The Pallanganmiddang, otherwise known as the Waywurru, were an

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 North-eastern Victoria, in 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 i ...

, Australia. Recent scholarship has suggested that In

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 ...

's classic study his references to a

Djilamatang The Djilamatang were thought to be a distinct Indigenous Australian people of the state of Victoria, Australia. This has recently been questioned by Ian Clark. Language The ethnonym is formed from the word for man, ''djere''. Norman Tindale maint ...

tribe and their language arguably refer in good part to the Pallanganmiddang (or Dhudhuroa)

Name

-''midhang/-middang'' () occurs as an ethnonym-marking suffix attached to several tribal and clan names in the area. It may be the equivalent of the more southerly Kulin term –, "mouth/speech". A. W. Howitt's map of the area refers to a ''Balaung Karar'' group, where ''Balaung'' may be an echo of Pallang- in the Pallanganmiddang ethnonym.

Language

Pallanganmiddang is classified by R. M. Dixon as one of two members of the Upper Murray Group, the other being Dhudhuroa. It was probably spoken by people inhabiting the area the northwest of the Dhudhuroa, though the overlap of vocabulary between the two languages appears to be low, about 10.7% A vocabulary of 46 words with the title "Pallanganmiddah" was provided by Thomas Mitchell, a resident of Tangambalanga, as early as 1878. A.W.Howitt first asserted that their language was "utterly different" from that of surrounding peoples, and modern research has confirmed that it lacked any close affinity with the other languages of that area.

Country

Robert Smyth's 1878 map located a ''PallunganMiddah'' group southeast of

Wodonga Wodonga ( Waywurru: ''Wordonga'') is a city on the Victorian side of the border with New South Wales, north-east of Melbourne, Australia. It is located wholly within the boundaries of the City of Wodonga LGA. Its population is approximately ...

, in the area of Tangambalanga about the terrain of the northern

Kiewa River Kiewa River, a perennial river that is part of the Murray catchment within the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the Alpine bioregion, in the Australian state of Victoria. The Kiewa River is also known by several variations on its name in it ...

and

Tallangatta Tallangatta () is a town in north-eastern Victoria, Australia. The town lies on the banks of the Mitta Arm of Lake Hume, approximately south-east of Albury-Wodonga along the Murray Valley Highway. At the , Tallangatta had a population of 1 ...

around the Mitta Mitta River. Howitt's mention of a Balaung Karar group to the south-west of Wodonga has been taken, by

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 ...

, as a reference to (''Balaung/Pallungan'') to the same people.

Society

The Pallanganmiddang, in part at least, appear to have adopted the Kulin patrimoiety system with its eaglehawk () –crow () moieties. This division, meaning that names were inherited through the father rather than the mother was a characteristic of Central Victorian Aboriginal culture, but deviated from the general norm in South-East Australia. Diane Barwick identified at least two clans, who used the Kulin terms rather than the corresponding Pallanganmiddang terminology () to denote their respective moieties, a fact that suggests they intermarried with the contiguous southern and western Kulin groups. * in the

Mount Buffalo Mount Buffalo is a mountain plateau of the Australian Alps and is within the Mount Buffalo National Park in Victoria, Australia. It is located approximately northeast of Melbourne. It is noted for its dramatic scenery. The summit of the highes ...

area, forming an eaglehawk moiety * ' in the district of Wangaratta, constituting a crow moiety ().

History of contact

The earliest possible reference to this group might be a mention in the papers of

George Augustus Robinson George Augustus Robinson (22 March 1791 – 18 October 1866) was a British-born colonial official and self-trained preacher in colonial Australia. In 1824, Robinson travelled to Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land, where he attempted to negotiate ...

, Victorian

Protector of Aborigines The role of Protector of Aborigines was first established in South Australia in 1836. The role became established in other parts of Australia pursuant to a recommendation contained in the ''Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Abori ...

in the 1840s, to the .

Some words

* dog * crow * crayfish * wild dog * white man * eaglehawk

Notes

Citations

Sources

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