Tag Archives: George Augustus Robinson

Some thoughts on Dhudhuroa in the Upper Murray

26 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Aboriginal, Aboriginal massacres, First Nations, Squatters, Tangambalanga, Wangaratta

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Last April (2021), friend and colleague Megan Carter and myself drove the length of the Upper Murray Valley, trying to get some internal sense of the northern-most extent of Dhudhuroa country. Megan had been researching breast-plates (also known as ‘gorgets’ or ‘king plates’) associated with the area, and we’d come across an old newspaper report illustrating the breast plate of ‘Charley, Prince of Benden Dara-Dera’, which was reputedly given to him by the first European squatter on Welaregang run, (Sir) John Hay. [1] We’d also become curious about the ‘Dora Dora Massacre’ reputedly committed by squatter John Jobbins (probably in late 1836 or early 1837). [2] Over two days, we visited places along the Upper Murray from Towong and Tintaldra to Welaregang and Walwa; and there was a big day following the dirt road from Jingellic to Dora Dora and Wymah on the New South Wales side of the River, trying to get a sense of place.

The view from the top of Towong Hill Road, looking towards the Main Range with the Murray River in the foreground.

On one of the days we had a great lunch at the Corryong Bakery; and we took in the view from Towong Hill — which was a near religious experience. Local historian John Murphy had told us that an old timer from an old Corryong family had told him that Welaregang was the ‘mustering ground’ for different ‘tribes’ before they went up to the Snowy Mountains to collect bogong moths. Later, Megan and I stood at Farran’s Lookout (on the opposite side of the River from Welaregang) and imagined people sending up puffs of smoke from the Dargals, signalling that the time to collect the moths had arrived. Then we had a terrific curry at Tintaldra pub.

Another day we had lunch at the Jingellic pub, and drove ‘the back way’ on the dirt road from Jingellic, passing through Maracket, Talmalmo and Dora Dora — all old pastoral stations bounded by the rocky outcrops of (what is now) Woomargama National Park on the northern side; missing the Wymah ferry (!); and having to drive all the way to Bowna and out to Albury. It was ethnographer R. H. Mathews’ Dhudhuroa language informant Neddy Wheeler who had told Mathews that Dhudhuroa language was spoken from ‘Welaregang to Albury’ — naming locations like these on the New South Wales side of the Murray River. [3] Today, Dhudhuroa is conventionally thought of as Victorian language group, and yet prior to the Murray River becoming a state border, it was simply another river valley — and as Megan and I learned, for a distance either side from Jingellic to Wymah, it is a geographically tight, self-contained valley. Over the course of our travels, it became easy for us to imagine that Dhudhuroa was spoken along either side of this narrow valley, where the Murray River could be forded at numerous points.

On this basis we came to thinking that the breast plate given at Welaregang station to ‘Charley, Prince of Benden Dara-Dera’, contained an anglicised version of the language name Dhudhuroa in the form of Dara-Dera. [4] We’ve yet to work out what ‘Benden‘ is all about, but I have to admit that that name Bendendera/Bendenderra is surely also worthy of investigation — this was a pastoral station located somewhere near modern-day Brungle, which in turn became the location of an Aboriginal Mission Station in the late 1880s. At present I know next to nothing about Bendenderra, and yet, historically, there’s evidence that ‘Dodorera’ [Dhudhuroa] people mixed with Wiradjuri people less than 20km away from Brungle in Wiradjuri lands at Gundagai in 1844; [5a] and that people from ‘Burrowa’ [Pine Mountain near Walwa], and Gundagai, were still having corroboree with people in Tumut [ie: Wolgalu people] as late as 1866 — for trade, but probably also before heading up into the mountains for moth hunting. [5b]

Reading up on Dora Dora, I learned that the name was recorded by the first Europeans (in the party of squatter Luke Reddall) who, upon trying to establish the local place name for a site at which they were forming a station, were reportedly told by the First Nations people there, ‘Durra, durra’ [6]. This station became known at first as ‘Daara Daara’, eventually rendered as ‘Dora Dora.’ It seems probable that in attempting to establish the name of the location, these Europeans were instead given an explanation as to whom the country belonged: Dhudhuroa.

Other interesting toponyms are found nearby, also as an artefact of early European squatters attempting to garner local place names from the Dhudhuroa people: downstream from Dora Dora, they recorded the name Wagrah (later altered to Wymah) [7], while the location on the opposite side of the Murray River was recorded as Bunjil. These are not toponyms. Instead, it seems the Dhudhuroa were informing the invading Europeans not only of whose country it was (ie: Dhudhuroa), but also of their two-part moiety division of Bunjil (Eaglehawk) and Waa (Crow) — they were indicating Bunjil, and his opposing number, Waa; perhaps even pointing out local groups on opposite sides of the River who each had these moieties. That these names exist even today could be read as a statement of ‘ownership’ of country based on grounds of language and lore.

What seem to be early European attempts at recording the language name Dhudhuroa, ie: dara-dera, durra-durra, daara-daara, dora-dora, and do-dorera got me thinking about the contemporary rendering of this name, Dhudhuroa.

When linguists Barry Blake and Julie Reid came to their analysis of Dhudhuroa language in 2002, they worked predominantly from the notes of ethnographer R. H. Mathews whose language informant was Dhudhuroa man Neddy Wheeler. Mathews, whom I’m assured was quite a good at recording First Nations languages, rendered the name as Dhudhuroa, which he spelled more phonetically as Dhoo-dhoo-ro-wa, to which Blake and Reid were able to offer this explanation:

‘Dhudhuroa appears to consist of the first syllable of the word for ‘no’ reduplicated. The word for ‘no’ is dhubalga. It is common in southeastern Australia to base language names on the word for ‘no’. The name almost certainly contains a reduced form of wurru, which means ‘mouth’ or ‘language’ in a number of Victorian languages. The final syllable is probably -wa, which is found on quite a few other words. Thus we probably have Dhu-dhu-(wu)rru-wa.’ [8]

Thanks to Barry Blake, Julie Reid and other linguists (Dixon, Hercus, Morey, Koch), it’s become a well-established point that are two main First Nations naming conventions in relation to language names for central Victoria and the Murray River area (which is not to say that every language name necessarily fits convention; only that the conventions exist). For the Murray River, the convention is the use of the word ‘No’ in that language replicated: names such as Yorta Yorta, Wemba Wemba, Barapa Barapa and so on. The other naming convention, seen prominently within central Kulin language areas, is to combine the language’s word for ‘No’ with the word for ‘mouth’. Thus, as Barry Blake [9] has pointed out, the name Taungurung in its fullest form is Thagu-wurrung, combining the word Thagu (also written as Dhaagu [10]) for ‘No’ with wurrung for ‘mouth’.

I was entirely satisfied with Blake and Reid’s explanation of the name, until this morning when I came across another regional word for mouth, recorded as deirah or diara, rendered by Blake and Reid as d(h)erra. It occurred to me that the word d(h)erra, rather than wurru might be a constituent part of the language name Dhudhuroa. Consequently, I think it equally possible that the name Dhudhuroa could comprise part of the word for ‘no’, Dhu—, and the word for ‘mouth’, or ‘tongue’ d(h)erra, ie: Dhu-d(h)erra. Dhu-d(h)erra also puts us within ‘ear-shot’ of dara-dera, and brings us closer to ethnographer Alfred Howitt’s rendering of the name The-d-dora. [11] (A soft ‘D’, and a soft ‘Th’ with the tongue on the back of your bottom teeth, are similar sounds.) However, I’m not a linguist. I’m an amateur with this stuff.

Hearing the word d(h)erra in Dhudhuroa also got me thinking about our understanding of local languages in North East Victoria — particularly Dhudhuroa and ‘Pallanganmiddang’ (Waywurru) — two small, isolated pockets of language surrounded by the vastly larger language areas of Yorta Yorta to the west, Wiradjuri to the north, Snowy Mountains Language [eg: Ngarigu] to the North and East, and Taungurung (and more generally Kulin languages) to the south. Were they gradually being crushed by outside influences?

Currently the word d(h)erra is not even attributed to the Dhudhuroa language, but instead to the neighbouring ‘Pallanganmiddang’ (now generally referred to as Waywurru) language. In a study of Pallanganmiddang [12], Blake and Reid sourced the word they render as d(h)erra from two separate vocabularies, named ‘Barwidgee’ and ‘Pallanganmiddang.’ Both vocabularies were compiled by the same man — squatter Thomas Mitchell — most likely while he was serving as Honorary Correspondent to the Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines at the Tangambalanga Aboriginal Reserve. As the Reserve was used by both people from the Upper Murray, and the Ovens and lower Kiewa River Valleys, Mitchell’s vocabularies actually combined words from two different languages: Dhudhuroa, and Pallanganmiddang (Waywurru). In dividing the vocabularies out into two separate language groups, Blake and Reid were assisted by three other vocabularies — R. H. Mathews’ vocabulary given to him by self-identified Dhudhuroa man Neddy Wheeler [13]; George Augustus Robinson’s 1844 vocabulary given to him by self-identified Pallangan-middang (Waywurru) man ‘Joe’ Mul.ler.nin.ner [14]; and a third vocabulary supplied to Wangaratta resident William St. Fort Murdoch by someone who had collected this vocabulary in Wangaratta in the mid-1870s [15]. Despite these additional vocabularies, separating the words into two distinctive language groupings must have presented a few challenges, and I now wonder whether d(h)erra is a Dhudhuroa word for mouth too, or tongue (indeed it is a widespread word fro tongue), and the word Robinson recorded as the Pallanganmiddang (Waywurru) word for ‘neck’ — wo-ro — was in fact the Waywurru word for ‘mouth’ (one imagines the finger pointing to body parts may have been misinterpreted at some point), which would make it the same word as in the adjoining Ngurai-illum (vastly more Kulinic) language — wooroo. Not to mention the same word contained in the language name Way-wurru. There is also a word recorded for mouth in Blake and Reid’s Dhudhuroa language vocabulary — lendawa(h) — (so they have a relevant reason for allocating d(h)erra to Pallanganmiddang) but I wonder whether this may be a word for ‘lips’. [16] I also wonder whether I should speculate like this, given that I am not a linguist.

I am not suggesting that what I’m writing is concrete; I am discussing possibilities. If you would like to join the discussion, or have some thoughts, don’t be shy! Alternatively, visit the Upper Murray. The landscapes are epic and the beer is cold.

This is original written content that is copyright protected to ©Jacqui Durrant, 2021. You are welcome to share links to this blog, but please do not use the content elsewhere without permission. Thank you!

Endnotes

1. ‘The “Prince’s” Badge of Honor,’ Border Morning Mail, Saturday 9 September 1939, p.13.

2. See: Charles Albert Smithwick (J. Henwood & M. Swann, Eds.), Early History of the Upper Murray, John Henwood, Camberwell, 2003, p.18. Also: Arthur Andrews, First settlement of the Upper Murray, 1835-1845: with a short account of over two hundred runs, 1835 to 1880, D. S. Ford, Sydney, 1920.

3. R. H. Mathews, MS8006 Series 5 File 3 Box 6, National Library of Australia.

4. ‘The “Prince’s” Badge of Honor,’ op cit.

5a. Ian Clark (ed.) The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Protectorate, 1839-1852, Melbourne, 2014, p.315. 5b. Sydney Mail, Saturday 27 January, 1866, p.4.

6. Margaret Carnegie, Friday Mount: first settlement at Holbrook and the south-western slopes of New South Wales, Hawthorn Press, Melbourne, 1973. p.151; Arthur Andrews, op cit., p.52.

7. Arthur Andrews, op cit., p.144.

8. Barry Blake and Julie Reid, ‘The Dhudhuroa language of northeastern Victoria: a description based on historical sources,’ Aboriginal History, 2002, VOL 26, pp: 177-210.

9. cited in: Ian Clark, Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900, Monash Publications in Geography Number 37, Monash University, Melbourne, 1990, p. 370.

10. Lee Healy (compiler), Taungurung Liwik-nganjin-al Ngula-dhan Yaawinbu Yananinon (Taungurung Dictionary), Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, Melbourne, 2011.

11. Alfred Howitt, Native Tribes of South-East Australia, Macmillan, London, 1904.

12. Barry Blake and Julie Reid, ‘Pallanganmiddang: a language of the Upper Murray,’ Aboriginal History, 1999, Vol. 23, pp.15-30.

13. R. H. Mathews, ‘The Dhudhuroa Language of Victoria,’ reprinted from the American Anthropologist, Vol. 11, No. 2, April-June, 1909, pp:278-284.

14. Ian Clark (ed.) The Papers of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Protectorate, 1839-1852, Melbourne, 2014, p.321.

15. Murdoch, W L, Science of Man and Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society of Australasia,Vol 3, No11, December 1900, pp.188-189. [Murdoch’s middle initial was mis-transcribed by the Journal editors; it should be S for ‘St. Fort’.]

16. Barry Blake and Julie Reid, ‘The Dhudhuroa language of northeastern Victoria: a description based on historical sources,’ op cit.

Massacre on the Broken River

20 Monday Jul 2020

Posted by in Aboriginal, Aboriginal massacres, Benalla, Uncategorized

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In 1930, local historian P. W. Walker wrote an account of a massacre of Aboriginal people at Barjarg (on the Broken River between Benalla and Mansfield), which had reportedly taken place some 90 years earlier. The veracity of his report was hotly challenged in the pages of The Australasian newspaper; however, it now seems that Walker had every reason to listen to the woman who told him the story in the first place: Mrs Catherine Withers.

Barjarg_2020

The Broken River Valley at Barjarg (Jacqui Durrant, June 2020).

WARNING: Visitors should be aware that this blog post includes discussion of deceased people that may cause sadness or distress, particularly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In particular, I acknowledge the Aboriginal ancestors of the region in which I live, whose words may be quoted within this or other posts, with the greatest respect for their legacy.

In 1930, local historian P.W. Walker wrote in The Australasian newspaper of an incident that took place on pastoral run, somewhere in the Mansfield district:

‘The aborigines were numerous, and at times they were troublesome and treacherous. They would steal sheep, spear cattle and horses, and even murder white people. Consequently the men, women, and children who lived in their huts were exposed to great danger, the women and children at times being alone while the men attended, to the stock. Firearms had to be kept in the house and carried by the shepherds and stockmen, and the women went to the creek for water with a gun in one hand and a bucket in the other. In some of the huts holes were made in the walls to put the guns through and fire at the blackfellows. Sometimes the blacks formed themselves into large parties and attacked the dwellings. On one occasion there were seven white people and a black boy at one of the stations. The black boy heard the blacks arranging their plans to attack and murder these white folk, and he warned them. About 400 aborigines approached, but the white people had prepared a repast of damper and beef, which they gave to the blacks. The whites’ cooking did not appear to agree with the blacks. Nearly all of them were suddenly taken ill, and most of them died on the spot. They were buried near where they lay, and some of the mounds can be seen to this day.’[1a]

Reporting a historical massacre of Aboriginal people in a national newspaper was pretty heady stuff in 1930, and the author of said article – ‘An Early History of Mansfield’ — P. W. Walker, was questioned by one reader:

‘DETAILS REQUESTED. TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN.
Sir,—Mr. P. W. Walker mentions in his article on the history of Mansfield a threatened attack, made by about 400 natives, on a homestead, and also deals with their subsequent complete destruction caused by a judicious mixture of beef, damper, and some other deleterious matter. Would he kindly tell us which homestead was attacked and where the natives were buried, and by whom?
-Yours. &c.,
ANOTHER OLD-TIMER.
Melbourne, November 8.’ [1b]

Walker offered this reply:

‘TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN. Sir,—In reply to “Another Oldtimer,” it was on the Barjarg station where the threatened attack was made by the blacks and where they were buried. I think it was in the ‘forties. My informant was the late Mrs. Frank Withers, and it was her father who told her.
—Yours. &c.,
Mansfield, Nov. 16. P. W. WALKER.’ [2]

What followed was a round-robin of criticism of Walker’s story, commencing with a further reply from ‘Another Oldtimer’, whose main objection was that those whom Walker had implied were likely responsible for the massacre — the early pastoralists Alex Hunter and James Watson, and their cousin William Francis Hunter Arundel — were ‘not the class’ to commit such an act. Hunter and Watson had formed a pastoral company in 1839 (largely backed by the money of the Scottish landed gentry, including the Marquis of Ailsa) [3], and it was commonly believed that Barjarg Station had been cut from their pastoral holdings; and thus it was supposed that they had to be responsible for any poisoning of Aboriginal people that might have taken place.

At length, ‘Another Oldtimer’ explained, ‘Serious trouble with the natives in the Mansfield district was confined to the early years of the fourth decade of last century, when one of Watson and Hunter’s… shepherds was murdered, and also two shepherds in the employ of the unfortunate and over-sanguine Waugh at Delatite Station. Of course, retribution was meted out, but Messrs. Watson and Hunter, or their cousin, Mr. Hunter Arundel, who occupied Barjarg at that time, were not the class to permit diabolical outrage. So Mr. Walker’s statement, unintentionally doubtless, amounts to a calumny on an honourable and distinguished name.’ [4]

Notably, ‘Another Oldtimer’s’ objection to Walker’s story lay not in the assertion that Hunter, Watson and/or Arundel had killed Aboriginal people — indeed he wrote, not so cryptically, that ‘retribution was meted out’. Instead, his objection lay with the claim that a mass poisoning had taken place: a ‘diabolical’ act, surely with the power to blacken ‘distinguished names.’ [5] (The distinction that ‘Another Oldtimer’ made between ‘retribution meted out’ to individuals, and ‘diabolic acts’ in which Aboriginal people were murdered indiscriminately, was an important distinction to pastoralists of the squatting era, in theory if not in practice.)

Soon, the author of the latest book on the subject of early Victorian squatting, Pastures new: an account of the pastoral occupation of Port Phillip, (1930), A. S. Kenyon, weighed into the debate as a figure of academic authority, writing:

‘TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN. Sir,—The vague charge against the early pioneers of the Mansfield district of poisoning some 400 aborigines has now been given a somewhat more definite form. The place was Barjarg. Barjarg was part of the Watson and Hunter country taken up in 1839, and was cut out of it towards the end of 1841 by William Francis Hunter Arundell, a relative of the Hunter’s. Arundell was a gentleman of unimpeachable conduct. He transferred to Robert Jamieson, one of early Melbourne’s most reputable citizens, who was partner at first with Sir William Henry Fancourt Mitchell. Mitchell, for 18 months sole owner, transferred to James Moore in August, 1849. The Moores held it until 1863. Now against which of these gentlemen is the charge of murder to be laid? Throughout the whole of the forties Mr. G. A. Robinson, chief protector of the aborigines, and his district protectors (one of whom, Parker, was stationed on the Goulburn) investigated every report or rumour that was heard as to murder or even bad treatment of the blacks. This wholesale poisoning yarn, unwhispered at the time, originated in Van Dieman’s Land and has been revived and repeated in each colony. In every ascertainable case it can be attributed to disgruntled station hands, generally “expired” convicts or ticket-of-leave men. There never was any foundation for such a slander upon our early settlers, whose treatment of the aborigines was as kind and tolerant as the times permitted.—Yours, &c.,
A. S. KENYON
Heildelberg (V.), Nov. 24.’ [6]

Finally, in yet another response to Walker’s story, family member Mr Ivan J. Hunter, wrote to The Australasian. ‘In those years,’ he started, ‘I think, my family were almost the sole occupants of the district  [my italics], which was then known as the Devil’s River country, and one of them certainly did occupy Barjarg. My uncle, Alexander McLean Hunter, was the first of the family to arrive there in 1839, and was followed by my Uncle John and my father, James A. C. Hunter, also their cousins, John (sometimes called “Old John” or “Howqua” to distinguish him from the other John—usually Jack Campbell Hunter and William Arundel.) Barjarg was the name of an estate in Scotland owned by a branch of the family. Now it seems to me that if it is believed that the blacks were really poisoned, some of my ancestors must be guilty of a very serious crime. I am convinced that no old hand, or anyone who followed early history, would believe such a story…’ [7]

Ivan Hunter went on to explain how ‘the natives were always treated well and many constantly employed on the different station properties’ [8] And so it would seem that the assertion of local historian P. W. Walker was now thoroughly squashed under the weight of denials that Hunter, Watson or Arundell would ever have engaged in such a brutal and cruel act of mass murder.

Only now, 180 years later, and with a broader range of primary historical source materials, can we give local historian P. W. Walker a second hearing.

Hunter and Watson's

A Field Sketch of Watson and Hunter’s pastoral empire, drawn up in 1846 by surveyor Robert Russell, at a time when Hunter and Watson’s pastoral company had fallen into insolvency (State Library of Victoria).

To begin with, the confidence held by Walker’s detractors that nothing ‘diabolical’ would ever have happened at any of the stations in the vast pastoral holdings of Hunter and Watson is unrealistic. As historian Judy Macdonald, who has read the papers of the Hunter family, points out, ‘Figures given by Alexander Hunter in September 1841 show that Watson and Hunter employed 100 hands, had about 80 horses, 3000 cattle and 20,000 sheep, constantly changing. They had 12 stations at Devils River, [and were] ‘buying and selling Melbourne properties daily.’ [9] To assume that Hunter and Watson, as principals of these numerous stations, were fully conversant with all that was being done by every number of their one hundred staff (comprising mainly assigned convict servants and ticket-of-leave convicts), is implausible. Furthermore, it may even be argued that Hunter and Watson’s grip on their pastoral empire was tenuous; possibly even chaotic: by 1846 their company was thoroughly insolvent (although the economic depression of 1842 played a role; it also seems the young men of the Hunter clan were more interested in horse racing than running a pastoral empire); and the court cases surrounding the eventual dissolution of the company would drag on into the 1850s. [10]

We can also discount Kenyon’s argument that the poisoning of Aboriginal people in Victoria was merely a ‘yarn’ that originated in Tasmania. Instead, there is evidence to suggest that the poisoning of Aboriginal people did take place on the Ovens and Broken Rivers, and elsewhere. As I have written before, in June 1839, not even a year after the initial settlement of North East Victoria by Europeans, Assistant Protector of Aborigines for the Goulburn district, James Dredge, recorded the prevalence of mass poisonings with ‘sweet damper’ (ie: arsenic-laced damper) [11], and Assistant-Protector of Aborigines for the Melbourne area, William Thomas, also recorded in March 1839 that Aboriginal people on the Broken and Ovens Rivers had been ‘put out in this way.’ [12] Kenyon’s assertion that Chief Protector of Aborigines George Augustus Robinson and his district protectors ‘investigated every report or rumour that was heard as to murder or even bad treatment of the blacks’ is pure fantasy: anyone familiar with the journals of Robinson or his Assistant Protectors like Thomas and Dredge, will know that they were profoundly under-resourced, and will see the extent to which their investigations were hampered by the squatters’ ‘code of silence’ and government indifference.

Barjarg_station_2020

The front gate of present-day Barjarg Station (Jacqui Durrant, June 2020).

Next, we should re-examine whether Hunter and Watson were the only pastoralists who could possibly have been responsible for the poisoning on Barjarg Station. Ivan Hunter was quite correct when he wrote that his family were almost the sole occupants of the district. Certainly, Barjarg was leased under license by Alex Watson’s cousin William Francis Hunter Arundell from 1841-1848. [13] This much was documented by Kenyon in his 1932 book (coauthored with R. V. Billis) The Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip. However, Billis and Kenyon’s book was only a simple ‘record of all [land]holdings under depasturing licenses.’ [14] It relied solely on government records, and as such, effectively missed periods of European occupation in which a pastoralist had failed to take out a formal license to ‘depasture’ stock.

As it turns out, before Barjarg was so named, it did have another early European occupant, whose association with the area would soon be forgotten: Peter Stuckey Junior. We can be certain of this, as on 10 May 1840, Chief Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson, was travelling south along the Broken River with Assistant Protector James Dredge, going from station to station; and having visited William McKellar’s station ‘Lima’ on the Broken River just north of present-day Swanpool (Lima Station still exists in the same location today), Robinson recorded that ‘At 15 miles from McKellar’s [we] came to Stucky’s station.’ If one maps the distance, one finds that Robinson had come to the head station of Barjarg (which like Lima Station, still exists in the same location today).

At the time of Robinson’s visit, Stuckey was only 18 years old; the eldest son of established pastoralist Peter Stuckey, who by this time was based at ‘Willie Ploma’ on Wiradjuri lands at Gundagai. Robinson found that Peter Stuckey Junior, along with his servants, had only just partially finished work on a hut which could sleep eight men. The hut had been built specifically because they feared Aboriginal attack. [15]

Robinson gave an account of their situation with regards the local Aboriginal people: ‘Was informed by Mr Stuckey that on about Saturday, 25 April [1840] last a party of blacks visited his station and on the day following made an attack upon it but without doing any injury except spearing in the back of the shoulder a domesticated native in Mr Stuckey’s employ and who belongs to the Murrumbidgee [ie: Wiradjuri] tribe. Mr Stuckey when attacked was living under loose slabs. He afterwards worked day and night to complete a part of his slab hut, which is very substantial with a slab ceiling and loopholes for firing out of. They could stand a seize [ie: siege] in this fortress, it is substantially built. … [Stuckey] is quite a youth. … He had 5 men at the station, four whites and one an assigned servant and a Murrumbidgee black.’

Robinson remained at Stuckey’s station that night, ‘to enquire into the particulars of their outrage [ie: attack]. It [the hut] was about 12 x 8, in which the four white men, the black, Stuckey, Dredge and myself, large [enough] to stow eight persons. Stucky’s people apprehended another attack from the natives and had their firearms prepared for the natives. Whilst they were preparing their fortress they kept a sentinel.’

Let us remind ourselves that the local historian, Walker, could not have read this account of Stuckey’s station in Robinson’s journals, as the journals left Australia with Robinson in 1852 and remained in Britain until well after Walker’s article was written. Robinson’s description of Stuckey’s situation, with his crew of European servants plus one ‘domesticated native,’ whom may have come to be remembered in history as a ‘black boy’ (adult ‘black’ men were once routinely referred to as ‘boy’), does resemble the group described by Walker: ‘there were seven white people and a black boy at one of the stations. The black boy heard the blacks arranging their plans to attack and murder these white folk, and he warned them.’ Indeed Robinson recorded that Stuckey and his men ‘apprehended another attack’ from local Aboriginal people. Clearly, the hut they built — strong enough to withstand a siege — was evidence of this fact.

Robinson left the following day, and unfortunately we can learn no more of Stuckey’s situation from him. Indeed, by April 1841, Stuckey had established himself on a new station at the junction of the Murray and Ovens River [16], and the lease of Barjarg had been taken out by Arundell. This means that Stuckey’s stay on that part of the Broken River lasted a year or less. No wonder his presence on the Broken River was forgotten, and was absent from the archives consulted by Billis and Kenyon.

One might ask how deep the fear of imminent attack ran among Stuckey and his stockmen, and what might have driven them to possibly take the drastic step of poisoning a large number of local Aboriginal people. By the time of Robinson’s visit, Stuckey and his men would have received reports that two days after the attack on their own station, a stockman at Chisholm’s Myrrhee Station in the King Valley had been murdered and ritually mutilated (having had the caul fat from around one kidney cut out) by a group of Aboriginal men, believed to be the same group responsible for the attack on not only their own station, but a number of others. [17]

A letter written to The Port Phillip Gazette on the 8th May, signed by someone calling themselves ‘A Friend to Justice’, condemned Chief Protector of Aborigines George Augustus Robinson’s passive role in the events which were happening during the course of his visit to North East Victoria, writing that ‘Mr. Robinson passed a party of stockmen all armed going in search of the natives; he ought to have put himself or his sub at the head of these men, not only to prevent the wanton effusion of aboriginal blood, but to bring to justice the murderers of Mr. Chisholm’s man.’ [18] Clearly, stockmen in the vicinity of the Ovens and King Rivers were looking for violent retribution, which ‘A Friend to Justice’ knew would be ‘wanton’ — which is to say ‘indiscriminate’.

A little over a week and a half after George Augustus Robinson had visited Stuckey’s station (Barjarg), Aboriginal people also attacked David Lindsay Waugh’s station on the Delatite River. Waugh’s station was considered to be in the immediate neighbourhood of Stuckey’s: two stockmen — John Kyly, immigrant, native of Cork; and convict ‘lifer’ Emanuel Haly — were murdered, and this time, their bodies were never recovered. [19] With good reason, we can speculate that increasingly ‘wanton’ forms of retribution, including poisoning, were pursued by pastoralists and their stockmen.

Hunter & Watson's detail

Detail from Russell’s Sketch Plan of Hunter and Watson’s pastoral holdings, showing its boundary with Arundell’s Barjarg Station, 1846 (State Library of Victoria).

So who was Walker’s informant regarding the massacre at Barjarg — ‘Mrs Frank Withers’? The Withers family were gold-rush-era settlers of the Mansfield district, and ‘Mrs Frank Withers’ was Catherine Withers (born Dublin, 1848, who died at Howe’s Creek, Mansfield in 1922). Her Irish emigrant parents James Doyle and Molly (Mary, nee Murtagh) had settled on the Broken River sometime in the 1850s. In 1928, upon the death of Catherine’s brother Frank, The North East Ensign would remind its readers that Catherine and Frank’s father James Doyle ‘was well known in the early days[,] and for years manager and book-keeper of Barjarg and Warrenbayne stations.’ [20]

According to a Withers family descendant Fon Cathcart, who wrote a history of the Withers family in 1965, Catherine Withers’ mother, Molly Doyle, had an amicable relationship with local Aboriginal people:

‘She had plenty of Irish spirit and, though used to living in a big city, she was quite unafraid of the blacks who roamed around the homestead. She was a bare 5 feet tall, but had a heart as big as a giant, and she opened it right up to these poor dispossessed aborigines, feeding them when they needed it from their own not to plentiful larder, and administering to their children when they were sick. They adored her.

‘Jimmie Doyle ordered them off his property at every opportunity, and gave them the benefit of his large Irish vocabulary of swear words.
“Are you feeding those so-and-so’s?” He would bellow at her.

“Divvil a bit,” she would reply with an innocent look, having just given them the last of her batch of bread!

‘The blacks had a great sense of humour apparently, which is quite interesting to note, for when they saw Jimmie Doyle coming in the distance they would often bundle the tiny Doyle children into their canoe and row up the Broken River, laughing mockingly as he raced to the bank and swore volubly at them. They called her “Missy Doyle” and him “Mr Buggarem”, with a rare insight into the ways of white people!

“Missy” wasn’t afraid of what they would do to her children – as soon as “Mr Buggarem” went off to the sheds they’d row back and deposit their precious burden back in a safe place. One of these precious burdens was Catherine, usually called Kate, who, like her sisters of whom we know of two, was pretty as a picture – she grew up to be the future wife of Frank Withers, eldest son of James and Mary…’ [21]

Given that the Doyles reportedly arrived in the Broken River district in the 1850s [22], they could have heard the story of the massacre at Barjarg no later than fifteen years after its actual occurrence. Jimmie Doyle would have been in the employ of James Moore, who had taken over the lease of Barjarg from Arundel in 1849, and who also later developed Warrenbayne station. [23] So, Catherine Doyle — a.k.a ‘Mrs Frank Withers’ — had spent time with surviving local Aboriginal people on the Broken River as a child, and her father had intimate knowledge of Barjarg Station at a time well within living memory of any  massacre that took place there. It seems that local historian P. W. Walker had every right to put Catherine Withers forward as a credible source of local oral history.

***

Unfortunately, as it stands, I cannot yet find any other independent account of a mass poisoning at Barjarg station. A letter written in 1926 by Iris E. Howell which chronicles the history of Barjarg — a copy of which is now in possession of the current fourth generation owner of Barjarg Station, Mr Fred Forrest — either directly quotes Walker; or alternatively, both she and Walker have both directly quoted an external unacknowledged source. Mr Forrest says that from what information has been passed down to him, the poisoning did not happen at the current site of Barjarg Station (now substantially descreased in size), but further downstream on the Broken River, at a place which was flooded by the construction of Lake Nillahcootie.

I don’t doubt that the late 1830s and early 1840s was a time of extreme unmitigated violence in North East Victoria, on a colonial frontier awash with convicts and squatters who in every sense were a law unto themselves. Whether we attribute the massacre at Barjarg to squatters William Arundell or Peter Stuckey, or any of their convict or free settler stockmen (with or without their masters’ knowledge), what matters now is the recognition of Catherine Withers as a credible witness to local oral history, and most significantly, that we make an acknowledgement that a highly illegal mass poisoning of Aboriginal people on Barjarg Station more than likely did occur.

In a forthcoming blog post, I will examine the evidence for which Aboriginal group in particular was likely the victim of this horrific event.

This is original written content that is copyright protected to ©Jacqui Durrant, 2019. You are welcome to share links to this blog, but please do not use the content elsewhere without permission. Thank you!

References to ‘Massacre on the Broken River’

[1a] ‘Early History of Mansfield,’ By P. W. Walker. The Australasian, Saturday, 8 November 1930, p.4.
[1b] ‘DETAILS REQUESTED. TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN,’ The Australasian, Saturday 15 November 1930, p.4.
[2] ‘Details Supplied. To the Editor of the Australasian,’ The Australasian, Saturday, 22 November 1930, p 4.
[3] Judy Macdonald, ‘John ‘Howqua’ Hunter and the China connection,’ Latrobeana, Journal of the C J La Trobe Society, Vol 15, No 3, November 2016, p.24.
[4] MANSFIELD SETTLERS AND THE BLACKS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN. The Australasian, Saturday 29 November 1930 p4.
[5] ibid.
[6] ‘TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN.’ The Australasian, Saturday 29 November 1930, p.4.
[7] ‘MANSFIELD MEMORIES. TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN.’ The Australasian, Saturday 20 December 1930, p.4.
[8] ibid.
[9] Judy Macdonald, ‘James Watson and “Flemington”: a Gentleman’s Estate,’ Latrobeana, Journal of the C J La Trobe Society, Vol. 8, No. 3, November 2009, p.22.
[10] Judy Macdonald, ‘John ‘Howqua’ Hunter and the China connection,’ Latrobeana, Journal of the C J La Trobe Society, Vol 15, No 3, November 2016, p.24.
[11] James Dredge Diary, 1 June 1839, p.52. James Dredge, Three volumes and one transcript of the diary, a letter book and a note book are in the La Trobe Australian Manuscripts Collection of the State Library [MS 11625 and MS 5244 (transcript) Box 16].[12] Dr Marguerita Stephens (ed) The Journal of Assistant Protector William Thomas 1839-67, Volume 1: 1839-1943, Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (VACL), Melbourne, p.8. Entry for Sunday 24 March 1839.
[13] Billis, R. V. and Kenyon, A. S., Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip, Macmillan & Company Ltd., Melbourne, 1932, p.7.
[14] Billis, R. V. and Kenyon, A. S., ibid., Preface.
[15] Ian Clark (ed.), The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Protectorate, 1839-1852, Melbourne, 2014, this entry dated 10 May, 1840.
[16] ‘Hume River, APRIL 8th, 1841.’ The Sydney Monitor and Commercial Advertiser, Monday 26 April 1841, Page 2.
[17] ‘THE BLACKS —HUME RIVER, JUNE 2’ The Colonist, 24 June, 1840, p.2.
[18] ‘The Blacks. To the editor of the Port Philip Gazette,’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Tuesday 23 June 1840, p.4.
[19] British Parliamentary Papers, Despatches of Governors of Australian Colonies, illustrative of Condition of Aborigines, House of Commons Paper Series: House of Commons Papers, Paper Type: Accounts and Papers Parliament: 1844, Paper Number: 627, p.116.
[20] ‘OBITUARY. MR. FRANK DOYLE,’ The North East Ensign, 30 November 1928, p.2.
[21] Fon Cathcart, The Salt of the Earth, The Authentic Story of James and Mary Withers — Pioneers of the Mansfield District, Melbourne, 1965, p. 21.
[22] Fon Cathcart, ibid., p.21.
[23] Billis and Kenyon, op. cit. p.99.

First people of Beechworth — answering some criticisms

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Aboriginal, Beechworth, King Billy, Squatters, Tangambalanga, Uncategorized, Wangaratta, Yackandandah

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WARNING: Visitors should be aware that this blog post includes images and names of deceased people that may cause sadness or distress, particularly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In particular, I acknowledge the Aboriginal ancestors whose words are quoted within this post, with the greatest respect for their legacy.

This post relates to my previous post on the Pallanganmiddang — First Peoples of Beechworth and Beyond, addressing some potential criticisms of the research. Be warned: it is technical!

In my last post, I stated that from a historical perspective, the first people of the Beechworth region, and in fact a much broader area, were a local area group (in anthropological language, an ‘areal-moiety’ grouping, ie: belonging to an area, with a moiety attached), called the Pallangan-middang. The Pallangan-middang spoke a unique language which was neither Pangerang/Yorta Yorta, nor Dhudhuroa. They also appear in multiple detailed references in one historical source (the journals of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector of Aborigines) as a sub-set of a larger group called the Waywurru (Waveroo).

Since the last post was published, I have had some suggestions which in turn constitute arguments to the effect that I (and others) have misinterpreted the historical source materials. The body of this argument is that when Europeans talked to Aboriginal people and then tried to write down what they said, they got it wrong. One reason they got it wrong is because Aboriginal languages are difficult for Europeans to interpret and transcribe. Another reason is that they didn’t understand Aboriginal culture and frequently misinterpreted things. As a professional historian who trained at a university (La Trobe University), whose history department was internationally known for its ‘ethnographic history’, I was exposed to individual historians who made it their life’s work to grapple specifically with these kinds of historical problems. In a nutshell, these issues of cross-cultural interpretation do constitute real problems for historians. No sound historian would negate that argument, and would always seek strategies to attempt to compensate for the possibility of such misreadings.

Conversely, to consign to the ‘rubbish bin’ written historical source materials just because they were created by European colonisers, would mean loosing a lot of valuable information. Very few scholars of Victorian Aboriginal history (Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal), would consign the massive journals of writers like George Augustus Robinson or William Thomas, written mainly in the 1840s, to the bin — no matter how offensive some of the actions of these individuals with regards to Aboriginal people were. All historians should be suspicious of what their sources have to say, and attempt to ‘test them’ using historiographical  practices such as cross-referencing, and placing source materials in their correct historical context.

Particularly when talking in a public forum, it is difficult to counter-argue an argument against one’s own work without actually pulling out enormous wads of source materials in order to demonstrate to lay people in the audience that I have already considered certain potential errors and done my best to compensate for the possibility of these errors. However, I would like to take this opportunity to address four specific arguments which suggest my work is the result of faulty interpretation of the historical source materials. I cannot prevent people from reading primary source materials however they like. However, I can at least respond to criticisms of my own work by explaining how I have gone about some specific points in relation to my interpretation of primary source materials.

Counter argument 1: ‘In the historical records, Pallanganmiddang is just a misspelling of Pangerang. They are the same thing.’

This argument was systematically dismantled by historian Dr Marie Hansen Fels in her monumental report ‘These Singular People — The Ovens Blacks, Supplementary Report, 28 July 1997’ written in response to anthropologist Rod Hagen’s critique of her initial report, produced for the Yorta Yorta Native Title case during the mid-1990s. However, because this report was never published, this argument continues to be raised.

My response to the argument that Pallanganmiddang is a misspelling of Pangerang runs like this: Yes, Europeans did struggle with spelling Aboriginal names and words, and frequently, they spelled the same name or word in several different ways. Aboriginal cultures were oral cultures, and there were no conventional ways of spelling Aboriginals names and words. However, when one sees attempts to write certain words written enough times, one can discern a similarity between these various attempts at spelling, which unifies them.

In Victoria generally, some common issues arise in spelling, which can be easily accounted for, if one is aware of them. The first is to do with the way Europeans struggled to record the sounds ‘P’ and ‘B’ which as a consequence are used interchangeably. Even today, as well as historically, one may often see ‘Pangerang’ written as ‘Bangerang’ (or even Bpangerang), but we are all aware that Pangerang, Bangerang and Bpangerang refer to the same group. Certainly one also finds, in the historical sources, Pallanganmiddang also written a ‘B’ instead of a ‘P’. (The same kid of transposition often occurs with the sounds ‘T’, ‘K’ and ‘Dj’.)

The second issue with spelling is cultural: it seems that the Pallanganmiddang people frequently deployed the Kulin areal-moiety (local area) group suffix ‘—illum’ instead of the north east Victorian alpine areal-moiety (local area) group suffix ‘—mittung’, depending largely on where they were in the landscape. So it is possible to see the name appearing as Pallangan-illum, or, Ballangan-illum, as well as Pallengan-mittung. (One also sees the second ‘a’ replaced with an ‘i’, and the third ‘a’ replaced with an ‘o’ — especially in geographical zones associated with Kulin peoples. So one sees Ballingo-illum, Ballingon-illum, or variations of this.)

In fact, we do see a lot of spelling variation in Robertson of the name Pallanganmiddang. However, he does spell Pangerang rather consistently throughout as ‘Pingerine’. Take, for instance, Robinson’s first visit into North East Victoria. On 20 April 1840, at Brodribb’s station on the Broken River (near Benalla), he meets a number of Aboriginal men, who may be passing through, or may be station workers. He writes:

‘We ascertained these natives belong to or were parts of three tribes [in fact, he goes on to list four, but I will list the two relevant to this discussion!]:
1. Bal.lin.go.yal.lums, a section of the Ovens tribe, called I believe Wee.her.roo, so says Mr Brodribb (queri)
…
4. And the Pine.ger.rines, a large tribe inhabiting the country on the south and south west banks of the Murry.’

From this excerpt we can see that Robinson has clearly met two different groups, the Ballingoyallums and the Pinegerines.

The following February (1841) Robinson revisits north east Victoria, and on the 9th and 10th of February, he meets with a large mixed group of Aboriginal people on Bontharambo station (just out of Wangaratta). He sits down and records their names, gender, ages, what groups they belong to, and sometimes their kin relationship. On the 23 February 1841, he writes down his findings. He records the names of around 15 people who are specifically ‘Pallengoillum’ or ‘Pallengomitty,’ belonging to the ‘Waveroo’ or ‘Wave.veroo’ ‘nation’, plus another 10 or so generally Waveroo people. He also records about 28 ‘Pinegerine’ people. (As an aside, Robinson also records roughly equal numbers of Wiradjuri and Taungurung people on the same site on that occasion.) Insofar as I can see, Robinson has interviewed in this instance, around 95 people, and within that large group he has clearly identified people who are ‘Pallengoillum’/’Pallengomitty’ (Pallanganillum/Pallanganmiddang) as well as people who are ‘Pinegerine’ (Pangerang). The two groups are clearly identified, with exceptional clarity, as separate groups.

Counter argument 2: ‘Waywurru is really a misspelling of the Melbourne broader group Woiwurrung.’

This could easily be a legitimate concern. The argument runs along the lines that when Robinson was in north east Victoria, he was meeting a lot of Woiwurrung people who were in transit, using the Port Phillip route (ie: the modern day Hume Freeway, which was the original overlanding track), as a means of travel. Thus he was meeting Woiwurrung in North East Victoria, and he recorded them as ‘Waywurru’ (in fact, variations of this spelling such as ‘Wee-her-roo,’ ‘Waveroo’ and so on).

This seems plausible until one realises that Robinson had spent a lot of time in Melbourne around the Woiwurrung and that he could identify this language when he heard it spoken. However, in north east Victoria, he clearly treats the ‘Wee-her-roo,’ or ‘Wave-veroo’ as a new and unknown group, which he has to learn about. Whenever Robinson was unsure about something, and knew he had to continue to check the facts, he made a note in his journal to himself to ‘queri’ the statement.

When, on Monday 20 April 1840, Robinson met some ‘Bal.lin.go.yal.lums, a section of the Ovens tribe, called I believe Wee.her.roo, so says Mr Brodribb (queri)’ , Robinson made a note to ‘query’ further about this group.

On Thursday 23 April 1840,  Robinson wrote, ‘The natives at Dockers [ie: Bontharambo station] prostitute their women in like manner as do many other tribes: Goulburn, Waverong; Barrable, &c.’

Here we can see that within the same short period of time (four days), Robinson has chosen to identify ‘Wee.her.roo’ and ‘Waverong’ separately. Dr Ian Clark has accounted for the different ways in which Robinson wrote Waywurru: Wee.her.roo, Way.u.roo Wee.er.roo; Way.you.roo, Waveroo, Wavaroo, Wavoroo, Wave.veroo, Way.you.roo, Wayerroo (Ian Clarke, ‘Aboriginal languages in north-east Victoria – the status of ‘Waveru’ reconsidered,’ Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 2011, Vol. 14(4): 2-22). Critically, Robinson only used these spellings in the geographical context of north east Victorian locations. 

We can compare this with the way Robinson wrote Woiwurrung, frequently as ‘Waverong’ (eg: on 18 July 1839, 11 October 1840, 16 November 1840 as examples) and ‘Way.you.rong’ (1 June 1840). (There are probably more examples  but I do not have time to scan the 800+ journal pages I have before me.) Moreover Robinson’s geographical context for using ‘Waverong’ never applies to north east Victoria (ie: country north of the Broken River).

It is easy to see that Robinson differentiated between Waywurru by creating the sound ‘—varoo’ on the end of the word — a linguistic gesture he retained exclusively for a group in north east Victoria; while in the case of Waverong, he created the sound ‘—erong’ on the end of the word, and used this in context appropriate to an area and people we now comprehend as Woi-wurrung.

One could argue that this differentiation is due to a dialectical difference between say Melbourne and North East Victoria, but that it still refers to the same group of people. That argument comes unstuck when one considers that none of the people whom Robinson associates with Wavaroo claim any connection to Melbourne: Quite the opposite; several openly claim specific connection to areas of land in north east Victoria. The same cannot be said for anyone associated with Waverong. There still exists a remote possibility that Pallanganmiddang were a non-contiguous areal moiety of ‘Woi-wurrung’, and that they pronounced it ‘Waveroo’. However it would require a lot of evidence to establish this in concrete terms, as a non-contiguous areal moiety speaking an entirely different language doesn’t fit the broader pattern of Kulin society.

Counter argument 3: ‘There is only one historical source for the term Waywurru, therefore its existence might be just the faulty perception of one person.’

In his paper published in the journal Aboriginal History (Volume 25, 2005, pp.216-227), titled ‘Ethnographic information and anthropological interpretation in a Native Title claim: the Yorta Yorta experience’, anthropologist Rod Hagen stated that with regards to the term ‘Waveroo,’ aside from the journal of George Augustus Robinson, ‘No other 19th century commentator makes mention of them.’  While there is not much evidence for ‘Waveroo’ as a term, it is easy to demonstrate Hagen’s statement as inaccurate. There are two other contemporary sources (squatters Benjamin Barber and David Reid) who agree with George Augustus Robinson, referring to a ‘Weeroo’ or ‘Weiro’ broad group in the area of north east Victoria north of the Broken River and south of the Murray River (Letter from Benjamin Barber, in ‘Replies to the following Circular Letter on the subject of the Aborigines, addressed to gentlemen residing too remote from Sydney, to expect the favour of their personal attendance upon the Committee, in Select Committee Enquiry into Immigration, NSW Legislative Council, 1841; and David Reid in ‘Aboriginal Population 1860, The Argus, Friday 5 October, 1860. p.5). While Barber’s knowledge was mainly in relation to the area of Barnawatha Station, Reid had lived on the Ovens at what is now Tarrawingee, and had also lived in Yackandandah, and consequently his statement would reflect this experience. Three independent sources is not a substantial historical record compared to other large groups such as the Wiradjuri or Taungurung, but the paucity of information about them must be contextualised by the fact that the Waywurru/Waveroo were a comparatively small group which bore the brunt of violence from numerous overlanding parties travelling to Port Phillip, as well as violent squatters who settled in north east Victoria, all through the late 1830s and early 1840s.

Counter argument 4: ‘There are old maps, and these maps show the Pangerang on country where you say the Pallanganmiddang should be.’

Another criticism of my work on the Pallanganmiddang is that what I have written and describe doesn’t accord well with maps of Aboriginal Victoria. Some of them, like Norman Tindale’s map of 1940, revised in 1974, are very famous and well-regarded. Unfortunately, maps have a power to them that people don’t often question, but one has to remember that maps of Aboriginal Victoria are based on historical information. 

The criticism of my work on Pallanganmiddang could be expressed more specifically as ‘Durrant’s work does not accord well with maps of Aboriginal Victoria produced before the 1990s.’ ‘Why discard maps produced before the 1990s?’ I hear you ask. ‘Surely old maps are more accurate?’ I hear you say. The simple answer is that in the 1990s, historians and linguists suddenly found themselves in possession of information about Aboriginal Victoria recorded far earlier than the oldest maps of Aboriginal Victoria (for instance, Brough Smyth’s map which appeared in his 1878 book The Aborigines of Victoria: With Notes Relating to the Habits of the Natives of Other Parts of Australia and Tasmania.), and they began using this ‘new’ (in fact, much older) information to produce new maps. In particular, the Victorian Aboriginal Languages Corporation commissioned Dr Ian Clark to produce a new map, based on the new archival materials which had come to light. These new maps accord far more closely with the historical picture that I have painted of the Pallanganmiddang local group of the Waywurru broad group.

There is, in fact, a backstory behind the creation of these ‘new maps based on old material’:

By the early 1980s, the late, great anthropologist Diane Barwick (1938-1986), was dissatisfied with the Victorian section of Tindale’s maps, and was trying to unravel the issue of which Aboriginal groups occupied different parts of Victoria. She’d tackled some of Victoria, and published a major article titled ‘Mapping the Past, Part I’. She was in the middle of working on a new paper devoted to North East Victoria (intended as ‘Mapping the Past, Part II’) when she died tragically and suddenly of a brain haemorrhage. However, this is what Barwick had to say about Norman Tindale’s mapping in 1984, about two years before she died:

‘The best-known map of Victorian ‘tribes’ is the continental ‘tribal map’ published in 1940 by South Australian Museum biologist and ethnologist Norman B. Tindale, which was explicitly “based principally on recent fieldwork with additions from the literature”. Dr Tindale’s unparalleled record of ethnographic publications dates back to 1925, but it appears that the Victorian fieldwork which shaped this map was undertaken when he and Dr Joseph Birdsell were co-leaders of the 1938/39 Harvard-Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition. Tindale’s 1940 tribal labels were admittedly the basis for more recent maps of language distribution in Victoria — with some amendments resulting from linguistic research during the 1960s and/or consultation of the original notes compiled by amateur ethnographers A.W. Howitt, R.H. Mathews and John Mathew, which were not accessible for scholarly study until the 1970s. Tindale’s 1974 revision of his 1940 map incorporated available information from recent research but necessarily relied upon published material, mainly the writings of Howitt, Curr, Smyth, R.H. Mathews (whose reliability he had questioned in 1940 but now acclaimed), and the few accessible Protectorate records from the 1840s. His tentative boundaries in central and northeastern Victoria were admittedly deduced from discrepant published sources…’ (Barwick, Diane E. Mapping the Past: An Atlas of Victorian Clans 1835-1904 [online]. Aboriginal History, Vol. 8, 1984: 100-131. This reference: pp.100-101. My emphasis added.)

What Barwick was saying is that, with regards to North East Victoria, Tindale’s first map was compiled principally from his interpretation of four historical sources, written by men who were contemporary to each other: R. Brough Smyth, Edward Curr, Alfred Howitt and R.H. Mathews (and some of his own research conducted at places such as Cumeragunga). At a later date, Tindale had access to some field notes and manuscript materials left by some of these same men. Each of these men had his own distinctive limitations, and when their work was combined, there were discrepancies between them which were difficult to reconcile. There were a number of professional jealousies between them, but perhaps the biggest limitation of their work as a whole is that each man had laboured under the misapprehension that Aboriginal people would soon be ‘extinct’, which led them to believe that if they simplified or fudged some information for publication, that no Aboriginal people would be around to question their work at a later date. They were wrong.

By 1986, the year of her death, Diane Barwick had credible reasons for thinking she could revise the map covering North East Victoria on Normal Tindale’s by now famous map of Aboriginal tribes. ‘Why not get Tindale to do it?’ I hear you ask. —Tindale was 86 years old. ‘Why did Barwick think she could do better?’ I hear you ask. — Let me reply first with some rhetorical questions: What if some absolutely critical sources of information had simply vanished from the historical record, only to reappear at a later date? What if some source materials previously inaccessible were suddenly entered into a local public institution and made available to researchers? This is precisely what happened with regards to information about Aboriginal history in North East Victoria. Where there had been, at first, slender and contradictory evidence, there came a pivotal moment that changed everything: and this a happened when the journal of G.A. Robinson was returned to Australia from Great Britain!

George Augustus Robinson was the Chief Protector of Aborigines in the Port Phillip District, from 1839 to 1849. Robinson was a prolific writer, and kept a daily journal as he travelled around the Port Phillip district (in what would become Victoria in 1851). His observations about Aboriginal people were made on location, usually written on the same day, and he often conversed with Aboriginal people and even recorded their names (both Aboriginal and ‘conferred’ white names). Robinson visited the northeast of Victoria in 1840, January-February 1841, 1842 and 1844, and recorded a considerable amount of information about the people he met.

Historian Dr Marie Hansen Fels has lucidly described the impact that having access to Robinson’s journal had on historians:

‘The return to Australia of Robinson’s material in 1949 (he took his papers back to England with him in 1852 and there they remained, inaccessible to scholars for nearly 100 years) transformed the nature of Aboriginal research in Victoria. We no longer had to rely on 19th century collectors of information with all the dangers of their filling in the gaps in knowledge with speculation (Howitt is a good example of this – in the 1904 edition of Native Tribes of South Eastern Australia he states on page 54 that ‘I have not been able to obtain any information as to the tribes occupying the course of the Murray between the Bangarang and Albury, or on the Ovens River lower than the “Buffalo Mountains”,’ but this absence of information does not prevent him from conjecture about them on page 101.)’ (Marie Hansen Fels, ‘These Singular People…’ p.8)

There is, however, something that Fels fails to mention — and that is that Robinson’s handwriting was atrocious. Deciphering his journal notes would only ever be a labour of love for a handful of the most diligent historians, anthropologists and linguists, like Diane Barwick and Fels herself. Thus, even up to the latter part of the 1980s, the Robinson journals remained an under-utilised resource. Historian and archaeologist Dr Gary Presland began transcribing some parts of Robinson’s journal. As soon as he did, it seems that other historians started borrowing his transcripts. In 1989, Presland wrote:

‘…the journal has proved to be an invaluable and, in some cases, unique source of data. Ironically however, although it has been used widely and is informing an increasing number of studies, it remains substantially unknown and untapped. In part this is due to the sheer physical volume of the source (the manuscript takes up more than one shelf metre). It is due also in part to the difficulties of reading Robinson’s poor handwriting. To a limited extent this difficulty has been lessened but more needs to be done towards publishing this invaluable source of information.’ (Gary Presland, ‘The Journals of George Augustus Robinson’, The LaTrobe Journal, No 43, Autumn 1989, p.12).

In fact, it wasn’t until Dr Ian Clark (of Federation University at Ballarat) undertook the mammoth, almost monk-like task of transcribing Robinson’s journals in their entirety, initially publishing them in sections from 1996-2000, that the average researcher had ready access to this incredible storehouse of information. There are copies of Clark’s monumental work available for purchase, but they are still very expensive. (In north east Victoria, the only public copy is at Charles Sturt University’s Albury campus library, which has an annoyingly incomplete set of Clark’s transcriptions. The current complete volumes that I use are on loan to me from a generous local person!)

To recap once again: Tindale’s 1974 map did not make use of the journal of George Augustus Robinson. Diane Barwick knew the Robinson material. She knew that in the 1840s, Robinson had repeatedly met and talked with numerous Waveroo people at places like Wangaratta, Oxley and Albury-Wodonga. Robinson even recorded a vocabulary of the Pallanganmiddang (Waywurru) language in north east Victoria — a language which would later go on to be studied by linguists in the 1990s. Clearly, these people, the Pallanganmiddang people of the Waveroo ‘nation’ (as Robinson described them) existed, but were entirely absent from Tindale’s map. Barwick was also carefully reviewing other resources, such as Alfred Howitt’s field notes and correspondences (held between three different institutions, but now available on line here). She had also examined the unpublished manuscript notes of R.H. Mathews (manuscript material in the National Library of Australia catalogued as MS8006), rather than his publications, and learned that his ‘Minyambuta group’ overlapped a little too suspiciously with Pallanganmiddang/Waveroo (she surmised the Minyambuta was an exonym for Pallanganmiddang language), and extended geographically as far as Wangaratta, which once again, was at odds with Tindale’s map. And so, she had started re-mapping the northeast Victorian section of Tindale’s map. And then before she was finished, she died. Vale Diane Barwick.

Diane Barwick’s work laid the ground work for Dr Ian Clarke, who had also transcribed George Augustus Roninson’s papers, to substantially revise the map of Aboriginal groups in North East Victoria. Clarke did not use Barwick’s manuscript papers (now in the State Library of Victoria) uncritically. However, he seems to have used them as a starting point for creating a new map based on early and credible documents such as George Augustus Robinson’s journal (to which we can now add the journals and papers of Assistant Chief Protector of Aborigines, William Thomas). My work accords well with Clarke’s work not because I am drawing directly from it, but because we are both using a storehouse of primary source materials far more substantial than what Norman Tindale ever had access to. And if Tindale was alive today, I am sure he would revise his 1974 map based on new sources, just as he had previously revised his 1940 map after new sources came to light.

This is original written content that is copyright protected to ©Jacqui Durrant, 2019. You are welcome to share links to this blog, but please do not use the content elsewhere without permission. Thank you!

Who were the Aboriginal people of Beechworth? A historical perspective.

10 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by in Aboriginal, Beechworth, King Billy, Tangambalanga

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WARNING: Visitors should be aware that this blog post includes images and names of deceased people that may cause sadness or distress, particularly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In particular, I acknowledge the Aboriginal ancestors whose words are quoted within this post, with the greatest respect for their legacy.

There’s much confusion as to who were the first people of Beechworth and the surrounding areas. In this post I intend to lay out the historical evidence for which Aboriginal local group occupied the Beechworth area, the Pallanganmiddang.

Firstly, some clarifications…

Before leaping into this post, I would like to state clearly that in my opinion, how Aboriginal people choose to define their particular ‘clan’, ‘tribe’ and ‘country’ (or any other group category), in the present day is solely a matter for Aboriginal people, not to be defined by non-Aboriginal historians. However, historical information furnished by historians (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike) may still be of interest to Aboriginal people, particularly as it contains the voices of their ancestors. As with any history ever written, what I present here is a historical (and linguistic) interpretation, supported by evidence; and my interpretation is open to debate if it is likewise supported by evidence.

The principal historical evidence that I will draw upon in this post will be the oral testimony of Aboriginal people, as told to various Europeans (mainly government officials) in the mid to late 19th century. I will do my best to privilege Aboriginal voices as they appear in historical documents, as I place a lot of weight on these ancestral voices. While it is true that the documents themselves have been created by Europeans, it is possible to discern when an Aboriginal person has related something directly to the author of a document, as opposed to the author’s later speculations, or speculations by other Europeans who have related information to a document’s author.

There are many interpretive considerations to take into account when reading historical documents in order to determine which Aboriginal groups existed and what country they belonged to, but for the sake of this blog post, I will point out this one major consideration: that in all the historical documents available in which there are Aboriginal people talking with Europeans about North East Victoria, Aboriginal people tend to identify first and foremost the names of what are now widely referred to as ‘clans’. A ‘clan’ can be considered a smaller ‘local group’ within what is colloquially known as a ‘tribe’. I will refer to them here as ‘local groups’, and ‘tribes’ as ‘broader groups’. Local groups appear to have been the principal unit of identity from an Aboriginal point of view — as least in terms of defining land ownership.

Finally, people unused to reading Victorian Aboriginal local group and broader group names may find this post a bit mind-boggling. For now, the post is necessarily argued in detail so that the sources of the information are as transparent as I can make them. I apologise if this makes the post difficult to read.

Pallanganmiddang, the people of Beechworth and surrounds

The local group historically associated with modern-day Beechworth, and in fact a much wider surrounding area, was the Pallanganmiddang. There are various ways in which their name is spelled in historical texts. Sometimes it begins with a B rather than a P, because Europeans apparently struggled to transcribe the sound ‘Bp’. Sometimes the local group name is given the suffixes ‘-illum’ and/or ‘-balluk’ (used by the ‘Kulin’ ‘tribes’ from the Broken River down to Melbourne) rather than the local group suffix common to local groups of north-east of Victoria and the southern Wiradjuri ‘-mittang’ or ‘-middang’. In both cases these suffixes (as Theddora woman Jenny Cooper related to anthropologist Alfred Howitt) simply meant ‘a group of people’. [1a]

Anyone reading the historical documents will soon notice that the name Pallanganmiddang has a number of ‘cognates’ (linguistically, a different spelling with the same etymological origin): Ballŭng-kara-mittang-bula, Ballinggon-willum, Bal.lin.go.yal.lum, Pallingoilum, Pallanganmiddang, Pallanganmiddah, Pallengoinmitty, Pal.lum.gy.mit.um, and so on. Although it may be difficult to grasp, ‘Pallanganmiddang’ and its cognates are not linguistically the same as ‘Bpangerang’. For the sake of making this post easier to read, I have put the various cognates of Pallanganmiddang in bold throughout the text.

The Pallanganmiddang was recognised as a local group by William Barak, ngurungaeta (respected head) of the Wurundjeri-willam local group (Melbourne area). When interviewed by anthropologist Alfred Howitt in the late 19th century, Barak stated that the local group associated with Wangaratta was the ‘Ballŭng-kara-mittang-bula‘. Incidentally, Barak separated this local group from the Bpangerang by stating that the ‘Baingerang’ were associated geographically with Echuca. Barak also provided an indication of the boundary of Pallanganmiddang country to the south by stating that the Yeerŭn-illŭm-ballŭk local group (a local group of the Taungurung ‘tribe’ or broad group) were associated with a ‘big swamp Below Benalla’. [1b] This geographical descriptor definitely associates the Yeerŭn-illŭm with Benalla, and perhaps also with the big swamp now known as Winton Wetlands (although this is not ‘below’ Benalla according to cardinal points), or more likely the symbolically important waterhole ‘Marangan’ (which now forms Lake Benalla).* Importantly, this raw information appears in Alfred Howitt’s primary interview notes with Barak, which are entirely free of Howitt’s subsequent interpretations and categorisations, as seen in his The Native Tribes of South East Australia (1904).

[*Since originally writing this post I have found quite a few references to Marangan indicating its cultural significance, and I now think it more likely that Barak was referring to Marangan when he spoke to Howitt of a ‘big swamp’. — 29 May 2020]

The Pallanganmiddang were also recognised by Kulin people who gave information to Assistant Protector of Aborigines William Thomas in Melbourne in the early to mid-1840s. One or more Kulin men told Thomas that ‘The Goulborne Tribes comprehend 6 sections’; and list these sections (local groups), and the geographical localities for each local group (the geographical locality denoted mainly by the names of the pastoralists who held stations on that local group’s country). Thus the last of these six sections listed by Thomas’s informant/s was the ‘Ballinggon willum Dr Mackey, Mr Wendberg &c’. [2] This ‘Ballinggon-willum’ clan (or as Barak would have it, ‘Ballŭng-Kara-mittang’), is associated with a surprisingly accurate geographical descriptor, that of the pastoral run of ‘Dr Mackey’. At the time of Thomas’s writing, there was only one pastoralist with a station in the whole of the Port Phillip district with the name ‘Dr Mackey’, which was Dr George Edward Mackay at Whorouly.

The inclusion of ‘Ballinggon-willum‘ as comprising one of the six sections (local groups) of the Goulburn tribe (ie: Taungurung), is of interest — not least to the modern day Taungurung clans, but this is an issue which cannot be taken at face value, given the complexities of social relations between the Pallanganmiddang and several Kulin clans — especially as Thomas excluded them from his later 1858 list of Kulin nation peoples. For now, let us note that other Taungurung clans are absent from the same list: Leuk-willam, Moomoomgoondeet, Nattarak-bulluck and Waring-illum-balluk, and that these absences make it at best an incomplete if not inaccurate list. [3]

Pallanganmiddang local group was also recognised by Taungurung people (around Mansfield/Delatite River). When travelling through Taungurung country, Chief Protector of Aborigines, George Augustus Robinson, spoke with Taungurung  people who provided him with a list of local groups occupying adjoining country (on 1 June 1840) [4]. Contained within this list, headed, ‘Vocabulary: Goulburn blacks at Mt. Buller and Crossing Place, May 1840’ is the clear statement ‘Pal.lin.go.mit.tite: this last [local group] at the junction of the Ovens’. The ‘junction of the Ovens,’ which was familiar to all ‘overlanders’ at this time was the junction of the Ovens River with the King River, at Wangaratta. Also contained within the vocabulary information is a numbered list of adjoining local groups [my clarification of modern-day spellings and localities in square brackets]:

‘1. Tin.ne.mit.tum; [Djinning-mittang, Mitta Mitta Valley]
2. Moke.al.lum.be; [Mogullumbidj, Mount Buffalo]
3. Peer.eng.ile: are the Ware.rag.ger.re; [‘Ware.rag.ger.re’ may be Wiradjuri]
4. Pal.lum.gy.mit.um: at Dow.koy.yong; to the NE of Mt Battery’

In this list, Robinson records the Pal.lum.gy.mit.um, at ‘Dow.koy.ong’, North East of Mount Battery. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a present-day Dow.koy.yong. North-east of Mount Battery is the location of present-day town of Barwite, and further in that same direction in the ranges, lies the upper reaches of the King Valley.  So it would seem that ‘Dow.koy.ong’ is either at Barwite, Tolmie, or in the upper King Valley. 

This information constitutes almost* as much as I could find that is on record that the Kulin peoples had to say about the Pallanganmiddang and their location: that they existed, and their country included Wangaratta, the King Valley, and Whorouly. As Kulin country lay to the south of Pallanganmiddang country (speaking in broad terms and leaving aside whether Pallanganmiddang were in fact also Kulin), it makes sense that Kulin people spoke about the southern extent of that country.

[*I am currently re-examining some statements made by Taungurung to Robinson in the Upper Broken River Valley. — JD 20 August 2020]

And now we must turn to what the Pallanganmiddang had to say about themselves and their country. Much of what is recorded of what Pallanganmiddang people had to say directly was recorded by the Chief Protector of Aborigines George Augustus Robinson, on three separate visits (April 1840, February 1841, and September 1844) to north-east Victoria. In particular, the visit of February 1841 was associated with Robinson escorting some Aboriginal men, who had been gaoled in Melbourne for an attack on Mackay’s station in May 1840, home — a journey on which he became quite closely acquainted with a young Pallanganmiddang man, Mul.lo.nin.ner (a.k.a. ‘Joe’).

Robinsons’ visit of April 1840: Robinson’s first encounter with some Pallanganmiddang people was at ‘Brodribb’s station’ at the Broken River (present-day Benalla), on Monday 20 April 1840. Robinson records that he has met 10 men of four different local groups, including [my clarification of modern-day spellings and localities in square brackets]:
‘1. Bal.lin.go.yal.lums, a section of the Ovens tribe, called I believe Wee.her.roo (queri); [Waywurru/Waveroo]
2. The Buth.er.rer.bul.luc, a section of the Tar.doon.gerong; [Butherballuk, Taungurung]
3. The Wor.rile.lum, a large tribe inhabiting the country down the Goulburn River by the Murray, east side; [likely Ngurai-illum, or alternatively a Pangerang clan on the lower Goulburn]
4. And the Pine.ger.rines, a large tribe inhabiting the country on the south and southwest banks of the Murray.’ [Pangerangs]

At this point in time Robinson is aware that the Bal.lin.go.yal.lums are a section (local group) from a larger ‘Ovens tribe’, but still unsure that the ‘Ovens tribe’ is called ‘Wee.her.roo’ [ie: Waywurru, Waveroo], so he has written a note to himself (as he does at other places in his journals) to ‘queri’ this information. For now I will say that the debates about ‘Waywurru’ constitute a different discussion to the one in this post, but it is worth noting that modern-day descendants of Pallangan-middang tend to identify as ‘Waywurru’. However, what is relevant to this post is that Robinson makes a clear distinction between the ‘Bal.lin.go.yal.lums’ who are an Ovens River clan, and the ‘Pine.ger.rines’ (Pangerang), who are a Murray River clan. His query about Waywurru seems to have been answered after he ‘spent time in conversation with the natives,’ on the 23 of April 1840. After this time he tends to refer to the Waywurru as a ‘nation’ (of which Pallangan-middang is a constituent part). Two other contemporary sources (squatters Benjamin Barber and David Reid) agree with Robinson, referring to a ‘Weeroo’ and ‘Weiro’ broad group in the area. [6]

Specifically, Benjamin Barber wrote from Barnawatha in 1841: ‘there are three distinct tribes in this neighbourhood, the Hume or Uradgerry [Wiradjuri], the Weiro [Waywurru] or Ovens, and the Unangan [Pangerang], or Lower Hume…’ [6b] It is also worth noting that in the geographical sensibilities of the day ‘Lower Hume’ generally meant downstream from Albury.

Visit of February 1841: By the end of 1840, Robinson was organising to have some Aboriginal men from North East Victoria released from gaol in Melbourne; and after talking with each, he takes down their details. The first man he organises to be released is Pallangan-middang man, Min.nup (Merriman), on 28 December 1840. [5] In taking the details of the various men being released, Robinson finds that several of these men describe Bontharambo (just out of Wangaratta) as their ‘native country’. For instance, on 10 December 1840, he records ‘Jag.ger.rog.er, conferred name Harlequin, belonging to the Pal.len.go.illum section of the Wavaroo tribe, country between the Broken River [Benalla] and Hume [Murray River], … locality at Pan.der.ram.bo.go [Bontharambo], Docker’s Plains’. On 2 January 1841 Robinson spoke with Wine.ger.rine (aka. Parngurite, conferred name Lare.re) who ‘belongs to the tribe of Wavoroo, section 1. Pal.len.go.mittum, 2. Pal.len.go.mit.tite, native locality Pan.der.ram.bo.go. On the 3 February 1841 Robinson organises for three men to be released from gaol, including ‘Mul.lo.nin.ner, alias Joe, Pal.len.gen.mit.ty, country Panderambo; stating further that he ‘is married, wife’s name Kone.ner.ro.ke country Panderambo. Joe is about 18 years.’

Robinson escorts three of these men back to North East Victoria. When they reach 15 Mile Creek, on 8 February 1841, Mul.lo.nin.ner tells Robinson ‘the country at 15 Mile Creek belongs to Pallengo.il.lum to Hone.ne.ap and Mo.me.gin.ner, two blacks who belong to the 15 Mile Creek at the place where the drays stop.’ (Fifteen Mile Creek is the former name for Glenrowan.) It is worth noting that Mul.lo.nin.ner (Joe), is well placed to relate this information, as he is married to Kone.ner.ro.ke, who is a sister to Min.nup (Merriman), and that Hone.ne.ap is one of Meriman’s ‘three fathers’ (in Aboriginal kinship systems, Merriman’s paternal uncles would also be considered ‘fathers’). In other words, Joe is Merriman’s brother-in-law and is Hone.ne.ap’s son-in-law.

By Tuesday 9 February 1841, the party has made it to Joseph Docker’s Bontharambo station, where Robinson meets with a large gathering of at least 150 Aboriginal people including ‘Pingerines… Worilum, Pallengoillum, Yarranillum, Butherbulluc.’ He later adds that he held communication with parts of four nations, viz:

  1. Urungung [ie: Wiradjuri name for Pangerang (refer to Robinson, 25.41840)]
  2. Waradgery [ie: Wiradjuri]
  3. Dorngorong [ie: Taungurung]
  4. Waveroo

The number of Aboriginal people present at Bontharambo on this occasion, of different broader groups and local groups, demonstrates that the mere presence of these various people together at Bontharambo did not confer ownership of that country: in other words, there were plenty of ‘visitors’. This should surprise no one, when one considers that Joseph Docker was sympathetic to Aboriginal people, and his station Bontharambo was a safe harbour in a landscape awash with frontier violence. However, it is only Pallanganmiddang people who tell Robinson that Bonthrambo is their native locality. Moreover, Robinson notes on 11 February 1841, ‘The Pingerines are going away to their own country.’ This further indicates the status of the Pangerang as visitors at Bontharambo, like the Wiradjuri and Taungurung.

Visit of September 1844: George Augustus Robinson visited ‘the Hume’ (Albury-Wodonga) in late September 1844, where he once again met Mul.lo.nin.ner (Joe). He found Mul.lo.nin.ner in the company of  large gathering of 250 people, including many people from southern Wiradjuri local groups. Mul.lo.nin.ner immediately recognised Robinson, and over the course of two days furnished him with information, including a vocabulary of Pallanganmiddang language.

On 30 September 1844, Robinson noted: ‘Pal.ler.an.mit.ter: belong to Nar.rar, called Little River where Mr Huon’s station; language spoken is different to the Way.rad.jerre.’ (Wiradjuri). The ‘Mr Huon’ referred to here is Aime Huon who held a station on the ‘Little River’ (now known as the Kiewa River), which was named after its location ‘Merimarenbung’ [ie Mount Murramurrangbong]. Robinson took down the names of 22 Pallanganmiddang people at this gathering, and the same day he also took down a vocabulary from Mul.lo.nin.ner (Joe), which is prefaced by the statement ‘Pal.loo.ang.mitter, Nac.in.don.dy or Nack.cer.an.dy, speak language Min.u.bud.dong.’ [ie: Pallanganmiddang at Yackandandah speak Min.u.bud.dong.] The following day Robinson recorded a second vocabulary list with Joe, which is described more simply as as ‘Pal.ler.an.mitter language‘.

Through the 1840s and 1850s, and in some cases right up to the 1870s, identifiable individuals from the Pallanganmiddang show up in many stories and reports in locations from Wodonga to Mount Murramurrangbong, Tangambalanga, Yackandandah, Barwidgee, Beechworth, Stanley, Whorouly, Milawa, Oxley, Tarrawingee and Wangaratta. The evidence of their movement through their country is literally a historical confetti of stories and connections (too much to relate here), but these ‘adventures’ virtually never extend beyond the geographical extent originally outlined by the Aboriginal informants of Robinson and Thomas in the 1840s, and by William Barak in the latter 19th century.

However, one thing is clear: the newspaper reports of the Aboriginal people who visit Beechworth in 1858 and 1858 describe this group as led by Merriman and his father, ‘King Billy’ of Barwidgee, and the article clearly states that this  group make a point of visiting Beechworth as a part of their country: ‘They pay periodical visits to every part of their district, always reaching Beechworth about the time when the races come off’. [7] From all the evidence, we know that King Billy and his son Merriman, are Pallanganmiddang people.

You can read about King Billy and his clan in the post ‘Were Aboriginal people in Beechworth in the 1850s? (Following a new lead)’.

Pallanganmiddang language

In the mid-1990s, linguists Julie Reid and Barry Blake, identified on the basis of vocabularies collected in the 19th century (including those collected by George Augustus Robinson), that the Pallanganmiddang spoke a distinctive language, which is markedly different from Wiradjuri to the north and was also not a language belonging to the ‘Kulin cultural bloc’ (such as Taungurung to the south). On the basis of what we know, the language shares 25% of its vocabulary in common with Bpangerang/Yorta Yorta, and 21% in common with Dhudhuroa.  In the words of Blake and Reid, ‘It seems likely that Pallanganmiddang represents a language quite distinct from those of its neighbours.’ [8] This language is a cultural difference which sets Pallanganmiddang apart from its neighbours.

Linguistically, the two vocabulary lists that Mul.lo.nin.ner (Joe) gave Robinson in 1844 are the same language, even though only one list is prefaced by the information that Pallanganmiddang speak ‘Min.u.bud.dong’. This suggests that the name of Pallanganmiddang clan language is in fact ‘Min.u.bud.dong’, or at the very least that Min.u.bud.dong is an alternative name for Pallanganmiddang language. For his part, Dr Ian Clark has suggested, ‘that Minubuddong is a Wiradjuri exonym applied to the Pallanganmiddang.’ [9]

The same language term appears in only one other known historical source (appearing as a cognate), recorded when ethnographer R.H. Mathews interviewed Dhudhuroa man Neddy Wheeler, around five decades after Robinson spoke with Mul.lo.nin.ner (Joe). From the information Mathews gathered from Wheeler, he wrote that ‘Minyambuta, a dialect of the Dhudhuroa, was the speech of the tribe occupying the Buffalo, King, Ovens and Broken Rivers and the tributaries of these streams’ [10]. Mathews also records that ‘Minyambuta’ was spoken at Buffalo, Beechworth, Wangaratta, and Bright. [11]

When Mathews recorded ‘Minyambuta’ as a dialect of Dhudhuroa, his interpretation seems to have given rise to the idea that the Dhudhuroa peoples’ territory extended from their core country in the Mitta Mitta Valley to as far as Wangaratta (and this is actually illustrated as such on some published maps). However, modern linguists now suggest that ‘Pallanganmiddang’ language, which seems to also be known as ‘Min.u.bud.dong’ language, or by its cognate ‘Minyambuta’ language, was largely a different language to Dhudhuroa. Ian Clark states, ‘If Minyambuta is a variant of Minubuddong, which is probable, then Mathews (1909) was wrong to consider it a Dhudhuroa dialect.’ [12] Certainly, the area in which Neddy Wheeler says Minyambuta was spoken overlaps heavily with many of the locations claimed as Pallanganmiddang country in other sources, which caused Diane Barwick to consider that ‘Minjambuta’ simply referred to Pallanganmiddang. [13] (The exception to this rule does seem to be that Minjambuta was also spoken at Broken River (Benalla), which is country belonging to the Yeerŭn-illŭm local group [of the Taungurung]. However, this anomaly could be accounted for by the fact that the Yeerŭn-illŭm may have resorted to using Minyambuta language to communicate with their Pallanganmiddang neighbours.)

Conclusion

When looking at the primary historical evidence, there are references which clearly place the Pallanganmiddang ‘on country’ from Glenrowan, across to the King Valley, Whorouly, Beechworth, Yackandandah, Mount Murramurrangbong, the lower Kiewa River, Wangaratta and Bontharambo.

In all of the historical primary source materials located in state and national archives — including materials written from direct communication with Aboriginal people — it is notable that the Pallanganmiddang people are the only people who make claims of connection to the country from Wangaratta, up the Ovens Valley, over the Beechworth plateau and across to the lower Kiewa Valley. There is not a single historical reference directly connecting Pangerang to these places as owners of that country as opposed to being visitors, and although modern-day people may differ in their opinions, nor is there a single historical reference from which it can be inferred that Pallanganmiddang are a group within the Pangerang tribe. Moreover, in the historical sources I have not found a single individual who identifies as Pangerang anywhere east of Wodonga and Wangaratta; in other words there are no records of Pangerang people at all east of the line which has become the Hume Freeway. What we do find are references to the Mogullumbidj around Mount Buffalo, and of course the Dhudhuroa (aka Dodoro, or Theddora-mittung, not much further east). There are, however, numerous historical sources which talk about Pangerang in other locations much further west.

Current claims that Pallanganmiddang country is within the Taungurung nation, and also the notion that Pallanganmiddang is a clan of Dhudhuroa, are a far more complex and interesting questions to me, from an ethno-historical point of view, which deserve substantial discussion in their own right.

Post-script: An article written decades after European colonisation in 1887, about a group of Aboriginal ‘missionaries’ travelling the North East from Maloga mission to preach Christianity, reported that one of the group was Aboriginal man named Paddy Swift, who ‘aged 40, belongs to the Nanga tribe of Oxley. ‘”There was, a great crowd of my people there” he says, “but I do not think there are 20 left now.”‘ [14] Accounting for poor journalistic transcription, I see a possible correlation between ‘Nanga’ and ‘Pallangan’. Equally, ‘Nanga’ could have been a poor transcription of the Wiradjuri word for Pangerang, ‘Unangan’. However, I now think the most likely explanation is that Nanga is in fact referring to ‘Thilingananga’ — the original name adopted for the pastoral run at what was later renamed ‘Bruarong’. Interestingly, the ‘tribal’ name used by non-Aboriginal people by the early 20th century to refer to the people occupying the same general area was the ‘Barwidgees’ (the name of the adjoining pastoral run), and finally,  we also know that ‘King Billy of Barwidgee’ and his people also occupied Oxley.

Post-script 2: I also note that the name ‘Wangaratta’, which is local history books is said to be ‘Aboriginal for resting place of cormorants’, bares a linguistic relation to the Waywurru word for brolga, birranga. As we do not have the word for ‘cormorants’ in any local vocabulary, it is possible that the word was a category applied to tall waterbirds and applied to both brolgas and cormorants.

References

[1a] Alfred Howitt, notebook hw0436, State Library of Victoria, ‘Notes by Howitt on Omeo ‘tribe’ and letter from Bulmer’, p.3; this explanation is given: ‘Mittŭng = a number, or many [people]’.

[1b] Alfred Howitt, Original field notebook catalogued as XM759, held at the Museum of Victoria, p.6.

[2] William Thomas, William Thomas Papers, 1834-1868, 1902, Mitchell Library MS 214, Box 23, Section 1 (Book A (Microfilm CY 3130), p.65, 68. Transcript courtesy Dr Stephen Morey.
In the same notebook, an informant by the name of Gibberook, who was the son of ‘Netkulluk’, ‘King’ the ‘Yerren Nillum’ (Yeerŭn-illŭm) clan of the Taungurung tribe, offers a list of ‘ten sections’ (clans) and their ‘chiefs’ (clan heads); and in that list he includes more of what are now commonly understood to be Taungurung clans, but excludes Ballinggon-willum — which is interesting, considering Yeerŭn-illŭm and Ballinggon-willum are geographical neighbours.

[3] Here I have used as a guide to Taungurung clans Diane E. Barwick, ‘Mapping the Past: An Atlas of Victorian Clans 1835-1904’. Aboriginal History, Vol. 8, 1984: 100-131.

William Thomas later reported to the Select Committee of the Legislative Council of the Aborigines given in 1858 (Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council of the Aborigines , 1858-59 p. 68),

‘Between the five nearest tribes to Melbourne there is a kind of confederacy or relationship, which, I apprehend, is followed out throughout the length and breadth of Victoria. Thus, the Yarra, Western Port, Geelong, Goulburn, and Devil’s River tribes, though continually quarrelling, nevertheless are in a degree united; and to accomplish (or force) this united interest, according to their laws, marriages are not contracted in their own tribe – for instance, a Yarra man must get himself a wife, not out of his own tribe, but either of the other tribes. In like manner a Goulburn must get his lubra from the Yarra, Devil’s River, Western Port, or Geelong tribe. Thus a kind of social compact is formed against any distant tribe who might intrude upon their country, when all unite to expel the intruder…’

[4] Ian Clark [ed.], The Journal of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate, 1839-1852, published by Ian Clark, 2014. NB: For all references to Robinson I have provided the journal entry dates rather than a page number. This should enable the read who wishes to check references to pick up any published edition of Robinson’s journal and check the reference.

[5] On the 20 December, Robinson organises for Min.nup (Merriman) to be released from gaol. At the time, he takes down this information: ‘Min.nup says he has three fathers: 1. Lang.wal.lurt, 2. Hon.ne.ap, 3. Sue.wat.ware.rum. He says he has two brothers: 1. Way.be.mur.ram, 2. Taw.row, one sister: Kone.ne.roke. This is important contextual information in terms of demonstrating Merriman’s relationship to country, given that Hon.ne.ap’s country is 15 Mile Creek (Glenrowan).

[6] Marie Hansen Fels, ‘These Singular People — The Ovens Blacks, Supplementary Report,’ 28th July 1997 (unpublished technical report prepared for the Yorta Yorta Native Title Claim), p.8.

[6b] Letter from Benjamin Barber, in ‘Replies to the following Circular Letter on the subject of the Aborigines, addressed to gentlemen residing too remote from Sydney, to expect the favour of their personal attendance upon the Committee, in Select Committee Enquiry into Immigration, NSW Legislative Council, 1841; David Reid in ‘Aboriginal Population 1860, The Argus, Friday 5 October, 1860. p.5.

[7] ‘Fashionable Arrivals’, Ovens and Murray Advertiser, Wednesday 23 February, 1859, p.2

[8] Barry J. Blake and Julie Reid, ‘Pallanganmiddang: a language of the Upper Murray,’ Aboriginal History, 1999, Vol. 23, pp.15-30; this direct quote on p.17.

[9] Ian Clark, ‘Aboriginal languages in North-east Victoria – the status of ‘Waveru’ reconsidered’, Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 2011, Vol. 14(4): pp.2-22; this direct quote on p.5.

[10] R. H. Mathews, MS8006, Series 5, File 3, Box 6, National Library of Australia.

[11] R. H. Matthews, MS 8006, Series 3, Item 4, Volume 2 [Marked on notebook ‘6’], National Library Australia.

[12] Clark, ibid, p.7.

[13] ibid.

[14] ‘An Aboriginal Revival’, The Corowa Free Press, Friday 25 February 1887, p 5.

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