The Djilamatang were thought to be a distinct

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

people of the

state of Victoria Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in Au ...

, Australia. This has recently been questioned by Ian Clark.

Language

The

ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...

is formed from the word for man, ''djere''.

Norman Tindale Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. Life Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...

maintained that the Djilamatang were exterminated by other Aboriginal groups "in post-European times". He places them in the northeast corner of Victoria, "west of

Mount Kosciuszko Mount Kosciuszko ( ; Ngarigo: , ), previously spelled Mount Kosciusko, is mainland Australia's tallest mountain, at 2,228 metres (7,310 ft) above sea level. It is located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National ...

on the upper headwaters of the Murray River", but the words he quotes (''waananga'', meaning "no" and ''djere''. "man") as belonging to this group are in fact, according to

Barry Blake Barry Blake, born 1937, is an Australian linguist, specializing in the description of Australian Aboriginal languages. He is a professor emeritus at La Trobe University Melbourne. Career Blake was born in the northern Melbourne suburb of Ascot V ...

, Pallanganmiddang and since there is no independent testimony for the Djilamatang lexicon, it is reasonable to surmise that this group spoke a tongue similar to

Dhudhuroa The Dhudhuroa people (or Duduroa) are an Indigenous Australian people of North-eastern Victoria, in the state of Victoria, Australia. About 2,000 descendants exist in Australia in the early 21st century. Name The endonym Dhudhuroa has been analys ...

Country

Area 1,500 sq. m. west of

and on the upper headwaters of the

Murray River The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray) (Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta: ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest r ...

. They appear to have been exterminated in a period of tribal conflict in the

Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...

area after white settlement had begun to affect the region. It was then that their traditional enemies, the

Jaitmathang The Jaitmatang, also spelled Yaithmathang, are an Indigenous Australian people of the State of Victoria. Name Jaitmatang/Yaithmathang, according to the early ethnographer Alfred William Howitt, may have derived from ''Ya-yau'' their word for "yes, ...

Walgalu The Walgalu are an Aboriginal people of New South Wales, Australia. The Ngambri may belong to the Walgalu grouping, but are often treated separately. Language According to some scholars, the Walgalu language is a form of Ngarigo. Country Accor ...

, and

Ngarigo The Ngarigo People (also spelt Garego, Ngarego, Ngarago, Ngaragu, Ngarigu, Ngarrugu or Ngarroogoo) are Aboriginal Australian people of southeast New South Wales, whose traditional lands also extend around the present border with Victoria. Langu ...

forged a pact or mutual alliance to get rid of their common enemy.

People

classified the Djilamatang as probably constituting a distinct tribal unity, though he noted that

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 es ...

considered them to be a horde of the

. Recently, Ian Clark has argued that the bare 5 sources used by Tindale to make this inference, the first dating from 1860 do not support his conclusion.

Lifestyle

When the

Bogong moth The bogong moth (''Agrotis infusa'') is a temperate species of night-flying moth, notable for its biannual long-distance seasonal migrations towards and from the Australian Alps, similar to the diurnal monarch butterfly. During the autumn a ...

began to proliferate, the Djilamatang, together with several other tribes of the region, such as the

, the Jaitmathang, the

, the

Ngunawal The Ngunnawal people, also spelt Ngunawal, are an Aboriginal people of southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. Language Ngunnawal and Gundungurra are Australian Aboriginal languages from the Pama-Nyungan ...

and the

Minjambuta The Minjambuta were an Indigenous Australian tribe of northern Victoria. Language R. H. Mathews described their language as close to Dhudhuroa, indeed as a dialect of that tongue, but this conflicts with other reports. Country The Minjambuta ...

(postulated by Dr Ian Clark to be a Wiradjuri exonym for PallanganmiddangClark, Ian, 'Aboriginal languages in North-east Victoria – the status of "Waveru" reconsidered', ''Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues'', 2011, Vol. 14(4): 2-22) entered into negotiation to settle outstanding disputes, and meet up to engage in rites of transit on the territories, and trade, in order to collectively forage in the Bogong areas to hunt the moth. These multitribal assemblies were often as large as 700 people, and coincided with bora ceremonial rituals and

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 l ...

s to initiate the young men.

Alternative names

* ''Waananga'' (Their word for "no")

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of Victoria (Australia) History of Victoria (Australia)