In former times, the natives of the Murray and Goulburn exchanged large bundles of spears for pieces of greenstone (Diorite), obtained from a native quarry at Mount William, near Lancefield. The stones were carried by the men in their opossum-skin cloaks. The quarry is extensive, and hundreds of tons of stone have been taken from it.[1]
In the narrative of William Buckley's life it is stated that it was customary for one tribe having an abundance of eels to exchange these for roots with some tribe within whose grounds roots were plentiful.
Mr. Peter Beveridge says that the Lower Murray natives had one or two men in each tribe, who were termed gualla wattow (messengers or postmen), whose persons were sacred. They could travel amongst other tribes with freedom. They carried news, and conducted all negotiations connected with barter—one tribe exchanging what it possessed in abundance for such things as were most desired.[2]
The tribes on the Lower Murray, near Lake Alexandrina, barter with those living on the coast. A curious sort of provision is made for this traffic, the object of which is to secure "perfectly trustworthy agents to transact the business of the tribes—agents who will not by collusion cheat their employers and enrich themselves. The way in which this provision is made is as follows:—When a man has a child born to him, he preserves its umbilical cord, by tying it up in the middle of a bunch of feathers. This is called kalduke. He then gives this to the father of a child or children who belongs to another tribe, and those children are thenceforth ngia-ngiampe to the child from whom the kalduke was procured, and that child is ngia-ngiampe to them. From that time none of the children to whom the kalduke was given may speak to their ngia-ngiampe, or even touch or go near him; neither must he speak to them. I know several persons who are thus estranged from each other, and have often seen them in ludicrous anxiety to escape from touching or going near their ngia-ngiampe. When two individuals who are in this position with regard to each other have arrived at adult age, they become the agents through which their respective tribes carry on barter. For instance, a Mundoo blackfellow, who had a ngia-ngiampe belonging to a tribe a little distance up the Murray, would be supplied with the particular articles—such as baskets, mats, or rugs—manufactured by the Mundoo tribes, to carry to his ngia-ngiampe, who, in exchange, would send the things made by his tribe. Thus a blackfellow—Jack Hamilton—who was speared at a fight at Teringe, once had a ngia-ngiampe in the Mundoo tribe. While he lived on the Murray he sent spears and plongges (clubs) down to his agent of the Mundoo blacks, who was also supplied with mats and nets and rugs to send up to him, for the purpose of giving them in exchange to the tribe to which he belonged. The estrangement of the ngia-ngiampes seems to answer
- ↑ Mr. Albert A. C. Le Souef, MS. This quarry is referred to in Mr. Ulrich's Catalogue of Rock Specimens, p. 21. Mr. Joseph Parker mentions the traffic between the Ja-jow-er-ong tribes and others in stones for tomahawks. Messengers were sent by distant tribes to procure stones for the Bur-reek (tomahawk) from the Ja-jow-er-ong people.
- ↑ A few Notes on the Dialects, Habits, Customs, and Mythology of the Lower Murray Aborigines, by Mr. Peter Beveridge.
