62. Wiljakali

63. Wiradjuri

64. Wodiwodi

65. Wolgal

66. Wonarua

67. Wongaibon

68. Worimi

—From F.D. McCarthy

Notes

[←1]

Kerior means “crayfish”.

[←2]

Pumbul means “wild orange”.

[←3]

The Liverpool Plains

[←4]

Nobby Rock. The road to the settlement of Kelvin now passes not far from Nobby Rock, which is noted for its view of the surrounding countryside.

[←5]

The name Namoi is thought to be derived from Njamai Ornj, “place of the njamai-trees”

[←6]

Baia-me or B’Hai-me, “The Great Builder”. The aboriginals believed thunder to be his voice.

[←7]

A spur of the Great Dividing Range, dividing the waters of the Namoi and Gwydir.

[←8]

Carrowreer was the aboriginal name for Black Jack Mountain, a landmark in the Black Jack Range, about four miles from the present-day town of Gunnedah.

[←9]

Now known as the New England Ranges.

[←10]

Some of these names of course, cover areas named since white occupation.

[←11]

Near where Tamworth now is.

[←12]

Buriagala means “brigalow”. This rock is a landmark from the present-day township of Carrol.

[←13]

Throughout unknown thousands of years—until the white man came.

[←14]

Modern civilized man, for all his high-explosive and atomic horrors, has fortunately not yet invented a projectile which can be fired in such a way that, should it miss its mark, it would fly back to the gun to be immediately fired again.

[←15]

Mugille means “make”, and Bao-illna means “sing”.

[←16]

“Place abounding in kolorin, the flowers of the kulaba (boxtree).”

[←17]

“Place of leopard-trees.”

[←18]

Many years later, when white men came to Australia, the advancing overlanders were called “Wunda”, and were believed to be Wunda spirits.

[←19]

Bindea means “the place where the spinifex and shrubs with thorns like porcupine quills grow”

[←20]

Porcupine Hill overlooks the present day town of Gunnedah.

[←21]

Not Black Jack look-out. The Black Hill, a small rise on Porcupine Ridge, was a handy look-out over the country immediately round the Mullibah Lagoon camp.

[←22]

An aboriginal tribe was divided into two moieties or classes, which inter-married, but marriage within each moiety was forbidden. In the Kamilaroi and other tribes these classes were further divided into sub-classes, which complicated the marriage laws.

[←23]

“Swan Girl”

[←24]

“Swan”

[←25]

“South wind”

[←26]

“Sweet-scented mistletoe”

[←27]

“Rainbow”

[←28]

The widely held belief that Stone Age men had little more brains than were necessary to hunt for their living and roughly chip a tomahawk head from a lump of stone is quite erroneous. Very probably the same mistake has been made about Stone Age men in other lands than our own.

[←29]

Where the bridge spans the river now.

[←30]

On the left side of the road that now runs to Gunnible.

[←31]

They had reached the place where the Osric Street drain now empties out on to Mullibah Flat.

[←32]

The tribe called the Namoi their “River of Life”, and also referred to it as the “Great, Big, Awful River”, probably in fearful memory of vast floods when in ages past the river was far mightier than now.