk, and adjoining them, were the Jupa-galk-wourndich,[1] whose country extended into the Mallee scrubs, there joining the country of the river tribes before mentioned, and eastward to the Avoca River.

The Wotjobaluk, having descent through the mother, were divided into local hordes, the names of which were as follows:—

(1) The Gromiluk at Lake Hindmarsh.
(2) The Yakkil-baluk at Lake Albakutya.
(3) The Kretch-baluk at Dimboola.
(4) The Witch-wundaiuk[2] at Warraknabeal.
(5) The Yarikiluk at Lake Coorong.

A man of one of those places, for instance of Gromiluk, would be Gromiluk-wotjo, that is "Gromiluk man."

There were tribes adjoining the Wotjo nation which the latter considered aliens—the Doenbauraket[3] to the west, the Baluk-mernen[4] to the north, the Wengen-marongeitch to the east, and the Juro-baluk[5] to the south. I have not been able to locate the two latter.

The Wiradjuri and Kamilaroi

Having described the geographical and tribal organisation of the two-class tribes, I may now proceed a stage farther, and consider those tribes which have four sub-

  1. Jupa is the so-called "Native Box," also called "Myrtle," the Bursaria spinosa. Galk is "tree" and wourndich, "people."
  2. Wundaiuk is the equivalent of baluk or balaiuk, which latter I have heard used as well as baluk.
  3. Doen probably the same as tuan, the small "flying "possum."
  4. Mernen is "sand-hill," and the baluk mernen are therefore the sand-hill fellows."
  5. Juro is "plain or level country."