The Wotjobaluk are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. They are closely related to the Wergaia people.
R. H. Mathews supplied a brief analysis of the Wotjobaluk language (now known as Wergaia [1] ), describing what he called the Tyattyalla dialect of the Wotjobaluk around Albacutya [2] He stated that it was characterised by four numbers: the singular, the dual, trial, and plural. [3] There were, in addition, two forms of the trial number for the 1st person, depending on whether the person addressed was included or excluded. [3] Thus one obtains: wutju (a man); "wutju-buliñ" (two men); wutju-kullik (three men); wutju-getyaul (several men). [3] [4]
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. [5]
Wotjobaluk territory took in some 12,000 square kilometres (4,800 sq mi) inclusive of the Wimmera River, Outlet Creek and the two eutrophic lakes, Hindmarsh and Albacutya. Their southern borders down ran to Dimboola, Kaniva, and Servicetown. Their western frontier lay beyond Yanac, and to the east, as far as Warracknabeal and Lake Korong. Their northern horizon reached Pine Plains. [6]
The Wotjobaluk were divided into 11 bands or clans: [7]
Wotjobaluk hunters told Adolf Hartmann that kangaroos had acute hearing, and could twig the presence of a predator at 150 yards simply by hearing the noise of ankle-bones cracking. Older kangaroos were apt to cast their young from their marsupial pouch if chased by dingos, to distract the dogs from their main prey. [8]
The Wotjobaluk Knowledge Place, apart from teaching language (see above), displays artworks, conducts workshops, and is a centre for social get-togethers. [5]
fletcher (creepy)
Dimboola is a town in the Shire of Hindmarsh in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, Australia, 334 kilometres north-west of Melbourne.
The Wimmera River, an inland intermittent river of the Wimmera catchment, is located in the Grampians and Wimmera regions of the Australian state of Victoria. Rising in the Pyrenees, on the northern slopes of the Great Dividing Range, the Wimmera River flows generally north by west and drains into Lake Hindmarsh and Lake Albacutya, a series of ephemeral lakes that, whilst they do not directly empty into a defined watercourse, form part of the Murray River catchment of the Murray-Darling basin.
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.
Lake Albacutya is an ephemeral lake located in Albacutya within the Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia. It is one of a series of terminal lakes on the Wimmera River, which form the largest land-locked drainage system in Victoria. Lake Albacutya is designated as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.
William "Uncle" John Kennedy was a lifelong activist for the rights of Australian Aboriginal people, a Wotjobaluk clan elder of the people who spoke the Wergaia language in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, Australia. He was born on the banks of the Wimmera River, not far from the Ebenezer Mission. He was the great grandson of Dick-a-Dick, a member of the first Australian cricket team to tour England in 1867–68.
Lake Hindmarsh, an ephemeral lake located in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, Australia, is the state's largest natural freshwater lake. The nearest towns are Jeparit to the south and Rainbow to the north. After more than a decade of drought, in early 2011 the lake filled as a result of flooding in the region. The Wemba Wemba name of the lake is recorded as Gour or Koor.
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 which means the people belonging to the mali (mallee) eucalypt bushland which covers much of their territory.
Wergaia or Werrigia is an Australian Aboriginal language in the Wimmera region of north-Western Victoria. The Wergaia language consisted of four distinct dialects: Wudjubalug/Wotjobaluk, Djadjala/Djadjali, Buibadjali, Biwadjali. Wergaia was in turn apparently a dialect of the Wemba Wemba language, a member of the Kulinic branch of Pama–Nyungan.
The Pangerang, also spelt Bangerang and Bangarang, are the Indigenous Australians who traditionally occupied much of what is now north-eastern Victoria stretching along the Murray River to Echuca and into the areas of the southern Riverina in New South Wales. They may not have been an independent tribal reality, as Norman Tindale thought, but one of the many Yorta Yorta tribes. For the purposes of this article, they are treated separately, according to those sources that maintain the distinction.
The Warkawarka, also called Weki Weki, were an Australian Aboriginal group whose traditional lands are located in Victoria, Australia. Controversy exists as to whether they were an independent 'tribe' or rather consisted of a subgroup of the Wergaia, the latter view being shared by both Robert M. W. Dixon and Luise Hercus.
The Bodaruwitj, also rendered Bedaruwidj or Potaruwutj, and referred to in some early sources as the Tatiara, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of South Australia. David Horton believed they were the group his sources referred to as the Bindjali people. Austlang refers to Bindjali / Bodaruwitj as alternative names for the same language.
The Kwatkwat were an indigenous Australian tribe of the State of Victoria, though some scholars consider them part of the broader Yorta Yorta/Pangerang macrogroup.
The Kaneang are an indigenous Noongar people of the south west region of Western Australia.
The Bibulman (Pibelmen) are an Aboriginal Australian people of the southwestern region of Western Australia, a subgroup of the Noongar.
The Kuungkari are an indigenous Australian people of Queensland. They are to be distinguished from the Kunggari.
The Pilatapa were an Indigenous people of South Australia, now extinct.
The Punthamara were an indigenous Australian people of the state of Queensland.
The Gawambaraay (Kawambarai) are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of New South Wales, closely connected to the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) people. Their traditional lands are in the central–western district of New South Wales
The Barengi Gadjin Land Council was formed in 2005 to represent the Wotjobaluk, Jardwadjali, Wergaia and Jupagalk peoples. The Council manages native title rights across Western Victoria in an area "roughly described as the Wimmera River from the head of the Yarriambiack Creek through to Outlet Creek at the northern end of Lake Albacutya". The Council is governed by a board of directors representing various family groups and has offices in Wail and Horsham. The current chairperson is Dylan Clark.