Australian Aboriginal Enumeration
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Australian Aboriginal Enumeration
The Australian Aboriginal counting system was used together with message sticks sent to neighbouring clans to alert them of, or invite them to, corroborees, set-fights, and ball games. Numbers could clarify the day the meeting was to be held (in a number of "moons") and where (the number of camps' distance away). The messenger would have a message "in his mouth" to go along with the message stick. A common misconception among non-Aboriginals is that Aboriginals did not have a way to count beyond two or three. However, Alfred Howitt, who studied the peoples of southeastern Australia, disproved this in the late nineteenth century, although the myth continues in circulation today. The system in the table below is that used by the Wotjobaluk of the Wimmera (Howitt used this tribal name for the language called Wergaia in the AIATSIS language map). Howitt wrote that it was common among nearly all peoples he encountered in the southeast: "Its occurrence in these tribes suggests that it m ...
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Message Stick
A message stick is a graphic communication device traditionally used by Aboriginal Australians. The objects were carried by messengers over long distances and were used for reinforcing a verbal message. Although styles vary, they are generally oblong lengths of wood with motifs engraved on all sides. They have traditionally been used across continental Australia, to convey messages between Aboriginal nations, clans and language groups and even within clans. In the 1880s, they became objects of anthropological study, but there has been little research on them published since then. Message sticks are non-restricted since they were intended to be seen by others, often from a distance. They are nonetheless frequently mistaken for tjurungas. Description and use The message stick is usually a solid piece of wood, around in length, etched with angular lines and dots. Styles vary, but they are usually a cylindrical or slightly flattened shape. Traditionally, message sticks were pa ...
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Corroboree
A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the local Dharug language, it usually includes dance, music, costume and often body decoration. Origin and etymology The word "corroboree" was adopted by British settlers soon after colonisation from the Dharug ("Sydney language") Aboriginal Australian word ''garaabara'', denoting a style of dancing. It thus entered the Australian English language as a loan word. It is a borrowed English word that has been reborrowed to explain a practice that is different from ceremony and more widely inclusive than theatre or opera.Sweeney, D. 2008. "Masked Corroborees of the Northwest" DVD 47 min. Australia: ANU, Ph.D. Description In 1837, explorer and Queensland grazier Tom Petrie wrote: "Their bodies painted in different ways, and they wore variou ...
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Alfred William Howitt
Alfred William Howitt , (17 April 1830 – 7 March 1908), also known by author abbreviation A.W. Howitt, was an Australian anthropologist, explorer and naturalist. He was known for leading the Victorian Relief Expedition, which set out to establish the fate of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition. Life Howitt was born in Nottingham, England, the son of authors William Howitt and Mary Botham. He went to the Victorian gold fields in 1852 with his father and brother to visit his uncle, Godfrey Howitt. Initially, Howitt was a geologist in Victoria; later, he worked as a gold warden in North Gippsland. Howitt went on to be appointed Police magistrate & Warden Crown Lands Commissioner; later still, he held the position of Secretary of the Mines Department. In 1861, the Royal Society of Victoria appointed Howitt leader of the Victorian Relief Expedition, with the task of establishing the fate of the Burke and Wills expedition. Howitt was a skilled bushman; he took only th ...
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Wotjobaluk
The Wotjobaluk are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. They are closely related to the Wergaia people. Language R. H. Mathews supplied a brief analysis of the Wotjobaluk language (now known as Wergaia), describing what he called the Tyattyalla dialect of the Wotjobaluk around Albacutya He stated that it was characterised by four numbers: the singular, the dual, trial, and plural. There were, in addition, two forms of the trial number for the 1st person, depending on whether the person addressed was included or excluded. Thus one obtains: ''wutju'' (a man); "wutju-buliñ" (two men); ''wutju-kullik'' (three men); ''wutju-getyaul'' (several men). In mid-2021 a language revival project started up at the Wotjobaluk Knowledge Place, established in December 2020 at Dimboola. A Wergaia language program would run over 20 weeks. Country Wotjobaluk territory took in some inclusive of the Wimmera River, Outlet Creek and the two eutrophic lakes, Hindmarsh and Al ...
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Wergaia
The Wergaia or Werrigia people are an Aboriginal Australian group in the Mallee and Wimmera regions of north-Western Victoria, made up of a number of clans. The people were also known as the Maligundidj (in the Wotjobaluk language) which means the people belonging to the ''mali'' (mallee) eucalypt bushland which covers much of their territory. Before European settlement in the nineteenth century, the Wergaia peoples occupied the area that included Lake Hindmarsh, Lake Albacutya, Pine Plains Lake, Lake Werringrin, Lake Coorong, Warracknabeal, Beulah, Hopetoun, Dimboola, Ouyen, Yanac, Hattah Lakes and the Wimmera River. Language The Wergaia language was a dialect of Wemba-Wemba, a member of the Kulinic branch of Pama–Nyungan. Ecology Thomas Mitchell, exploring the territory over which the Wergaia dwelt, wrote in 1836: Every day we passed over land which for natural fertility and beauty could scarcely be surpassed; over streams of unfailing abundance and plains covered ...
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Language Map
A linguistic map is a thematic map showing the geographic distribution of the speakers of a language, or isoglosses of a dialect continuum of the same language, or language family. A collection of such maps is a linguistic atlas. The earliest such atlas was the ''Sprachatlas des Deutschen Reiches'' of Georg Wenker and Ferdinand Wrede, published beginning in 1888, followed by the ''Atlas Linguistique de la France'', of Jules Gilliéron between 1902 and 1910, the ''Linguistischer Atlas des dacorumänischen Sprachgebietes'' published in 1909 by Gustav Weigand and the ''AIS - Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz'' of Karl Jaberg and Jakob Jud, published 1928–1940. The first linguistic atlas of the US was published by Hans Kurath. The ''Linguistic Atlas of England'' was the result of the Survey of English Dialects, led by Harold Orton and Eugen Dieth. The first computerised linguistic atlas was the Atlas Linguarum Europae, first published in 1975. See also *''A ...
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Callitris Verrucosa
''Callitris verrucosa'', also known as the mallee pine, is a species of conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is found only in Australia. The plant has a green/grey colour, rigid branches and can reach a height of . It has a slow grow rate. Description ''Callitris verrucosa'' is a small tree or shrub which can reach the height of . The mallee pine is typically multi-stemmed with erect branches. The plants leaves are 2-4mm, with a conical/rounded surface, and green/grey coloured. The shrub produces cones which are around 3mm long and in singular clusters for males, and approximately 20mm long for females, and occur in a bunch. The mallee pine is an obligate seeder, and its seeds display serotiny. The species can be negatively affected by intense fires, however it also requires fire to germinate seeds, making it a unique species. Other names Other names for the mallee pine include ''camphor wood'' and ''scrub cypress pine''. Range and habitat The mallee pine is endemic to Mal ...
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Phalangeriformes
Phalangeriformes is a paraphyletic suborder of about 70 species of small to medium-sized arboreal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi. The species are commonly known as possums, gliders, and cuscus. The common name "possum" for various Phalangeriformes species derives from the creatures' resemblance to the opossums of the Americas (the term comes from Powhatan language ''aposoum'' "white animal", from Proto-Algonquian *''wa·p-aʔɬemwa'' "white dog"). However, although opossums are also marsupials, Australasian possums are more closely related to other Australasian marsupials such as kangaroos. Phalangeriformes are quadrupedal diprotodont marsupials with long tails. The smallest species, indeed the smallest diprotodont marsupial, is the Tasmanian pygmy possum, with an adult head-body length of and a weight of . The largest are the two species of bear cuscus, which may exceed . Phalangeriformes species are typically nocturnal and at least partially arbo ...
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Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri people are an Australian Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the Traditional Owners of the Birrarung (Yarra River) Valley, covering much of the present location of Narrm (Melbourne). They continue to live in this area and throughout Australia. They were called the Yarra tribe by early European colonists. The Wurundjeri Tribe Land and Compensation Cultural Heritage Council was established in 1985 by Wurundjeri people. Ethnonym According to the early Australian ethnographer Alfred William Howitt, the name Wurundjeri, in his transcription ''Urunjeri'', refers to a species of eucalypt, ''Eucalyptus viminalis'', otherwise known as the manna or white gum, which is common along Birrarung. Some modern reports of Wurundjeri traditional lore state that their ethnonym combines a word, ''wurun'', meaning ''Manna Gum'' and ''djeri'', a species of grub found in the tree, and take the word therefore to mean "Witchetty Grub People ...
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Woiwurrung
The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin people, Kulin alliance. The Woiwurrung people's territory in Central Victoria (Australia), Victoria extended from north of the Great Dividing Range, east to Mount Baw Baw, south to Mordialloc Creek and to Mount Macedon, Sunbury, Victoria, Sunbury and Gisborne, Victoria, Gisborne in the west. Their lands bordered the Gunai people, Gunai/Kurnai people to the east in Gippsland, the Boon wurrung people to the south on the Mornington Peninsula, and the Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung to the north. Before Colonisation of Australia, colonisation, they lived predominantly as aquaculturists, swidden agriculturists (growing grasslands by fire-stick farming to create fenceless herbivore grazing, garden-farming murnong yam roots and various tuber lilies as major forms of starch and carbohydrates), and hunters and gatherers. Seasonal cha ...
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William Barak
William Barak, named Beruk by his parents, (1823 – 15 August 1903), the "last chief of the Yarra Yarra tribe", was the last traditional ngurungaeta (elder) of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, the pre-colonial inhabitants of present-day Melbourne, Australia. He became an influential spokesman for Aboriginal social justice and an important informant on Wurundjeri cultural lore. In his later life Barak painted and drew Wurundjeri ceremonies and carved weapons and tools. He is now considered a significant Aboriginal artist of the nineteenth century. Early life and education Barak was born in March 1823 (some sources say 1824) at Brushy Creek, near present-day Wonga Park (named after Barak's cousin Simon Wonga), at the Barngeong Birthing Site, His mother, Tooterrie, came from the Nourailum bulluk at Murchison, Victoria. His father, Bebejan (or Bebejern), was an important member, or ngurunaeta, of the Wurundjeri people. His parents named him Beruk. Barak was said to have been presen ...
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