The Boundaries of “Jaithmathang Country — An Exploration of Ethnohistorical Sources” – Prepared by: Jacqui Durrant Ph.D
The purpose of this document is to establish the boundaries of Yaitmathang country as best as can be determined from the ethnohistorical record. In order to explore the boundaries of Yaitmathang (Jaithmathang) country from an ethnohistorical perspective, it is necessary to examine the available primary historical sources as they relate to: a) Yaithmathang, b) Gundanora (and related terms), and
By far the most pervasive description of Yaitmathang country appears in Alfred Howitt’s 1904 book The Native Tribes of South-East Australia. Therefore, it is also critical to re-examine Howitt’s description of the boundaries of Yaitmathang country, and to account for any discrepancies in Howitt’s description of Yaitmathang country with the main body of primary ethnohistorical documentary evidence discussed in this report, including Howitt’s own research notes. Recent linguistic analysis can also contribute to this re-examination.
The report will conclude with a description of the boundaries of Yaitmathang country as they appear in the ethnohistorical primary sources.
This analysis will refer to primary historical sources, which is to say that it will source each piece of historical information in its earliest iteration. It will do so in chronological order of the creation of those source materials.
Like all historical records, these documents represent a highly fragmented version of the past. However, it should be stated that in the case of Yaitmathang ethnohistory, the historical sources are especially fragmented and scarce.
It is necessary to recognise that the primary historical sources relating to Yaitmathang which do exist were created by European colonisers, and as such, offer a culturally compromised account. It is anticipated that by clearly identifying the individual historical sources of each piece of information, and the context in which the information was recorded, that the reliability of that information will be apparent.
One point in favour of the primary ethnohistorical records presented in this document is that some do attempt to record information as stated to European colonisers by Aboriginal people of the period (most notably those of George Augustus Robinson), and as such, represent the best archival information we have in terms of recorded first nations voices relating to Yaitmathang country. These individual first nations people will be clearly identified by their name and country wherever possible.
Another point in favour of examining such a wide span of primary ethnohistorical records is that each of the source materials was created independently of the others over a span of almost 150 years. This should mean that the level of collusion between authors has been relatively low, suggesting that any coherent patterns of information that emerge between various sources are genuinely a reflection of a broad ethnohistorical situation rather than mere duplications of original source material.
Finally, this analysis will also refer to broader secondary historical, linguistic and archaeological source materials where these are needed to contextualise the primary ethnohistorical documents.
The earliest European reference to the geographical location of the Yaitmathang comes from the Bavarian-sponsored naturalist and explorer John Lhotsky, who travelled to the Monaro and through the Snowy Mountains in 1834. Lhotsky wrote from Cooma in February 1834:
‘The Kunora alias Gundanora tribe, over the Snowy River, and in the Alps, may consist of 300 men, they never go further than the Menero. Then is the Omeo tribe, near the lake and Stanley’s Plains.’1
Clearly Lhotsky distinguishes between the ‘Kunora alias Gundanora’ and the ‘Omeo tribe’. The ‘Kunora alias Gundanora’ are ‘over the Snowy River,’ which in the context of his journey meant on the west bank of the Snowy River. As a geographical descriptor for the ‘Omeo tribe,’ Lhotsky gives ‘the Lake and Stanley’s Plains’.
Lhotsky’s arrival in Cooma pre-dates any known European settlement or European exploration of the Omeo area, therefore ‘Stanley’s Plains’ must be a toponym of Lhotsky’s own choosing (and is not one which has not survived into the present-day). Fortunately, a contemporary newspaper report, also written by Lhotsky, provides additional context as to a geographical position for ‘Stanley’s Plains’, as well as background about his informant:
‘According to the information of the only man of the Menaroo tribe, who had been once at this plain, it is called by the Natives Omeo, and contains a lake, bigger than Lake George. Accompanied by four men on horseback, I proceeded to this plain. I entered by New Argyle, a second time the vast scenery of the Australian Alps, and after crossing Mount Duron Birmungi where, almost all the way, we were obliged to lead our horses, & to go on foot—I arrived a third time at the bank of the Snowy River, where its breadth is 200 yards. Hence I saw the angle formed by the high mountains, on the other side of which is Stanley’s Plain. But my provisions were so short, and the 4 men (who, unluckily, were not my own) were so inconsistent with the promises made to me, that although I was only one and a half day’s Journey from the Plain, I was obliged to turn back. Nevertheless, the discovery of Pass Britannia will be, before long, of great importance to the Colony, being the point, where a road, connecting Two-fold Bay and Menaroo, and the station on the Murrumbidgee; and the other western part of the Colony may be effected.’2
Another variation of Lhostsky’s own account of this particular leg of his journey appears in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, written 5th April, 1834, in which Lhotsky explained,
‘6th of March, at 8 A.M., I was on the top of Mount William, the absolute altitude of which is, according to the preliminary calculations I was able to make at the time, from 5 to 7,000 feet, and therefore by far the highest point ever reached by any traveller on the Australian Continent. …
1 John Lhotsky, A Journey from Sydney to the Australian Alps: Undertaken in the Months of January, February, and March, 1834, edited by Alan E.J. Andrews, Blubber Head Press, Hobart, 1979, p.106.
2 ‘TO THE EDITOR OF THE SYDNEY MONITOR. Firibomra, on Limestone Plains, 4th April, 1834.’
The Sydney Monitor, Tuesday 15 April 1834, p.2.
From this elevated position I discovered towards SSW. a very extensive plain, called by the natives Omeo. According to the information I got of the only man of the Menero tribe, who had been once at this plain, it contains a lake, bigger than Lake George…’3
And then on the 12 March: ‘So I arrived for the fourth time at the banks of the Snowy River, where its breadth is about 200 yards. There I found a pass, formed by two high mountains, and was only one and a half day’s journey distant from Stanley’s Plains.’4
What is apparent from these descriptions is that Lhotsky’s unnamed informant is a first nations man from the Monaro; and that they have viewed the Omeo Plain from Mount William [now thought to be Mount Terrible,5 which is not as high as Lhotsky supposed]. Lhotsky’s informant has told him its name: ‘Omeo’, but as was Lhotsky’s practice, he has chosen to re-name it ‘Stanley’s Plains’.
Reaching ‘Pass Britannia’ (now thought to be in the vicinity of McKillop’s Bridge) on 12 March 1834, Lhotsky believes that Stanley’s Plains are ‘only one and a half day’s journey distant’.
However, when he ‘saw the angle formed by the high mountains,’ he decided to turn back. It is tempting to think that the ‘high mountains’ are the Cobberas, however when travelling from the Snowy River at McKillop’s Bridge crossing, there is no clear view of the peaks of the
Cobberas until passing through the high gap between Mount Wombargo and Mount Stradbroke (one has to speculate whether this is Lhotsky’s ‘Pass Britannia’).
In summary, it can be concluded from Lhotsky’s account that Ngarigo people of the Monaro plains knew about Lake Omeo and the surrounding plains, and associated it with a distinctive group of ‘Omeo’ people; and also that they referred to an adjoining group by the term ‘Kunora’ or ‘Gundanora’.
In 1844, George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of Aborigines, Port Phillip Protectorate, undertook an extensive journey from Melbourne through Gippsland, travelling up the Tambo River valley to Omeo, and through the mountains to the Monaro plains; finally returning to Melbourne via Gundagai and Albury-Wodonga. During this trip, Robinson was accompanied by two members of the Native Police Corps, and ‘from W.O. Raymond’s “Stratford” station on the Avon River on 5 June 1844 by an “Omeo native” named Charley who had agreed to accompany Robinson to his country.’6
Robinson’s record of this trip can be found in his personal journal, collected papers (including a census and vocabulary notes for Omeo), and in the original manuscript of a formal report for the colonial government of New South Wales. These three sources provide arguably the most coherent information concerning the geographical place of the Yaitmathang people in relation to other
3 ‘AUSTRALIAN ALPS EXPEDITION. To the Editor of the Sydney Gazette.’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Tuesday 15 April 1834. p.3.
4 ibid.
5 John Lhotsky, A Journey from Sydney to the Australian Alps, op cit.
6 Ian Clark, ‘Dhudhuroa and Yaithmathang languages and social groups in north-east Victoria – a reconstruction,’ Aboriginal History, 2009, Vol. 33, p.205.
surrounding first nations groups. In addition, they also provide additional information shedding light on the term used by Lhotsky: the ‘Kunora alias Gundanora’.
***
Robinson’s report includes the broad statement that: ‘On the northern crest of the Dividing range by the sources of the Goulburn, the Yowenilliem the last section of the Tarounwarony (South) have their Country. On the top of the Mountains by the Deberer plains are the Mokalumbeet and next along the Dividing Range the Dodoras[,] Yatemittong, Tinnemittong, Worarener Mittong and other Tribes Eastward.’7
The source of this statement would appear to be ‘Charley the Omeo black’, who on 3 June 1844, told Robinson, ‘The Yowenillum are mermate [ie: enemies] with Mokeallumbeet, then Dodora, then Kinimittum, then Omeo.’8
Two important points should be noted concerning these lists. The first is that they are lists of local groups (‘clans’). This classification can be discerned in the uses of the suffixes which denote local group status: the Kulin suffix ‘—illum’, in the name of the one of the local groups from the broader Taungurung language group (ie: Robinson’s ‘Tarounwarony’); and the more northerly alpine-area suffix ‘—mittong’ for local group (‘clan’).9 Despite the absence of these suffixes from the names ‘Dodora’ and ‘Mokalumbeet’, we can also assume from the context of these lists that these groups are likewise local area groups (‘clans’).
The second point is that these groups have been listed in a roughly west-to-east geographical order, with the ‘Dodora blacks on ranges and adjoining the Omeo blacks’10 roughly to the west of Omeo, and ‘Worarener Mittong’ to the east.
On 22 June, 1844, while at McFarlane’s ‘Omeo B’ station, which included present-day Hinnomunjie on the upper Mitta Mitta River,11 Robinson took a census of the Yaitmathang people there, from whom he most likely gleaned the following information:
‘The blacks of Omeo are called the Yaymittong. The blacks on the Mitte Mitte [ie: Mitta Mitta] are called Tin.ne.mitong. The Menero blacks are called Wararerer mittong’.12 Here Robinson records a a direct correspondence between the ‘Omeo’ people and the ‘Yatemittongs’, who in the geographical context of the information provided, are located within country that includes the Omeo
7 George Augustus Robinson, ‘Report of a Journey of two thousand two hundred miles to the Tribes of the Coast and Eastern Interior during the year 1844’, ca.1844 MLMSS 7335 Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW — [Transcribed by Peter Mayo, John Brooker], p.6 of the MS.
8 Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Protectorate, 1839-1852, Melbourne, 2014, entry for 3 June, 1844.
9 This use of suffixes is explained in Diane Barwick, ‘Mapping the Past: An Atlas of Victorian Clans 1835–1904’, Aboriginal History, vol. 8, 1984, p.106, especially footnote 9; and is also supported by a statement from Jenny Cooper in Alfred Howitt’s fieldnotes (discussed in this document).
10 Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, entry for: 29 June 1844,
11 R. V. Billis, and A. S. Kenyon, Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip, Macmillan & Company Ltd., Melbourne, 1932, p.86.
12 Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, entry for 22 June, 1844.
Plains and the upper Mitta Mitta River. However, we also have locative evidence for the ‘Tin.ne.mitong’ as being on the ‘Mitte Mitte’, meaning a lower section of Mitta Mitta River.
Robinson’s papers also included yet another geographically-organised list of local groups, this time extending to as far as Limestone Plains (roughly, present-day Queanbeyan):
‘Yate, or, Yay.mittong, Omeo tribe’, ‘Wore.rare.rer.mittong: Snowy River tribe
Bit.me.mittong, Maneroo tribe, country extend to Limestone or near at. Tin.ne.mittong, tribe on the Mitte Mitte.’13
***
On 15 June 1844, while travelling up the Tambo River, Robinson recorded in his journal:
‘Two miles [3.2km] above the crossing place up the stream is the spot where a great slaughter of Gippsland Blacks by the Omeo and the Mokeallumbeets and Tinnermittum, their allies, took place; was shown the spot by [blank] alias Charlie who was present. Saw the human bones strewd about bleached white…. Charlie spoke of it with zest went through the whole scene shewed the camp of wild Blacks upwards of 70 camped beside a fire. … Shewd how the blacks found in line, then gave yell; the point of attack; spoke of it with zest; five young women were spared but I believe killed sometime after. All the old women and children killed. Two young men escaped.’14
Local historian Peter Gardner is of the opinion that the geographical location of this ‘great slaughter of Gippsland Blacks by the Omeo’ took place at a location just above Ensay, ‘between Lock-Up Creek and Tuckerbox Point.’15 Given the recent history of the site as it was presented to Robinson in 1844, the site of this massacre may indicate a disputed boundary between the ‘Omeo’ and ‘Gippsland blacks’ [ie: Gunai/Kurnai.] However, it has been suggested that Robinson was misinformed, and that the massacre was orchestrated between the two groups by Europeans with ulterior motives,16 although there is no hard evidence for this.
Later in his report to the government, Robinson placed Charley’s account of the massacre into a broader context, making another direct link between the ‘Omeo’ people and the ‘Yatemittongs’. He wrote,
‘The five Stations of the Omeo District are completely isolated the nearest Settler being at least from Eighty to one hundred miles distant. Lake Omeo was dry and covered with grass,
13 Ian Clark (ed.) The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Protectorate, 1839-1852, Melbourne, 2014, p.339.
14 Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, entry for 15 June 1844.
15 ‘Massacre one of worst,’ Bairnsdale Advertiser, 18 November, 2020.
16 For example, Peter Gardner in ibid. Gardner has promoted the idea that the Ensay massacre was the work of Europeans, which contradicts Robinson’s diary, stating that Robinson was told a lie. It is interesting to note that a letter written by Peter Gardner under a pseudonym: ‘The Sugar Bowl by Caroline Dawson, 1865’ (in Amelia Angove, Mt Nugong No.22: Poems and Stories, Ngarak Press, Ensay, 1992, pp.22-24), has been adopted elsewhere as historical fact when it is a work of fiction.
herds of Cattle were grazing there and also on the rich herbage of the plains so well adapted from its Salinous property for fattening Cattle. … The Yatemittongs are the original Inhabitants with whom the Mountain Tribes as far East as Maneroo Downs are in Amity. A deadly animosity exists between them and the natives of the coast [ie: Gunai/Kurnai]. A whole Tribe having been destroyed by the Yatemittongs and their allies a short time previous, blackened human bones strewed the surface and marked the spot where the slaughter happened. I was led thither by an Aborigine and all the circumstances minutely detailed.’17
When Robinson was on McFarlane’s Omeo B station on 21 June 1844, he made mention of another dispute with a Gunai/Kurnai group, writing,
‘Several Omeo blacks camped under the range came and visited me. The main body are on the Snowy River looking for the bucking blacks whom they want to kill.’18
The descriptive term ‘bucking’ can be interpreted firstly as Robinson’s rendering of the term which squatter J.F.H. Mitchell wrote as buckeen,19 and ethnographer Alfred Howitt glossed as bukin — a term which Howitt explained ‘extends in dialect forms across the Manero tableland to Omeo,’ meaning either the act of, or a person who undertakes the act of, extracting another persons’ ‘kidney fat’ either by violent means or at a distance by means of sorcery.20 Secondly, the ‘bucking blacks’ could refer to a Gunai/Kurnai group whose country includes ‘Buchan.’ In 1910, John O’Rourke, a magistrate who lived at the station Wulgulmerang in far east Gippsland, had this to say about ‘Buchan’:
‘Most people hold that Buchan is of Scotch origin. It may be a Scotch name, but it has an aboriginal derivation. Buchan used to be Buckeen Munjie. The buckeen was an awful spirit of whom the blacks had a great horror. He was supposed to live in the caves and cavities round about Buchan – those caves which are being opened up now. Wherever a blackfellow happened to get a nightmare he put it down to the Buckeen, who it was supposed seized them in their sleep for the purpose of cutting the kidney fat out of them and they used to actually die of fright. By simple processes the place got to be called Buchan…’21
Although O’Rourke’s understanding of the meaning of buckeen/buckin is imperfect, it is sufficient to know to which word he is referring. Rather than being of English-language derivation, the toponym ‘Buchan’ is likely derived from the word buckeen/bukin, and likewise refers to the act of
17 George Augustus Robinson, ‘Report of a Journey of two thousand two hundred miles to the Tribes of the Coast and Eastern Interior during the year 1844’, ca.1844 MLMSS 7335 Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW — [Transcribed by Peter Mayo, John Brooker] pp.7-8 of original manuscript.
18 Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, entry for 21 June, 1844.
19 ‘THE WORADGERY TRIBE.’ The Argus, Saturday 23 June 1906, p.5.
‘One of the superstitions of the blacks is that relating to the anointing of the body with the “gouri” (or fat) of their victims. It was believed that this act imparted great strength and in- creased the prowess of those participating in the rite.’
20 Alfred Howitt, Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, Macmillan, London, 1904, p. 373.
21 ‘THE VERY EARLY DAYS. INTERVIEW WITH MR. J. O’ROURKE, J.P.’ Bairnsdale Advertiser and
Tambo and Omeo Chronicle, Thursday 17 March 1910, p.8.
violence which was a feature of ‘intertribal’ disputes. In simple terms, the toponym ‘Buchan’ may indicate yet another boundary point in the landscape where ‘intertribal’ conflict — actual or feared
— between the Yaitmathang (and their allies) and a Gunai/Kurnai group took place.
***
As mentioned, while on the Omeo plain, George Augustus Robinson also made a census of the Yaitmathang people present. This census includes a number of notable Yaitmathang historical figures, who are important to note:
‘Tar.ra.ger.er, Motogo, King… Jar.gi.ar, a chief, Johnny… Yat.bin.en.ner, Dodoro Johnny… Bit.to.loit, Billy Blue.
Kor.o.mung, Slarney, the magician.’22
During his stay on the Omeo plains, and further along the trip in which he was hence accompanied by Bit.to.loit,23 Robinson was also told the first nations toponyms for a number of geographically prominent locations within Yaitmathang country. These included ‘Tanbo’ (Mount Tambo) and ‘In.ne.now: name of the Play Ground.’24 Robinson recorded in his journal, ‘The dividing range that separates Gippsland from Maneroo is between Mount Linster [Leinster] and limestone dividing range between Buckin [Buchan] and Snowy River is at play ground [The Playgrounds].’25 Given in context in which Robinson learns that The Playgrounds (located on the south side of the present-day Cobeeras FWD Track just east of Native Dog Flat, formed a significant dividing line between the Buchan River (‘Yatemittong’) and the Snowy River (ie: ‘Wore.rare.rer.mittong’). This information has been passed on to Robinson quite possibly from a Yaitmathang perspective (seeing as Bit.to.loit was his local guide), and offers a definite landmark for the outer boundaries of Yaitmathang country.
***
By the time Robinson had reached the Monaro plains in mid-Winter, and spoken with local people there, he was able to make some suppositions about the relationship of ‘Omeo blacks’ to the people of the Monaro plains region. As Ian Clark has explained, ‘On 7 July 1844, Robinson was at Richard Brooks’ ‘Gejedric’ station near Jindabyne, [where Robinson] met seven Maneroo men, women and a young girl. He noted “The language is the same as the Omeo Blacks”. These people were identified as the Bim.me.mittong or Maneroo tribe’.26
***
22 Ian Clark (ed.), The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, pp:339-340.
23 Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, entry for 25 June, 1844.
24 Ian Clark (ed.), The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, p.339.
25 Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, entry for 25 June, 1844.
26 Ian Clark, 2009, op cit., p.205.
Two months later, as he made his return to Melbourne, Robinson met with a group of ‘Wayradjerre’ (Wiradjuri) people on the Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai. Interestingly this group seems to have included a number of people who described themselves as (with great variation in spelling by Robinson) as ‘Do-dore’ or ‘Dodorera’,27 which are cognates of ‘Dodoro’ or ‘Dhudhuroa’. This mixed group of people were the source of information Robinson recorded concerning the term ‘Gundungerer’ (cognate with Lhotsky’s ‘Gundanora’).
In his papers, Robinson made the note on 23 September 1844, ‘Gun.dung.er.rer. (query): Yass tribe: towards the Tumut mountains’28 This was simplified in his government report to ‘The Gundungerer on the Tumut Mountain.’29 However, also on 23 September 1844, he recorded ‘Gun.dung.er.ro; G. Land natives’.30 This gives two clearly different locative references for ‘Gundungerer’. His geographical descriptor ‘G[ippsland] natives’ could, as we will see through C. J. Tyres description, apply to one of two groups, the Gunai/Kurnai, or that which includes people from Omeo to the Monaro Plains.
***
In summary, George Augustus Robinson has recorded information directly from Yaitmathang and other first nations informants. He clearly equates the ‘Omeo’ people with the name ‘Yatemittong’, and from the context in which this name is used, it is apparent that it is a local group (‘clan’) rather than a language name. However, Robinson also describes the ‘Yatemittong’ as a ‘tribe’, and it is uncertain whether he is merely using this in a colloquial sense. Furthermore, Robinson observes that the unnamed language spoken by the ‘Yatemittong’ people is recognisably similar to the language spoken on the Monaro, which is Ngarigo.
Robinson identifies ‘Yatemittong’ country as the Omeo plains, and records information which is suggestive of two contested boundaries of this country, situated at Ensay and Buchan. Significantly, Robinson records The Playgrounds as a landmark and boundary point beyond which was the ‘Snowy River’ and its people.
He records information concerning the term ‘Gundungerer’, which in context are described as a people located at ‘the Tumut mountain,’ and also described as being in ‘Gippsland’, which could also mean Omeo.
Charles Tyres was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for Gippsland, arriving there in early 1844. Prior to this appointment, he had served in the British Navy before becoming a surveyor for the colonial government of New South Wales, undertaking substantial survey work in the western district of what later would become Victoria. In 1858, at a Select Committee of the Victorian
27 ibid., p.315.
28 Ian Clark (ed.), The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, entry for 23 September 1844.
29 George Augustus Robinson – ‘Report of a Journey of two thousand two hundred miles to the Tribes of the Coast and Eastern Interior during the year 1844’, op cit., p.31 of the manuscript.
30 Ian Clark (ed.), The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, p.316.
Legislative Council enquiring into the state of Aboriginal people across the colony of Victoria, Tyres recalled a section of his 1846 report to the government:
‘In my report of the 9th December, 1846, I stated that the aborigines living in Gipps Land may be divided into two classes—the natives of Omeo, Manerro, Mitta Mitta, and the districts bordering on Gipps Land, forming the first class; and the Warriguls or wild blacks, natives of Gipps Land, the second class.’31
In 1858, Alfred Currie Wills, Police Magistrate and Warden based at the township of Omeo (on the Livingstone Creek, roughly 20 kilometres south west of Lake Omeo), also gave evidence to the Select Committee of the Victorian Legislative Council enquiring into the state of Aboriginal people across the colony of Victoria.32 Wills stated of the Aboriginal people of his region:
‘Name of tribe—Gundanora. Numbers—In May, 1835, there were about 500 or 600 men, women, and children, resident during a few months of each year, at their head quarters on the elevated plain of Omeo. In 1842 they frequently assembled there in large numbers, and often killed many cattle belonging to squatters, whose stockmen, it is said, retaliated by firing on them. Their hunting and fishing grounds extended northward to the Cobboras hills, southward and eastward to the river Tambo, and westward to the Bogong mountain range, via the Gibbo and Mitta Mitta rivers. [author’s italics] In 1843 a great diminution in their numbers was first observed, and at this present date there are only two men and three women of the tribe living. These are distributed between Maneroo (N.S.W.), Snowy Creek,33 and the River Murray.’34
Wills uses the name ‘Gundanora’ (cognate with Robinson’s ‘Gundungerer’ and Lhotsky’s ‘Kunora’ or ‘Gundanora’), to describe a group of ‘500 or 600 men, women, and children, resident during a few months of each year’ on the Omeo plain. His use of the term ‘Gundanora’ may apply to a group comprising individuals of more than one local group, or even more than one language group.
However, it is clear that Wills’ geographical description relates to those people who have ‘their head quarters on the elevated plain of Omeo’. These are the same people Robinson identifies as ‘Yatemittong’.
In terms of his geographical description, Wills’ phrase ‘Westwards towards the Bogong mountain range, via the Gibbo and Mitta Mitta Rivers’ requires explanation: The Gibbo River is a tributary of the Mitta Mitta River, flowing into it just north of Benambra. To head in the direction ‘westwards’ from this point is to follow the Mitta Mitta up-stream towards its sources (the Big, Bundara and
31 Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Aborigines, John Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1859, p.77.
32 Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Aborigines, John Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne.
33 There was a camping ground at the confluence of the Snowy Creek and Mitta Mitta Rivers at Mitta Mitta township.
34 A. C. Wills, in Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council on the Aborigines, op cit., p.26.
Cobungra Rivers) which flow from the eastern and southern fall of the Bogong High Plains, entering the Mitta Mitta in proximity to Angler’s Rest. On the basis of Wills’ description it is a matter of interpretation to say how far west (ie: into the Alps) Yaitmathang country reaches, depending on how one interprets what it means to reach to those ranges.
Neither is it possible on the basis of Wills’ description to say how far north Yaitmathang country reaches. However, that Yaitmathang country extends east to the Cobboras and south to the Tambo River, is more self explanatory, although no hard boundary is inferred.
Lawrence Struilby was a station manager who took up a pastoral run on the lower Mitta Mitta River in the Spring of 1842.35 In 1863, he published his memoirs. Of his pastoral run on the Mitta Mitta, Struibly stated that, ‘It lay between the Mitta Mitta and Ovens rivers, both being branches of the Murray. It was situated to the north-west of the Burrangong mountains or Australian alps, the highest of which, Kuskiusko… was visible in very clear days. So was Mount Tombo. Mount Gibbo [ie: historically ‘Toke Gibbo’ or ‘Wheeler’s Gibbo’ rather than present-day Mount Gibbo] was generally visible, covered with snow much of the year. The range to which it belonged, and which rose close behind us, was called by the natives the Bugong mountains…’36 Although the location of the run which Struilby says he took up for his employer ‘Gypsy Jim Black’ (a pseudonym) remains a mystery, its location on the Mitta Mitta combined with the visibility of Mount Gibbo,37 places it somewhere relatively high on the upper Mitta Mitta, although Struibly also makes it clear that from where he is situated, Omeo is located ‘on the other side of Mount Gibbo.’38 From the information given one could speculate that he was situated somewhere in the area where Dartmouth Dam lies today.
Struibly explained that the people who came to the station were ‘Snowy Mountains’ blacks’,39 and says of them, ‘A black and his lubra (Kuntungera dialect for gin or woman) came into the hut where [his wife] Selina was alone.’40
‘Kuntungera’ is cognate with Wills’ ‘Gundanora’, Robinson’s ‘Gundungerer’ and Lhotsky’s ‘Gundanora’. Even though Struilby’s statement that ‘lubra’ is ‘Kuntungera dialect for gin or woman’ is clearly erroneous (‘lubra’ being a common [and offensive] pigeon-English word for a first nations woman), Struilby’s knowledge of the term ‘Kuntungera’ which he takes to be a language term, and his connection of this term with people from the ‘Snowy mountains’ rather than the ‘Bugong mountains’, combined with his relating it to people visiting the Mitta Mitta valley,
35 Lawrence Struilby, Lawrence Struilby, or Observations and experiences during twenty-five years of bush life in Australia, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, London, 1863, p.197.
36 ibid. p.198.
37 It is important to note that the ‘Mount Gibbo’ being referred to here is not the modern-day Mount Gibbo, but either one of two peaks on the Gibbo Range, known as Wheeler’s Gibbo and Toke Gibbo.
38 Struilby, op cit., 1863, p.201.
39 ibid., p.200.
40 ibid., p.203
reveals that this term was known to Europeans as a language term throughout the region, and broadly associated with the Snowy Mountains.
Richard Helms was a German-born zoologist and botanist who became a collector for the Australian Museum in Sydney in 1888. The first location he worked while employed in this capacity was in the Snowy Mountains.41 In 1895 he published ‘Anthropological Notes,’ including notes on ‘The Omeo Blacks’, which he stated were ‘to a great extent compiled from communications I have from time to time received from old settlers who in their early days frequently came into contact with the Aborigines inhabiting the neighbourhood of their settlements…’.42 As such, much of Helms’ information is second-hand, and this helps account for its generality. Nevertheless, it does serve to differentiate the Omeo people from other groups. Wrote Helms:
‘The Omeo Tribe occupied the north-western [sic] corner of Victoria, and were friendly with the Buffalo tribe (Ovens district) on their side of the Murray, and on the other side of the river with the Monaro and Queanbeyan Tribes. Probably the customs of these four tribes were identical, because they lived in frequent intercourse and combined against their common enemies. These were the Braidwood, the Twofold Bay, the Gippsland tribes, and those living near the borders of the Murray from below Albury.’43
Alfred Howitt was an explorer, natural scientist and early ethnographer.44 He is best known for his 1904 book The Native Tribes of South East Australia, published when he was 74 years old. This book is the most commonly referred to source from which lay-people gain their knowledge of the Yaitmathang. Having settled in Bairnsdale in 1866,45 Howitt was most familiar with the surrounding Gunai/Kurnai culture. However, as the late anthropologist Diane Barwick warned, his book ‘omitted most, and muddled some, of the information preserved in the Howitt Papers, a detailed record of firsthand interviews with the elders of most Victorian communities between 1872 and 1907.’46 Consequently, this study will refer principally to the Howitt Papers, comprising Howitt’s collected field notebooks, letters of correspondence with informants, and manuscript papers, as a more reliable, though rawer source of information.
41 A. H. Chisholm, ‘Helms, Richard (1842–1914)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/helms- richard-3747/text5901, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online 8 December 2020.
42 Richard Helms, ‘Anthropological notes,’ Proceeding of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, Vol. X, Second Series, June 26th, 1895, Sydney, p.387.
43 ibid., p.388.
44 W. E. H. Stanner, ‘Howitt, Alfred William (1830–1908)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ howitt-alfred-william-510/text6037, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online 18 December 2020.
45 Alfred William Howitt, information retrieved 18 December, 2020, https://rsv.org.au/about-us/ history/alfred-william-howitt/
46 Diane Barwick, ‘Mapping the Past: An Atlas of Victorian Clans 1835–1904’, Aboriginal History, vol. 8, 1984, p.104.
In terms of material relevant to Yaitmathang, the Howitt Papers contain two main sources: information from former stockman John Buntine, and information from first nations woman Jenny Cooper (Jilbino). Information from a Ngarigo informant, Mickey, also has some bearing on the broader picture.
John Buntine to Howitt via Rev. Bulmer, informant Theddora Johnny
As a young man John Buntine (b.1827) worked for squatter James McFarlane, prior to departing for the California gold rush in 1849.47 He returned to Victoria, eventually re-settling in 1884 to farm at Bairnsdale. Writing to Alfred Howitt via the Reverend John Bulmer of Lake Tyres Aboriginal Mission in the early 1880s, John Buntine offered this explanation, presumably derived at least in part, from his informant ‘Theddora Johnny’.
John Buntine says he went to Omeo with the squatter McFarlane when he ‘was 14 or 15,’ which would have been 1841-42. As he left the area for the California diggings in 1849, returning at a later date, his knowledge from Theddora Johnny would have been gathered between thirty and forty years earlier than when the letter was actually written, which gives the information the context of being long-remembered information:
‘I was about 14 to 15 when I went to Omeo with Mr McFarlane. The Blacks or any of them who are left will know me well by the name of “McFarlane’s Johnny!” The Omeo Blacks were divided into two tribes. The Thed-dora who inhabited the country up the Livingstone Creek from the Township, the Jim + Jack and Butcher’s Country = the Victoria Plains. These people knew of Dargo where they used to go to kill the Dargo Blacks.
A young fellow known as Theddora Johnny was my principal informant. It was he that went down with McFarlane to Gippsland. The Blackfellow that went with McMillan was named Friday. The Omeo tribe lived about the Plains, the Mitta Mitta and over eastward where they joined on to the Maneroo tribes. They also extended down Bindi to Tongio but not as far as Numlamungie’.48
Buntine’s informant, ‘Theddora Johnny’, was recorded in George Augustus Robinson’s Omeo census of 1844 as ‘Yat.bin.en.ner, Dodoro Johnny’.
In order to comprehend John Buntine’s specific geographical references, it is necessary to place them into historical context: the geographical descriptor ‘Omeo’ refers not to Omeo township (which only sprung-up during the gold rush of the early 1850s), but to the earlier Omeo stations (A & B). This area — ‘the [Omeo] Plains, the Mitta Mitta [River]’ — lies around and between present- day Benambra and Hinnomunjie, including Lake Omeo. In this description, the ‘Omeo tribe’s’ country also extends down from ‘Bindi’ (Mount Bindi and the Upper Tambo River Valley area
47 Peter Dunn, Family tree compiled by Peter Dunn with information on John Buntine, accessed 3 December 2020, http://dunn-brigden-familytree.com/b24.html#P101
48 John Buntine, in A.W. Howitt, ‘Notes by A.W. Howitt on the Omeo Tribe Including an Incomplete Undated Letter by Rev. John Bulmer and Notes on His Findings’, p. 1, Papers of A.W. Howitt (Alfred William), MS9356, Box 1054, 2(b), n.d, State Library of Victoria.
Numlamungie is also rendered as ‘Numbla Munjee’; a run which was taken up by notorious squatter Angus McMillan in 1839, accompanied by Matthew Macalister, a nephew of his employer, and two stockmen, John Cameron and Edward Bath — they had been guided there by Ngarigu man Jemmy Gibber.
known as Bindi), to ‘Tongio’ (on the upper reaches of the Tambo River, at the confluence of the Tambo River and Tongio Creek), but not as far as Numlamungie (this name refers to the original squatting run ‘Numlamungie’ renamed ‘Ensay’, the area of which now includes both Ensay and Swift’s Creek).49 This information provides a vital clarification to A. C. Will’s description southward and eastward to the river Tambo.
Buntine’s explanation of the southern boundary as being not as far as Swift’s Creek/Ensay is supported by the fact that a short distance north of Ensay was a massacre site as shown to Robinson by his guide Charley in 1844, where Yaitmathang had attacked unsuspecting Gunai/Kurnai.
Buntine also offers some geographical indication of the ‘Thed-dora’, whom he classes as part of the ‘Omeo Blacks’. (Superficially this concurs with George Augustus Robinson’s earlier statement that the ‘Dodorer blacks … are in amity with the Omeo blacks.’50) Buntine’s says the ‘Thed-dora’ ‘inhabited the country up the Livingstone Creek from the Township,’ referring to Omeo township; adding ‘the Jim + Jack and Butcher’s Country = the Victoria Plains.’
The ‘Jack and Jim country’ to which Buntine refers relates to the stockmen who ran Cobungra station on behalf of the Gray family of Pelican Lagoons (Wangaratta) from 1851 onwards: John (Jack) Wells and James (Jim) Brown. These men ‘were employed to look after the run at Cobungra which was taken up by George Gray in 1851… they crossed into the valley of the Cobungra and established their first camp at Dick’s Creek (now Crown Allotment 28, Parish of Bingo-munjie). In the course of the next few years they moved further upstream and settled on the Victoria River (Crown Allotment 11, Parish of Bingo-munjie).’51 This area of open plains, referred to by Buntine as ‘Jack + Jim’ country is the current site of Cobungra Station Pty Ltd.52 ‘Butcher’s’ country refers to the area now associated with Butcher’s Creek, between Cobungra and Cassilis. Butcher’s Creek Track adjoins Jim and Jack Track, south-west of Omeo. Although other sites on the high plains are also named after John (Jack) Wells and James (Jim) Brown (J.B. Plain and Mount Jim being two examples), we can be confident that the former stockmen John Buntine is referring to the land that constituted the pastoral lease of which ‘Jim + Jack’ had been placed in charge, rather than the entirety of the Bogong High Plains. This is because he qualifies his description by specifying the ‘Victoria Plains’.
Finally, Buntine also corroborates George Augustus Robinson’s record of a massacre of Gunai/ Kurnai just north of Ensay:
‘I remember hearing of a great fight which occurred near Nimlamungie. It was a little higher up the river than the crossing above the old station. The Omeo men sneaked the Bruthen blacks who were camped there. This was at break of day and I think but am not sure that “Cobbon Johnny” led them.
49 Angus McMillan rested in the Omeo vicinity in 1839 while following an Aboriginal track south to establish Numblamunjie station on behalf of Lachlan Macalister. The name was changed to Ensay in 1844 by Archibald Macleod; named after an island off the coast of Scotland.
50 Ian Clark (ed.) The Journal of George Augustus Robinson, op cit., entry for 23 May 1844.
51 Harry Stephenson, Cobungra Station and other mountain stories, Mountain Cattlemens’ Association of Victoria, 1985, p.14.
52 ‘Bingo Munjie -1 Parish Plan’, Imperial measure 2150, A Parish plan from VPRS 16171 Regional Land Office Parish and Township Plans Digitised Reference Set, Public Records Office Victoria.
The Omeo men were victorious. … The attack was made in retaliation for a surprise some time before by the Bruthen blacks upon the Omeo men.’53
Jenny Cooper, ‘Theddora’ informant, to Bulmer and Howitt
Alfred Howitt’s only first nations informant who actually had lived experience on Yaitmathang country was Jenny Cooper (Jilbino). It would seem that at least some of the information was collected directly from Jenny Cooper by Howitt, although other information was collected from Jenny Cooper by the Rev. John Bulmer of Lake Tyres Aboriginal Mission and passed on to Howitt.
There are clear discrepancies between (1) what Alfred Howitt wrote about the Yaitmathang in The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, and (2) the original information as passed on to him by Jenny Cooper. It is apparent that Howitt sometimes chose to ignore what Jenny had to say, if he could not make it correlate with what his other European informant John Buntine had to say.
Historian Amanda Lourie, who recently coordinated project to transcribe the whole of Alfred Howitt’s field notes and manuscript material, thinks that Howitt’s opinion of Jenny Cooper as an informant was compromised by Bulmer’s attitude towards her: she was unwell, and it clearly frustrated Bulmer that she chose to return to country when she was feeling unwell, rather than stay at Lake Tyres Mission.54
In a letter from 1881, Bulmer wrote to Howitt: ‘I begin to fear Jenny Cooper as a hopeless case to get any information out of her. She was very ill and just as I was getting her nicely better Dick [Cooper] took her for a change. From the questions I have asked her she seems to be very hazy on things which relate to the long ago…’55 This is only one of several instances in which Bulmer spoke of Jenny Cooper in a disparaging manner.
Most of the information Howitt sought from Jenny Cooper related to patterns of kinship. However in one of his notebooks he has written the following:
‘The Omeo Blacks called themselves Ya-it-ma-thang. I have tried to get the meaning of the word, but Jenny says it means the same as Brabelong, but I expect it means some peculiarity of the people as thang refers to speech. I think it means people who speak quickly, or it might refer to the term ya being much used as ya you (yes) +c of course this is but speculation.’56
Here we see evidence of Howitt using a Gunai/Kurnai phase to interpret the meaning of the suffix ‘—mathang’ in ‘Yaitmathang’. Howitt, who was more familiar with the Gunai/Kurnai than any other first nations people, heard ‘muk thang’ — a Kurnai phrase often translated as ‘rough speech’.
53 John Buntine, in A.W. Howitt, ‘Notes by A.W. Howitt on the Omeo Tribe Including an Incomplete Undated Letter by Rev. John Bulmer and Notes on His Findings’, p. 2, Papers of A.W. Howitt (Alfred William), MS9356, Box 1054, 2(b), n.d, State Library of Victoria.
54 Per comm with the author, 2020.
55 A. W. Howitt collection, document XM87, Bulmer to Howitt, Lake Tyers, October 1st 1881, Museums Victoria.
56 A. W. Howitt collection, notebook XM95, Museums Victoria.
In fact, in the same notebook Howitt notes down: ‘Mŭk-than = thin speech’57 Howitt was also aware that the names of Kulin language groups (‘tribes’) always contained the suffix ‘—wurrung’ relating to mouth or speech. That Howitt interpreted ‘—mathang’ as ‘muk-thang’ was undoubtedly crucial in terms of him interpreting the name ‘Yaitmathang’ as the name of a ‘tribe’ (ie: language group), rather than that of a local group (‘clan’).
However, in making this interpretation, Howitt ignored Jenny Cooper’s statement that Yaitmathang ‘means the same as Brabelong’. Jenny did not literally meaning Yaitmathang was Brabelong: if this had been the case, it would have been immediately recognised by Howitt, who knew the Gunai/ Kurnai peoples well. Instead what Jenny was attempting to communicate in a concise manner was a comparative example of an adjoining local group (‘clan’), belonging to the Gunai/Kurnai ‘tribe’.
Hence ‘Yaitmathang means the same as Brabelong’ in the sense that they are both local group names, and hence are lexical equivalents.
The status of the name Yaitmathang as a local group name is supported by George Augustus Robinson’s rendering of the name as ‘Yatemittong’, in which the suffix ‘— mittung’ can be clearly discerned. Moreover, it is readily apparent that Jenny Cooper has explained the meaning of this suffix to Howitt, as he had recorded it in a second related set of notes as: ‘Mittŭng = a number, or many’.58 (Linguist Harold Koch also confirms that across the alpine region, ‘the [linguistic] form mittong … designated a group.’59)
In this second set of notes, Howitt made a summary of information about the ‘Omeo Tribes’, although it is difficult to know what information had come directly from Jenny Cooper, and what had come from other sources. Howitt wrote:
‘Omeo Tribes
Theddora Mittŭng = Cobungra, Mitta Mitta, Yakendanda [sic] Kiewa, Oven River down to Bufalo [sic]
Kandangera Mittŭng Omeo Plains, Limestone River, Bindi, Tongeo Jenny Cooper is a Theddora of Yakida (Yakendanda)
She formerly spoke the Theddora – now speaks the Ngarego language Mittŭng = a number, or many +c’60
The geographical description of the extent of Yaitmathang country, which Howitt has labelled ‘Kandangera Mittŭng’, differs very little from the description furnished by A. C. Wills, with the exception that it mentions the Limestone River. Only Howitt’s label itself is problematic. (Howitt’s
57 A.W. Howitt, ‘Notes by A.W. Howitt on the Omeo Tribe Including an Incomplete Undated Letter by Rev. John Bulmer and Notes on His Findings’, p. 12, Papers of A.W. Howitt (Alfred William), MS9356, Box 1054, 2(b), n.d, State Library of Victoria.
58 ibid., p.17.
59 Harold Koch, ‘Aboriginal Languages and Social Groups in the Canberra Region: Interpreting the Historical Documentation’, in Brett Baker, Ilana Mushin, Mark Harvey and Rod Gardner (ed.), Indigenous Language and Social Identity: papers in honour of Michael Walsh, Pacific Linguistics, Canberra, ACT, 2010, p.135.
60 A.W. Howitt, ‘Notes by A.W. Howitt on the Omeo Tribe Including an Incomplete Undated Letter by Rev. John Bulmer and Notes on His Findings’, op cit., p.17.
division of the ‘Omeo tribe’ into Theddora-mittung and Kandangera-mittung will be discussed later.)
Mickey, Ngarigu informant, to Howitt
Howitt’s Ngarigu-speaking informant Mickey was also known in Delegate and Cooma as ‘Boloco Mickey’. He died near Delegate in 1897, at which time he was thought to be 80 years old.61
Howitt recorded that ‘Mickey was born at Mūtong near Buckleys crossing [ie: Delegate] at Rutherford’s old place – it is his country.’62 Howitt further recorded this information from Mickey: ‘His language is called Ngarego, that of Gippsland he calls Kūngela. Wild blacks are called Bŭdara. The Omeo language is called Kŭndūng-orūr. White men called = Mūgan.’63
The statement that ‘Kŭndūng-orūr’ (cognate with Robinson’s ‘Gundungerer’ and so on) is what Ngarigu-speaking people call the Omeo language, is an important piece of information. The name is stated as relating to language, as is the term ‘Ngarego’. However, we can also infer something further about the term ‘Kŭndūng-orūr’ by examining the entire list for context: Mickey’s inclusion of the term ‘Kūngela’ on the list (cognate with the Yaitmathang word ‘Goengalla’64), as a term for Gippsland language is worthy of closer examination. This word (and its cognates) was widely used, even among eastern Taungurung, as term for ‘them, not us’ — referring those outside of the community, which in the context of Taungurung-speaking and Ngarigo-speaking people generally meant Gunai/Kurnai. For example, when he was near Mount Battery/Bayolite (Mansfield) on 13 May 1840, George Augustus Robinson was shown two skulls by the Taungurung man by Bit.time, who explained to Robinson these belonged to people who had been murdered by ‘a wild tribe, name Kone.gal.ler, to the SE from Bay.o.lite, over the alps.’65 This clearly refers to the Gunai/Kurnai. On 17 June 1844, as Robinson travelled up the Tambo River in Gunai/Kurnai country with his Omeo guide Charley, he recorded: ‘This country belongs to the Kanegaller or wild blacks; poor fellows all gone driven away.’66 From these examples, it could be inferred that while ‘Kūngela’ is a term meaning ‘them, not us’ (often translated in the nineteenth century as ‘wild blacks’), ‘Kŭndūng-orūr’ would seem to be another term, referring to people ‘with us’, considered to be associated with the Ngarigo-speaking community.
In summary, John Buntine provided Howitt with a geographical context for the ‘Omeo blacks’, whom he said were divided into two parts, the ‘Omeo blacks’ and the ‘Theddora’. No foundation for this grouping was provided, although the information apparently comes from Buntine’s
61 ‘DEATH OF AN OLD ABORIGINAL.’ Delegate Argus and Border Post, Thursday 18 November 1897, p.4.
62 A. W. Howitt, ‘Notes on the Maneroo and Ngarigo’, Papers of A.W. Howitt (Alfred William), State Library of Victoria, page marked 11 (catalogued as hw0164 in the on-line Howitt-Fison archive, https://howittandfison.org).
63 ibid.
64 See Omeo vocabulary, Ian Clark (ed.), The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, op cit., p.338.
65 Ian Clark (ed.) The Journal of George Augustus Robinson, op cit., entry for 13 May 1840
66 ibid., entry for 17 June 1844.
informant of three decades earlier, Theddora Johnny. No first nations name was provided by Buntine for the ‘Omeo blacks’.
Jenny Cooper provided Howitt with a name for the ‘Omeo blacks’, being ‘Yaitmathang’, and informed Howitt that this name was of the same type of name as ‘Brabelong’ — ie: the name of a local group. She also furnished him with the information that the suffix ‘—mittung’ means ‘a number or many’ (people).
Ngarigo man Mickey informed Howitt that ‘Kŭndūng-orūr’ was the Ngarigo name for the language spoken by the Yaithamathang. In context, this also might be interpreted as a way of describing people inside of the Ngarigo-speaking community, as opposed to those who were ‘them, not us’, who were labelled ‘Kūngela’.
Alfred William Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, 1904
Since its publication in 1904, Alfred Howitt’s outline of the Yaitmathang (Jaithmathang) in The Native Tribes of South-East Australia has been highly influential in terms of shaping public understandings of Yaitmathang country. However, Howitt’s description is problematic in that it contradicts not only other descriptions of the Yaitmathang, but also contradicts basic information provided by Howitt’s first nations informants. These concerns are worthy of systematic exploration.
Howitt’s description of Yaitmathang contained in The Native Tribes of South-East Australia appears in the section on ‘Tableland Tribes’, and reads as follows:
‘The Ya-itma-thang, commonly called the Omeo tribe, were divided into two sections—(a) the Theddora-mittung, occupying the sources of the Mitta Mitta River and its tributaries down to about the Gibbo Mountain, the Upper Kiewa River and the Ovens River to the Buffalo Mountain, thus being the neighbours of the Mogullum-bitch… (b) The Kandangora-mittung, who lived on the Omeo Plains, the Limestone River down to its junction with the Indi [aka: Murray] River, and the Tambo River to Tongiomungie. On the latter River they were in contact with the Kurnai…
‘… the now extinct Ya-itma-thang, occupied the mountain country in which rise the rivers Mitta Mitta and Tambo, and some of the sources of the Ovens, and extended north at least as far as the Upper Yackandandah River, called by them Yakonda. I have been able to learn but little of the local organisation of the Theddora…
‘The eastern boundary of the Ya-itma-thang was about the Cobbora Mountains, and thence down the Indi River to Tom Groggin’s Run…’67
Immediately it is possible to find a conflict between Howitt’s decision to label ‘Ya-itma-thang’ as a ‘tribe’ comprising two ‘sections’, and information as told to him by Jenny Cooper. In describing Yaitmathang as a ‘tribe’ rather than as a local group (‘clan’), Howitt has ignored Jenny Cooper’s explanation that the name ‘means the same as Brabelong’, ie: meaning that it was a local group name. If one accepts Jenny Cooper’s statement as correct, then the proposition that Yaitmathang is a ‘tribe’ comprising two local groups (‘sections’, ‘clans’) collapses.
67 Alfred Howitt, 1904, op cit., p.77-78. Worth noting is that local first nations people of the 1840s are recorded as using the name ‘Nackendanda’ and variations always with four syllables, but not ‘Yackonda’.
However, the root of Howitt’s decision to interpret the name Ya-itma-thang as something to do with speech, and therefore constituting as ‘tribal/language name’ (as such a reference would indicate in Kulin naming systems) is understandable. Howitt has chosen to interpret the ‘—ma-thang’ in the name Ya-itma-thang, with a Kurnai inflection, reading it as ‘muk-thing’ glossed as ‘thin speech’. He did this arguably because both he and Bulmer were more familiar with Gunai/Kurnai language than any other first nations language. In broader terms, this interpretation has some validity, although arguably it is not applicable to the name ‘Yaitmathang’ when read in the correct cultural context. As I have written previously:
‘In north-east Victoria (and in south-east Victoria in Bidawal and some Kurnai/Ganai dialects), [the] suffix [for local group] was ‘—mittung’ (or variations), which also meant a group or number of people. Consequently, [local group] names in north-east Victoria take on the form of Pallangan- middang, Djinning-mittung, Yait-mathang and so on. It has been noted that this suffix contains thang (also expressed as dhang), meaning ‘word,’ ‘language’ or ‘talk’ in Gippsland, which is a reflex of a widespread root word in Aboriginal languages, tha, meaning mouth. Although this suggests that the ‘—mittung’ suffix should refer to a language (in the same way that ‘—wurrung’ is applied to Kulin language names), it would appear that in its usage in north-east Victoria the historical etymology of the suffix has been lost.’68
The alternative interpretation, with the emphasis on the suffix as ‘—mittung’ meaning a group of people (incidentally, more readily apparent to English readers in George Augustus Robinson’s rendering of the name as ‘Yate-mittong’) not only makes better sense of Jenny Cooper’s statement
— the name ‘means the same as Brabelong’ — but is also more fitting in the context of other adjacent north-east Victorian local group names.
The second issue to consider is Howitt’s adoption of ‘Kandangora’ as a ‘section’ name within his Yaitmathang ‘tribe’. Although the name ‘Gundanora’ had been attributed to the Omeo people by A.
Further to this, it can be argued that Howitt has added the suffix ‘—mittung’ to the term ‘Kandangora’ ad hoc, in order to give it the veneer of being a local group (‘clan’) name. In Howitt’s own notes from his first nations informant Mickey, ‘Kŭndūng-orūr’ is recorded without the ‘— mittung’ suffix. Likewise the name ‘Kandangora’ (and its cognates) appears throughout a range of primary ethnohistorical sources always without a suffix. This strongly suggests that the name ‘Kandangora-mittung’ has been constructed by Howitt, rather than being an authentic cultural artefact.
The third issue to consider is Howitt’s structuring of Yaitmathang to contain a ‘section’ called Theddora-mittung. Similarly, nowhere else in the primary ethnohistorical sources does
‘Theddora’ (or its cognates) appear with the suffix ‘—mittung’, although contextually (for example, in information recorded by George Augustus Robinson) the Theddora always appear as a group of equal status to Yaitmathang, rather than one that is subordinate to them. The evidence suggests that although the ‘—mittung’ suffix could have applied to Theddora, it was not done so in practice.
Consequently, as with ‘Kandangora-mittung,’ ‘Theddora-mittung’ would also appear to have been constructed by Howitt, rather than being an authentic cultural artefact.
68 Jacqui Durrant, ‘Mogullumbidj: First People of Mount Buffalo,’ Victorian Historical Journal, Volume 91, Number 1, June 2020, p.21.
Further to this, modern linguistic analysis proposes that the ‘Theddora’ people probably spoke ‘Dhudhuroa’ language, as the names are cognate. As Ian Clark has stated, if there was a ‘common unity’ between the Yaithmathang and the Theddora, ‘then this unity would not appear to be linguistic, and a separation between the two may be appropriate (a view supported by [linguist Harold] Koch).’69 In other words, it appears that the Theddora spoke a different language to the Yaitmathang, making it unlikely that they were a ‘section’ of Yaitmathang.
Finally, it can be argued that Howitt ‘constructed’ a two-section structure for Yaitmathang by ‘adapting’ the names Kandangora and Theddora to suit his own purposes, firstly to reconcile with John Buntine’s claim that, ‘The Omeo Blacks were divided into two tribes’, and secondly to fill gaps in his own research. Reading Howitt’s correspondence, it becomes apparent that Howitt had no reliable informant (neither first nations nor European) for North East Victoria, west of the Victorian Alps. In a letter to collaborator Lorimer Fison, written in 1880, Howitt stated,
‘I have just enlisted the aid of one of my brother P.M.s Alfred Wyatt who is at Wangaratta. If he will do as I ask him to, he is just in the position to get that information as to the North East of Victoria of which I am in want. The worst of it is he is rather crotchety. If only I could get away and make the enquiries myself I should very soon get all there is to be got in Victoria but I am alas tied by the by… [for want of funding].’70
However, in looking through Howitt’s papers, he appears to never have received any correspondence from Wyatt, nor was he able to travel to North East Victoria. This clearly left a gap in his knowledge, which he struggled to fill with accurate information. In constructing ‘Yaitmathang’ as a two-section ‘tribe’ reaching into the Ovens and Kiewa Valleys of north-east Victoria, he was filling a gap in his own knowledge — but arguably doing so on a basis of speculation.
What is of critical importance in terms of defining the boundaries of Yaitmathang country is to exclude what Howitt describes as country associated with the Theddora, whom appear in Howitt’s description as a ‘section of Yaitmathang’ only by virtue of what seems to be a misinterpretation.
John Arthur Perkins was a newsagent, bookseller and politician. From 1926 to 1943, he represented the seat of Eden-Monaro for the Nationalist Party of Australia. When Perkins retired in 1943, he began collecting material relating to the history of the districts in which he had been brought up and which he had served as a member of Parliament. He spent the last ten years of his life researching the history of the Monaro region.71
Perkins’ collected papers include ‘typescript items which he extracted from newspapers and other publications, arranged chronologically as “Monaro District Items” and “Tumut and Adelong
69 Ian Clark, 2009, op cit., p.205.
70 Alfred Howitt letter, catalogued as ‘tip70-10-34-19 Howitt to Fison, 8 October 1880’ in the Howitt and Fison online archive.
71 D. I. McDonald, ‘Perkins, John Arthur (1878–1954)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/perkins- john-arthur-8022/text13983, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 8 December 2020.
Items”.’72 One of the newspaper articles that Perkins transcribed, without noting the exact date or source, titled ‘Gossip of Old Times as Compared with Later Times on the Monaro,’ is thought to date from 1891 or 1892.73 The article states:
‘The aborigines in pioneer days of Monaro were very numerous, and divided into three septs who were comparatively friendly because [they were] related to one another. Two of these clans roamed over the downs of the Monaro which abounded then with kangaroos and emus; the third inhabited Omeo, and these federated were at perpetual war with the tribes of the more low-lying countries, such as those down the mountain, the warrigals of Gippsland and the Queanbeyan Blacks.
The Monaro Blacks, including those of Omeo, were a fine athletic race of more than ordinary statue and good form, who in their wars used to hold their own effectually against any of the neighbouring mingoes [enemies].’74
In summary the author of the article is of the opinion that three localised groups spanning the Monaro Plains to Omeo, were ‘related’ and ‘federated’ via ‘military’ alliance and presumably kinship ties.
Thomas Wilkinson, the first European occupant of Yallowin station (on the west bank of the Tumut River), who had arrived there in 1838,75 had his son write down his reminiscences just prior to his death in 1904, when they were published. Wilkinson had this to say about first nations people from his early days at Yallowin station:
‘The blacks used to come in from Yass, Wellaregang, Omeo, and Mitta Mitta, and held corrobories at Yallowin. I have seen 300 there at one time… The blacks increased in numbers after a while, and 600 of them used to come through from Tumbarumba way. Not more than a dozen of them could speak English… On a hill in front of Yallowin homestead there still remains the mark of a ring- formed by
The Boundaries of “Jaithmathang Country — An Exploration of Ethnohistorical Sources” – Prepared by: Jacqui Durrant Ph.D