On some occasions all the tribes inhabiting a large area assemble at one spot, and a stranger seeing perhaps four hundred or five hundred natives might suppose that they were usually present at the place, and that other adjacent localities were peopled in like manner.
Again, it is known that a tribe will follow white men many scores of miles. They appear at times painted in such colors, and in such places, as to lead to the belief that they are not the same men who were seen many days previously.
I have prepared a map showing some of the areas formerly occupied by the tribes of Victoria, and though necessarily imperfect and incomplete, it is interesting.
For Gippsland, my authorities are the Rev. John Bulmer and the Rev. F. A. Hagenauer.
The Rev. Mr. Bulmer gives the following account of the lands formerly held by the people:—
1. Boul-boul.—Their lands extended from the entrance to the Gippsland Lakes to the island of Rotomah. They confined themselves to the peninsula—hence their name, Boul-boul, which means a peninsula or island. Their food was chiefly fish and Ngurang, a kind of root. The country is swampy.
2. Tirthung or Nicholson River tribe; and the
3. Bra-bri-wooloug, or Mitchell River tribe, occupied all that country lying between the Mitchell and the Tambo.
4. Tirtalowa Kani held the area between the Tambo and the Snowy River.
5. The Lake Tyers tribe occupied that tract lying between the entrance to the Lakes and Boggy Creek.
6. The Krowithun Koolo claimed the country east of the Snowy River to the River Genoa, near Twofold Bay.
7. Bidwell.—The Bidwell people lived in the back-country from the Snowy River to the Great Dividing Range. All the tribes on the Gippsland side of the Great Dividing Range are known as Karnathan Kani, or Lowlanders; the word Karnang meaning at the foot of a hill, or in a low place. The tribes on the other side are styled Brajerak, which means men who are to be feared. The word is formed from Bra, a man, and jer-ah, to fear. Mr. Bulmer supposes that the blacks meant to imply that the people beyond the great range were strangers, and not safe to deal with. He adds that it is very difficult to form an estimate of the total number of Aborigines in Gippsland, but he thinks that, from present appearances, they never could have numbered more than 1,000, or at most 1,500.
The area of Gippsland is, roughly, 10,000,000 acres; and assuming that there were as many as 1,500, the number of acres to each black would be 6,666.
