The Gloucester Advocate 22 March 1935. Most of the Gringai were named Kumbo, but there were some Ipai, Kubbi and Murri among them. You'll want to decide what generation you want to start with. To dig his grave a spade was borrowed from us, and the excavation was made on the foreshores, a few yards above high- water mark. Sometimes a blow on the head er e he fell would kill him, or if he were thrown down alive, those beneath would perform the final ceremony of dispatch. They then march on quickly, and on arriving at the kweealbang they disband, the men and novices belonging to each tribe taking up their position on the side which is in the direction of their country. On the eventful morning I went to the place indicated, where I found about two hundred of the tribesmen differently, but tastefully, painted in red, white, and yellow, and armed to the teeth. One of them had the spear sticking in him until extracted in my stockyard. I immediately acquainted Captain Moffatt and proposed to him to send three soldiers, under the Sergeant, or Field, the Constable, to assist in pursuing the murderers. In those early days the blacks knew little of matches, and certainly never used them for the purpose of lighting their fires. The men beleaguered in the hut were driven to dire straits, and as a last resource mixed arsenic in dampers and placed them where the natives had easy access to them. The tubers varied in thickness from an inch to an Inch-and-a-half, and were a few inches in length. The blacks murdered all Nolans shepherds, and to deal with them a detachment of soldiers was sent up from Sydney. Cabbage Tree Island was literally covered with them then, and I recall dropping fourteen in one discharge of my little double-barrelled gun. Their hair would be closely cropped; they would be covered with grease and charcoal, and their whole appearance would be as though they had indeed undergone some tremendous mental and physical strain.I have been told that circumcision was practiced among the coastal blacks in the early days, but during my time at Port Stephens this was never part of the ceremonies, nor was it ever the custom to knock out one of the front teeth of the initiates, although this was done in the early twenties when the A. I do not hesitate to say that so long as the present prosperity continues we shall have no outbreaking with the blacks, for it was starvation alone that drove them to perform the cruel act they did two years ago. Most of the older hands in Dungog can remember the old aboriginal cemetery near Mr William Abbots home at Violet Hill and at the rear of the Rectory. . All the men, except the guardians, now return to the fire and stand on the green bushes in turn, until they have all been smoked. Removing the scales was, of course, never thought of. Enter the name of family members in the editing box. The Wonnarua people's traditional lands are located in the Hunter Valley area of New South Wales. The old father rushed past me, seized a tomahawk, and cut his head in several places, until the blood gushed in quantities from the wounds; another old man snatched it from him, amid commenced upon his own bead. 4.- To sexual intercourse with the whites at a very tender age, excessive venery, syphilis, and intemperance ; the diminution in births is most remarkable 11.- There are three half-caste children and one grown up girl in this district ; the children life with, and after the manner of the aborigines ; the girl referred to resides with a family in the neighbourhood, and is very tractable. The Wonnarua. The men of the tribe, armed with spears, boomerangs and throwing-sticks, would seek out a certain spot where it was known the kangaroos could be found at a particular period. It is said that the youths mother is custodian of the tooth and takes great care of it. . News - significant events and disasters. He came straight up to the group, and within a dozen or so paces of us, threw on the ground his spears and boomerangs. Some cattle were speared and the rest driven through the wild brushes at the head of the Myall, almost to the foreshores of Port Stephens. They also believed that the koradji were possessed of wonderful supernatural powers and besides bringing disaster to others could affect cures of all manner of ills among theIr own tribe. A cord, made of possum hair, was passed around his body a couple of times, the ends being held by the woman who knelt on the ground, leaning over the little canoe of water. There was no pretence at architecture or even orderly erection of the crude break-wind. . The apron was probably a European conceit. The men and the [women] cut their heads with various implements, until blood flowed freely. Learn how First Nation communities and artists are using ghost net sculptures as a way to tell traditional stories. It was an oval- shaped piece of hardwood some two feet wide having a hand-grip on the back made of a length of vine affixed In holes made for the purpose. The young, tender stalks of the gigantic lily (ipooloongearn), was another form of vegetable delicacy, only procurable, however, at certain seasons of the year. The grief displayed at the funeral of a venerable.and honored man was unquestionably great and genuine. . All the women are there, and the novices sit down and eat the food which has been prepared for them. The women at the camp, on hearing this, assemble at the kackaroo, and begin to sing and beat their rugs, and some of them dance. The rhizome of this fern, probably Blechnum sp. A row of wooden forks, about 4 or 5 feet high, are first inserted in the ground, and saplings laid from fork to fork, resembling a fence with only one top rail. Nothing in the nature of an outrigger was ever. Silently and surely they laid their plans and long ere the dawn of day the sleeping camp was encircled from cliff edge to cliff edge. In the Wonnarua dreamtime the Hunter Valley was created by the great spirit, Baime (Byamee). The Dutton Family Tree, Explained. His black boy said that he would see where they had gone, and going to the camp showed, a snear stuck in the ashes of the fire with a corn cob tied on the point. In regard to elopements, if a man and woman, Figure 7: Map of The Hunter Valley Kooris - reproduced from James Millers A Will to Win. the men and women march round. Where the line was rolled the skin of the operative was hardened by the application of hot ashes, and in time be- came calloused, smooth, and as hard as dried leather. These they shrew down to the ground among the women who scrambled and struggled for them with a great eagerness, each [woman] on securing a piece placing it in the woven dilly- bag. Coen was responsible for the storms, floods, droughts and fires and had carried off manyfor offences against tribal laws. If a boy wants anything, he must touch his guardian, who then commences asking him the most likely things, until he guesses correctly, when the boy nods assent. During winter would hunt kangaroos, emus, possums and wombats, fish and other animals. necessity no doubt guided their deft hands, for the art of fashioning their weapons was inherited from countless generations who had to pit their wits against Nature in the battle for survival. The women belonging. . See what others have contributed about your ancestors. A dreamtime story from the Wonnarua explains how the hills and rivers in the Hunter Valley were created by a spirit called Baiame. Billy Barlow once explained to me how this remarkable marking was done. To-day looking on this quiet and peaceful scene it is hard to believe that where one stand was enacted one of those terrible tragedies that unfortunately too often happened in the early days when the white pioneers were taking up the land and outsing the primitive aboriginals from their hunting grounds. When the camp became go noisome that even the accustomed noses of the inhabitants revolted, the tribe would move in a body to another site, distant beyond [the] smell of the old homes. There was a big fire and round it were seated the [women] who were beating possum skins stretched tight across their knees. The weight and strength of the whole spear was regulated according to the purpose for which It was specifically intended, thus the heaviest of them were utilised only for spearing the big sea mullet which swarm into the harbor in countless millions at certain seasons of the year. Baime has his arms stretched open protecting the Valley. Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Laurie Perry said there were "tit-for-tat skirmishes" on the land, but "there was no massacre on the site or recorded massacre on the site". In some vague fashion they sensed a spirit existence, but in the fifties and sixties it was generally accepted that a dead native would go down blackfellow, jump up white-fellow.. The Earliest Inhabitants - Aboriginal Tribes of the District. At these camping places, one of the men swings the bull-roarer in the adjacent forest just after dark, and again a little before daylight, and the women reply to it by beating on their rugs, and singing; the men give a shout in unison. They never smiled nor did they ever applaud. One was held on the top of the ridge in Irwins paddock, at the back of the house which is now situated at the Underbank-Wangat turn-off. The men make a guttural noise as the novices are shown each tree, and also in going from one tree to another. 17.- half-caste lads are generally murdered always I believe. According to the Eather Family, the Bora ceremony was not held on the Meerea property but at another nearby location. Wading through the complexities of the situation is now the responsibility of Ms Ley. The whites, themselves, being oppressed with scarcity and dearth of provisions, were forced to withdraw that countenance and support they had formerly afforded to the blacks, and that was indeed the cause of all the mischief that occurred some little time since. Dr. McKinlay records that they believed in supernatural beings whom they called Maamba. They then throw down the boughs, and go away back to their comrades, who have remained at the place where they painted themselves, and all of them now approach the goonambang, lightly tapping their boomerangs together as they walk along, and on arriving at the ring they form a circle round it. In every creek and in every gully lay dead blacks. It is situated on the right bank of the Manning, a few miles from its source the source of the Manning being on the north-eastern slopes of Polblue. Then there was a big log near Mr. Fitzgeralds or Lowerys, which may have been cut by the pioneers themselves. It was the biggest collection of blacks ever seen in the district. placed in a slanting position, forming a shelter, covered in on one side, leaving the other side open. Ironically, it is directly above Baime cave where Europeans first viewed the Upper Hunter, led from Sydney by a tracker from the Wonnarua tribe. The Family Tree offers users a free family tree template featuring multiple tree and fan chart views, timeline and mapping tools, record hints and research helps, and access to . On the 30th last I discov- ered in the bush opposite iny residence, three head of Mr Myles cattle speared. When they get near the camp, the men, women and children sit down a short distance out of sight of the goonambang. The perpetrators were the Barrington River natives. Since those times the flying-fox has changed his habits considerably much to the loss of orchardists and those that cultivate fruit. "We don't have a connection to this homestead or to this area at all," he said. | Groups living near the Wonnarua include the Darkinjung and the Wirad I have heard my father say when the blacks lost control of the river, the river lost its fish. McKenzies CLIFFS A TRAGEDY OF 1838. A vivid chapter in the earliest history of Glen William deals with the wiping out of a tribe of blacks, and Black Camp of to-day doubtless takes its name from it. The men took their share first and the women and children made a meal of what was left. The second, which Mr Bennett seemingly refers to under Captain Reynolds, is apparently that expedition which led up to the encounter on Browns Creek, Wallamba, in which the whites were so decidedly worsted, that the locality of the encounter in question yet bears the name of Waterloo.