Walgalu

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The Walgalu one of the two aboriginal peoples who originally lived in the region now occupied by Canberra, the capital of Australia, and is officially recognized as the original indigenous australian custodian of country. Steven Avery wrote in Aboriginal and European Encounter in the Canberra Region: a question of change and the archaeological record [1], "The Walgalu estate is located in the Namadji (Namadgi) region to the southwest of Queanbeyan" [2]

The language of the Walgalu was a form of Ngarigo[3] [4]

According to Norman Tindale in his 1974 catalogue of Australian Aboriginal, the specific areas where Walgalu lived were the [5]

headwaters of the Murrumbidgee, and Tumut rivers; at Kiandra; south to Tintaldra; northeast to near Queanbeyan. Parkes obtained some details from a Wiradjuri man at Brungle under the name Guramal or Gurmal. (These notes also apply in part to the Ngarigo). Both tribes were to him ['guarai], or hostile people. The Walgalu spent their summers in the Bogong Mountains ['Bu:ga:?] southeast of Tumut. This tribe was omitted in error from my 1940 work. Mrs. J. M. Flood has drawn my attention to Howitt's note saying that the Walgalu went as far as Kauwambal on the upper Murray River, which she identifies as between Mount Kosciusko and Mount Cobberas. It can perhaps be assumed that they extended their bogong-gathering forays by following the highlands along the eastern border of Djilama-tang territory.

The Cooma government web site states that the two main groups on Monaro were the Ngarigo people of the tablelands and the Wogul or Wolgalu group in the high country. [6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.kunama.com/custlaw/ Aboriginal and European Encounter in the Canberra Region: a question of change and the archaeological record
  2. ^ http://www.kunama.com/custlaw/CH1.HTM Cultural Groupings, Chapter One
  3. ^ http://www.kunama.com/custlaw/BIB.HTM#Dixon1980 Dixon 1980: 241, Dixon, R.M.W (1980) The Languages of Australia. Cambridge University Press, New York.
  4. ^ http://www.kunama.com/custlaw/BIB.HTM#McBryde1986 McBryde 1986: 44, McBryde, I (1986) 'Artefacts, language and interaction: a case study from south-eastern Australia.' in Bailey, G & Callow, P (eds.) Stone Age Prehistory: studies in memory of Charles McBurney. Oxford University Press, New York: pp 77-93.
  5. ^ Walgalu (NSW), page reproduced from N.B. Tindale's Aboriginal Tribes of Australia (1974), South Australian Museum
  6. ^ http://www.cooma.nsw.gov.au/culturalmap/aboriginal/aboriginal.htm Aboriginal People of Monaro

[edit] External links