Bidhawal
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The Bidhawal (also known as Bidawal and Bidwell) were an Australian Aboriginal tribe of Gippsland, Victoria. According to A. W. Howitt, the Bidhawal were composed of "refugees from tribes".
Language
The Bidhawal spoke a dialect of the Kurnai language,[1] which was also spoken by the Kurnai tribes to the west. However, the Bidhawal dialect had borrowed a number of words referring to mammals, birds and celestial bodies from Ngarigo, as well as a smaller number of words from Thawa and Dhudhuroa.[1] The Bidhawal called their own dialect muk-thang ("good speech"), and that of the neighbouring Kurnai gūnggala-dhang. The Kurnai, however, called their own dialect muk-thang, and that of the Bidhawal kwai-thang ("rough speech").[2][lower-alpha 1]
Country
Bidhawal land, basically tough sclerophyl woodlands and rainforest, extended over 2,700 sq. miles, straddling the present borders of New South Wales and Victoria, from Green Cape, N.S.W., and Cape Everard, now Point Hicks. Inland to the west, it reached the area of Delegate and the headwaters of Cann and Bern rivers.[3] A. W. Howitt, in traversing its terrain, wrote as follows:
This tract is one of the most inhospitable that I have seen in Australia. I have traversed its scrubs, moutains and swamps fo(u)r several times, and I observed little in it of living creatures excepting a few wallaby, snakes, leeches, mosquitoes and flies. Yet the Bidweli inhabited the few small open tracts in it.'[1]
History
The Bidhawal may have been an aggregation of aboriginals from several tribes, each seeking refuge in this harsh piece of territory from tribal justice. Howitt, who raised this hypothesis, suggested that their land functioned like the Cave of Adullam in the Old Testament as a haven for persecuted fugitives.[lower-alpha 2]
Alternative names
- Birdhawal, Birtowall, Bidwell, Bidwill, Bidwelli, Biduelli, Beddiwell.
- Maap (ma:p means 'man'.
- Muk-dhang (mak means 'good'+ ðan, speech)
- Kwai-dhang. Krauatungalung exonym, bearing the sense of 'rough speech'.[2]
Notes
- ↑ Tindale's 'dhang' has been written as 'thang' in accordance with Dixon.[1]
- ↑ I can feel no doubt that the Biduelli country was an Australian "cave of Adullam"; that the tribe was built up by refugees from tribal justice, or individual vengeance, and that they organised themselves, as far as they could do so.'[4]
Citations
- 1 2 3 4 Dixon 2002, p. 44..
- 1 2 Tindale 1974.
- ↑ Tindale 1974, p. 203.
- ↑ Howitt 2010, p. 81.
References
- Barwick, Diane E. (1984). McBryde, Isabel, ed. "Mapping the past: an atlas of Victorian clans 1835-1904". Aboriginal History. 8 (2): 100–131.
- Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47378-1.
- Howitt, A. W. (1886). "On the Migrations of the Kurnai Ancestors". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 15: 419–420.
- Howitt, A. W. (2010) [First published 1904]. The Native Tribes of South-East Australia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 79–81.
- Mathews, R. H. (Oct–Dec 1907). "Language of the Birdhawal Tribe, in Gippsland, Victoria". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 46 (187): 346–359.
- Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). "Bidawal (VIC)". Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.