coast country which the Krauatun Kurnai held between the Snowy River and Cape Everard. The Ngarigo lived beyond the coast range to the north of them, and the Coast Murring along the littoral tract north of Cape Howe. I have traversed the mountains, swamps, and scrubs of this piece of country three times, before it was occupied by white settlers, and as compared with the adjacent parts, there was but little animal life. The Biduelli were few in number, inhabiting small open spaces in the dense jungle, and called themselves "men" (maap).
After lengthened inquiries from their survivors, and from their neighbours the Kurnai, the Ngarigo, and Murring, I have ascertained the following facts:—
They spoke a mixture of the adjacent languages, they intermarried with adjacent tribes, and it seems that their country formed a refuge for what one may term "broken men."
This prima facie case of a mixed descent is strengthened by the case of a Biduelli man, who claimed as his country the upper valley of the Brodribb River.[1] He told me that his "father's father" was a Kurnai of Bukkan-munji,[2] who left his country and settled in the small open tract, known as Goungra Valley, west of Mount Ellery.[3] His son obtained a wife from the Theddora of Omeo, and the son of this marriage, my informant, married a Ngarigo woman. This pedigree accounts for Yiirung and Yukembruk, as sex totem and class name.
Such a case as that of my informant's grandfather corresponds with the account given to me by the Kurnai of a man who broke the marriage law of his tribe, by taking for a wife a woman who stood in the relation of tribal daughter to him, escaped with her from the vengeance of
- ↑ It was only in the year 1870-71 that this man "came in," that is, abandoned his wild life and went to live among the stations of the Manero tableland. He was the last remaining "wild black" in Gippsland.
- ↑ This place is now written Buchan, and is supposed to be a Scotch name given by some early settler from North Britain. It should properly be spelled as I have written it, being the native name for the bag in which the Kurnai carries various articles. Bukkan-munji means "bag there" or "the place of the bag."
- ↑ The Krauatun name for this mountain is Bur-umpa.
