Wemba-Wemba
TheWemba-Wembaare anAboriginal Australianpeople in north-WesternVictoriaand south-westernNew South Wales,Australia,including inthe Malleeand theRiverinaregions. They are also known as theWamba-Wamba.[1]
Language
[edit]Wemba-Wembabears strong similarities toWoiwurrung.[2]WhenMoravian missionariescame and started to learn a language in Wemba Wemba territory, at Archibald Macarthur Camppbell'sGannawarrastation, they quickly noted that the Aboriginal people, perceiving they were understood, slipped into using another language, not willing to allow this "cultural conquest" to enable the white men to learn of matters they wished to keep secret from outsiders.[3][a]
Country
[edit]Before European settlement in the nineteenth century, the Wemba-Wemba occupied the area around theLoddon River,reaching northwards fromKerang, VictoriatoSwan Hill,and including the area of theAvoca River,southwards towardsQuambatook.In a northeasterly direction, their territory ran up, over the New South Wales-Victorian border toBooroorbanandMoulamein,and extended to the vicinity ofBarham.Lake BogaandBoorain Victoria also fell within their domain.[1]The overall extension of their territory has been calculated by Norman Tindale to be roughly 3,200 square miles (8,300 km2).[1]
Social structure
[edit]The Wembawemba were registered as consisting of fivehordes.Stone lists these hordes, residing aroundTowaninny,Meelool Station (with a name indicating they were thought to be quarrelsome), Lake Boga, Gonn on the Murray River (called theDietjenbaluk( "always on the move" ), andBael Bael.[1]
Contact history
[edit]The explorerThomas Mitchellwas the first white man to cross Wembawemba territory, in 1836.[4]
Attempt to evangelize the Wembawemba
[edit]The Wembas-Wemba's religio-cultural worldview was centered on adreaming,which they calledyemurraki.[5]
Two GermanMoravianmissionaries, Reverend A.F.C. Täger and Reverend F.W. Spieseke, convinced that the Wembawemba, whom they calledculli,were "the most wretched and bleakest (people), who live on God's earth",[6]establishedLake Boga missionin 1851. The mission closed in 1856 due to lack of converts, disputes with local authorities and hostilities from local landholders.[7]The Moravian Church established a subsequent mission site inWergaiaterritory near Lake Hindmarsh in 1856 (seeEbenezer Mission).[8]
Notes
[edit]- ^Jensz notes the paradox that, conversely, at theEbenezer Mission,pastors resorted to German to stop their converts, fluent in English, from understanding them when they were discussing certain issues. (Jensz 2010,p. 82)
Citations
[edit]- ^abcdTindale 1974.
- ^McBryde 1986,p. 83.
- ^Jensz 2010,pp. 80–81.
- ^Jensz 2010,pp. 73–74.
- ^Clarke 2003,p. 382.
- ^Jensz 2010,p. 74.
- ^Jensz 2010,pp. 71–112.
- ^Clark 1995.
Sources
[edit]- Barwick, Diane E. (1984). McBryde, Isabel (ed.). "Mapping the past: an atlas of Victorian clans 1835-1904".Aboriginal History.8(2): 100–131.JSTOR24045800.
- Clark, Ian D.(1995).Scars in the Landscape: a register of massacre sites in western Victoria, 1803–1859(PDF).AIATSIS.pp. 135–139.ISBN0-85575-281-5.
- Clark, Ian D.(2009)."Reconstruction of Aboriginal microtoponymy in western and central Victoria: Case studies from Tower Hill,the Hopkins River, and Lake Boga"(PDF).InHercus, Luise;Koch, Harold (eds.).Aboriginal Placenames: Naming and Re-naming the Australian Landscape.Australian National University.pp. 207–221.ISBN978-1-921-66609-4.
- Clarke, P.A. (2003). "Australian Aboriginal Mythology". In Parker, Janet; Stanton, Julie (eds.).Mythology. Myths, Legends, & Fantasies.Global Book Publishing. pp. 382–401.ISBN978-0-785-81790-1.
- Clarke, Philip A. (2008).Aboriginal Plant Collectors: Botanists and Australian Aboriginal People in the Nineteenth Century.Rosenberg Publishers.ISBN978-1-877-05868-4.
- Jensz, Felicity (2010).""Ein Fauler Fleck": Lake Boga, A Putrid Stain ".German Moravian Missionaries in the British Colony of Victoria, Australia, 1848-1908: Influential Strangers.BRILL.pp. 71–112.ISBN978-9-004-17921-9.
- McBryde, Isabel (1986)."Artefacts, Language and Social Interaction: A Case Study from South –Eastern Australia".In Bailey, G. N.; Callow, P. (eds.).Stone Age Prehistory: Studies in Memory of Charles McBurney.Cambridge University Press.pp.77–93.ISBN978-0-521-25773-2.
- Tindale, Norman Barnett(1974)."Wembawemba (NSW)".Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names.ANU Press.ISBN978-0-708-10741-6.