Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 23]
20
Note The examples given from
three localities long distances apart show something
of the differences in aboriginal dialects.
It will be seen however that "Cobbera", head,
and Currajung or Kurrajong, bark fibre, are
common to both Tilba Tilba and Port Stephen,
while "Heeliman", a shield, and "Mundowie"
a foot - or feet, appear to be common both to
Tilba and the Richmond River. But it is
very probable that these words may have been
imported by white people from the South to
the North Coast. In the early seventies
a few words such as "Budgeree", food, "Baal",
no, and Corbon, big, were in every day
use by the Northern River blacks
but, it is certain, did not belong to their
language and were evidently introduced,
from Sydney or some other of the earliest settlements
by white people who had picked them up from blacks in those localities.
The native cry "Cooee" appears so far as
I have been able to ascertain , to have been
general right along the East Coast if not
inland. When giving the call, or cry, a
blackfellow pitches his voice in rather a high
key which makes the call so penetrating and
far carrying.
R.L.D