Transcription

bours; its members, though speaking different dialects may render themselves pretty mutually intelligible and possess in common various trade-routes, markets, hunting-grounds, customs, manners and beliefs with the result that they might as a whole be well described as men-mate, the one group sometimes speaking of another by a term * corresponding with that of friend. THere may, or may not (e.g.  Boulia District) be one single term applied to such a collection of friendly groups,  ie  a tribe occupaying a district, the meaning of the collective name being either un-Known (e.g.  Kalkadun, Workia-a), or bearing reference to the physical conformation of the country, or else depending apparently upon the nature of the language spoken. So far oas physical conformation is concerned, the collective name indicates groups of people occupying forest (e.g. Martchi-tchi of the Bloomfield River), scrub or [indesciperable] country (e.g.  Barli-tchi of the Bloomfield River), low-lying plaints (e.g. Ku-inmur-burra of Broadsound District), mountains, coast-line etc. As fas as I have been able to judge, it is these various of site which have a great deal to do, nay, which I might also say, have given rise to distinctive ethnographical differences; generally speaking, there is always enmnity between occupants of the coast-line and inland tribes, between the inhabitants of the plains and the mountain people etc. The collective name dependent upon the language or dialect spoken by the separate groups may bear reference to peculiarities or differences of speech. In the following examples for instance on the North-east Coastline and its hinterland, this is very

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