Map Victoria Aboriginal tribes (colourmap)

The Warkawarka, also called Weki Weki, were an

Australian Aboriginal Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait I ...

group whose traditional lands are located in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia. Controversy exists as to whether they were an independent 'tribe' or rather consisted of a subgroup of the

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 mea ...

, the latter view being shared by both Robert M. W. Dixon and

Luise Hercus Luise Anna Hercus , , (16 January 1926 – 15 April 2018) was a German-born linguist who lived in Australia from 1954. After significant early work on Middle Indo-Aryan dialects (Prakrits) she had specialised in Australian Aboriginal languages si ...

Name

The ethnonym seems to derive from their word for 'no' (''warki=warka''), though the name itself, ''warkawarka'' or ''wargawarga'' arguably may be a variant of the ethnonym for the Wergaia.

Country

The Warkawarka tribal lands extended over approximately , from Tyrrell Creek and

Lake Tyrrell Lake Tyrrell (also known as Lake Tyrrell Wildlife Reserve) is a shallow, salt-crusted depression in the Mallee district of north-west Victoria, in Australia. The name 'Tyrrell' is derived from the local Wergaia word for 'sky', the Boorong ...

, southwards to

Warracknabeal Warracknabeal ( ) is a wheatbelt town in the Australian state of Victoria. Situated on the banks of the Yarriambiack Creek, 330 km north-west of Melbourne, it is the business and services centre of the northern Wimmera and southern Mallee d ...

and

Birchip Birchip is a town in the Mallee region of Victoria, Australia on the Sunraysia Highway north of Donald. The town is located in the Shire of Buloke local government area. At the , Birchip had a population of 694, down from the 2016 figure o ...

. Their western boundary lay along Hopetoun, and they also ranged over the Morton Plains.

Alternative names

* ''Booroung, Boorong'' * ''Mirdiragoort'' * ''Waikywaiky'' * ''Weki-weki'' * ''Wengenmarongeitch'' * ''Werkawerka'' * ''Wirtu, Wirtoo''

Some words

* ''wirtu'' (man)

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * * * * Aboriginal peoples of Victoria (Australia) History of Victoria (Australia) {{VictoriaAU-stub