Kirrae

The Kirrae, according to Norman Tindale, were an indigenous Australian people of the State of Victoria. The historian Ian D. Clark has reclassified much of the material regarding them in Tindale under the Djargurd Wurrung, a term reflecting the assumed pre-eminence of one of their clans, the Jacoort/Djargurd. This article gives Tindale's account, and should be checked against the Djagurd wurrung article.

Country

The Kirrae lands comprised 1,900 sq. miles of territory from Warrnambool and Hopkins River down to the coast at Princetown. The northern boundary was at Lake Bolac and Darlington. To the east their land extended beyond Camperdown.[1]

Social Organization

There are names of twelve hordes speaking slight dialects.[1]

  • Dantgurt
  • Manmait
  • Elingamait
  • Barrath
  • Warnambu (Pertobe)
  • Jarcoort (believed to be a horde at that place). Known as the Tampirr gundidj.[2]
  • Bolaga (horde at Lake Bolac)
  • Colongulac
  • Tooram
  • Narragoort
  • Coonawanee[1]

History

In early 1839, Frederick Taylor, the manager at George McKillop and James Smith's station at Glenormiston, on being informed that around 50 members of the Jarcoort horde were camped in a gully at Mount Emu creek (the site was known as Tampirr), not far from Camperdown. Taylor rounded up a squatter vigilante band and virtually wiped out the whole horde, men, women and children.[3] Ian D. Clark states the estimated deaths at 35-40. A few survived, one w woman called Bareetch Chuumeen, managed to swim to safety across Lake Bullen with her child on her shoulders.[3] The place thereafter was called 'Murdering Gully.' places this within Djargurd wurrung country.[4]

Alternative names

  • Kirawirung, Kirraewuurong
  • Konoug-willam (typo?)
  • Manmait
  • Dantgurt, Dautgart, Tantgort, Targurt, Dyargurt
  • Jarcoort
  • Bolaga
  • Bolagher
  • Mount Shadwell tribe
  • Colongulac tribe
  • Warn tallin (western tribal exonym for them meaning'rough language')[5]
  • Ngutuk.[1]

Notes

    Citations

    1. 1 2 3 4 Tindale 1974, p. 205.
    2. ↑ Black 2016, p. 36.
    3. 1 2 Black 2016, pp. 36–38.
    4. ↑ Clark 1995, pp. 105–106.
    5. ↑ Clark 1995, p. 103.

    References

    • Black, Maggie (2016). Up Came a Squatter: Niel Black of Glenormiston, 1839–1880. NewSouth. pp. 169–175. ISBN 978-1-742-24252-1.
    • Clark, Ian D. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: a register of massacre sites in western Victoria, 1803–1859 (PDF). AIATSIS. pp. 103–118. ISBN 0 85575 281 5.
    • Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Kirrae (VIC)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.
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