The Wemba-Wemba are an Aboriginal Australian group in north-Western Victoria and south-western New South Wales, Australia, including in the Mallee and the Riverina regions. They are also known as the Wamba-Wamba. [1]
The Wemba-Wemba are an Aboriginal Australian group in north-Western Victoria and south-western New South Wales, Australia, including in the Mallee and the Riverina regions. They are also known as the Wamba-Wamba. [1]
Wemba-Wemba bears strong similarities to Woiwurrung. [2] When Moravian missionaries came and started to learn a language in Wembawemba territory, at Archibald Macarthur Camppbell's Gannawarra station, they quickly noted that the natives, perceiving they were understood, slipped into using another language, not willing to allow this "cultural conquest" to enable the whitemen to learn of matters they wished to keep secret from outsiders. [3] [lower-alpha 1]
Before European settlement in the nineteenth century, the Wemba-Wemba occupied the area around the Loddon River, reaching northwards from Kerang, Victoria to Swan Hill, and including the area of the Avoca River, southwards towards Quambatook. In a northeasterly direction, their territory ran up, over the New South Wales-Victorian border to Booroorban and Moulamein, and extended to the vicinity of Barham. Lake Boga and Boora in Victoria also fell within their domain. [1] The overall extension of their territory has been calculated by Norman Tindale to be roughly 3,200 square miles (8,300 km2). [1]
The Wembawemba were registered as consisting of five hordes. Stone lists these hordes, residing around Towaninny, Meelool Station (with a name indicating they were thought to be quarrelsome), Lake Boga, Gonn on the Murray River (called the Dietjenbaluk ("always on the move"), and Bael Bael. [1]
The explorer Thomas Mitchell was the first white man to cross Wembawemba territory, in 1836. [4]
The Wembas-Wemba's religio-cultural worldview was centered on a dreaming, which they called yemurraki. [5]
Two German Moravian missionaries, Reverend A.F.C. Täger and Reverend F.W. Spieseke, convinced that the Wembawemba, whom they called culli, were "the most wretched and bleakest (people), who live on God's earth", [6] established Lake Boga mission in 1851. The mission closed in 1856 due to lack of converts, disputes with local authorities and hostilities from local landholders. [7] The Moravian Church established a subsequent mission site in Wergaia territory near Lake Hindmarsh in 1856 (see Ebenezer Mission). [8]
Norman Barnett Tindale AO was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.
Wathaurong, also called the Wathaurung,Wadawurrung and Wadda Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in the area near Melbourne, Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula in the state of Victoria. They are part of the Kulin alliance. The Wathaurung language was spoken by 25 clans south of the Werribee River and the Bellarine Peninsula to Streatham. They were sometimes referred to by Europeans as the Barrabool people. The area they inhabit has been occupied for at least the last 25,000 years, with 140 archaeological sites having been found in the region, indicating significant activity over that period.
Friedrich Hagenauer (1829–1909) was a Presbyterian minister and missionary in Australia who established Ebenezer Mission and Ramahyuck mission. Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer and Reverend F.W. Spieseke from the German Moravian Church were sent to Australia and established Ebenezer Mission station near Lake Hindmarsh, Victoria, Australia in 1859 in Wergaia territory.
Lake Boga is a town in Victoria, Australia, located next to the lake of the same name. It is situated within the Rural City of Swan Hill within the Mallee region of north-west Victoria. At the 2016 census, Lake Boga had a population of 985. The town is located 325 kilometres (202 mi) north west of Melbourne and 17 kilometres (11 mi) south east of the regional centre Swan Hill.
Ebenezer Mission, also known as Wimmera mission, Hindmarsh mission and Dimboola mission, was a mission station for Aboriginal people established near Lake Hindmarsh in Victoria, Australia in 1859 by the Moravian Church on the land of the Wotjobaluk. The first missionaries were two Germans, Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer and Reverend F.W. Spieseke. In 1861 the Victorian Colonial Government gazetted 1,897 acres (7.68 km2) as a reserve for the Ebenezer Mission Station. The mission was established a few years after the failure of the Moravian Lake Boga mission in Wemba-Wemba territory.
The Jardwadjali (Yartwatjali), also known as the Jaadwa, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria, whose traditional lands occupy the lands in the upper Wimmera River watershed east to Gariwerd (Grampians) and west to Lake Bringalbert.
The Djab wurrung, also spelt Djabwurrung, Tjapwurrung, Tjap Wurrung, or Djapwarrung, people are Aboriginal Australians whose country is the volcanic plains of central Victoria from the Mount William Range of Gariwerd in the west to the Pyrenees range in the east encompassing the Wimmera River flowing north and the headwaters of the Hopkins River flowing south. The towns of Ararat, Stawell and Hamilton are within their territory. The Djab Wurrung Heritage Protection Embassy is located on a proposed highway duplication on the Western Highway south of Ararat. There were 41 Djab wurrung clans who formed an alliance with the neighbouring Jardwadjali people through intermarriage, shared culture, trade and moiety system before colonisation. Their lands were conquered but never ceded.
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The Gulidjan, also known as the Kolakngat, perhaps originally Kolidjon, or Colac tribe are an Aboriginal Australian tribe whose traditional lands cover the Lake Colac region of Victoria, Australia. They occupied the grasslands, woodlands, volcanic plains and lakes region east of Lake Corangamite, west of the Barwon River and north of the Otway Ranges. Their territory bordered the Wathaurong to the north, Djargurd Wurrung to the west, Girai Wurrung to the south-west, and Gadubanud to the south-east.
The Girai wurrung, also spelt Kirrae Wuurong and Kirrae Whurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people who traditionally occupied the territory between Mount Emu Creek and the Hopkins River up to Mount Hamilton, and the Western Otways from the Gellibrand River to the Hopkins River. The historian Ian D. Clark has reclassified much of the material regarding them in Norman Tindale's compendium under the Djargurd Wurrung, a term reflecting the assumed pre-eminence of one of their clans, the Jacoort/Djargurd.
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The Wotjobaluk are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria.