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19.
(12) 14. The Bloomfield River District. *12 Banna-billa (occasionally corrupted by the local settlers into Banana Billy) is the country at the mouth of the Bloomfield River, the native name designating the selection (Osmundsen's). The group here (Bannabillára) includes some 3 or 4 remnants from Bailey's Creen (Gangaji) about four miles south, and perhaps the same number from Tchul-gur, the present Toolgoor Selection of Cochrane's some little distance norht of the Bloomfield River. These blacks are the best works, the most civilised, the best turtle-fishers, and yet the weakest throughout the district, and consequently often made the scape-goats to accounts for the deaths of any of the more important members of the neighbouring tribes. From their chief home at the mouth they travel along the river as far as the heads (Banna-yirri ie. water-falls); southward, they visit Bailey's Creek. In former times, they used to travel up the northern Coast along Cedar Bay to Archer Point, a distance about midway between the Bloomfield and the Endeavour Rivers: but nowadays, they very rarely come north of their river home. They speak Koko-baldja. Wyall, locally known as Wai-ál-al is regarded as a head-camp; it is the meeting-place for natives from Ku-na (Mt. Finlayson ? Finnegan), from Wú-lu-mu-pan (a tract north of Bauer's Gap), from Wol-pa (the big range lying westwards from Mt. Romeo), and from yalmba (the district between Wyalla south-eastwards and the sea), they speak Koko-yerla-n-tchi here. The natives met with on the Mission Reserve (Wudjal-wudjal) and at Connemara i.e. Bairdy selection (bórru) come from
12* Based upon my first journey undertaken here in March 1898, and from information kindly put at my disposal by Mr R. Hislop, of Wyalla.