MEINTANGK and MARDITJALI Placenames

 When squatters John Robertson (Struan) and George Ormerod (Naracoorte) 'sat down' on their great 'sheep walks', they put their head-stations in the middle of two ancient pathways, special tracks that connected separate peoples.

To the west lay black soil plains belonging to the Meintangk, pronounced me-in-tongue(k), called by descendants Moandik, and by some early chroniclers Moatunga. They were speakers of (tangk) a distinct dialect of the larger language group Buandik that populated most of the South East of South Australia from Mount Gambier to Bordertown (but not the Coorong).

To the east lay the Red Gum country belonging to the Marditjali, speakers of (jali) a dialect of Jardwadjali, a language group that occupied the far west of Victoria around the Grampians (gariwerd), from Wimmera River in the north to Wannon River in the south.

In between the territories of the Meintangk and Marditjali lies the Naracoorte Range, a natural boundary of raised limestone and grey sand -- essentially Stringybark and Brackenfern scrub, very different from the types of country on either side of it. Dissecting this border-line in two key places are the Mosquito Creek and the Naracoorte Creek.

It is precisely at these crossing-points, where the creeks break through the range and out onto the plains, that Robertson and Ormerod built their slab huts and stockyards.

European squatters were often good judges of physical geography. They were interested in areas where there was enough grass and reliable water for their sheep and cattle. Careless of human geography, however, they simply overlaid their own political economy on top of pre-existing ones.

Sometimes, in brief acknowledgment of the Indigenous inhabitants, they appropriated a few words of Aboriginal speech as placenames. But before considering those remnants, it is important to understand that even what little that has remained is tentative and incomplete. Questions could be misunderstood, or the answers misheard. And with the loss of vocabulary and tradition, the literal meaning of a few stem-words will not restore the fullness of names.

Rob Amery, a linguist involved in the recovery of the Kaurna language of the Adelaide plains, makes this position clear from his personal experience:

     "With the passage of more than 160 years since colonisation and several generations since the death of the last fluent Kaurna speakers, it is difficult to be clear about anything."

[Rob Amery, 2009, 'Weeding out spurious etymologies: Toponyms on the Adelaide Plains', in Hercus, Hodges & Simpson (eds.), The Land is a Map: Placenames of Indigenous Origin in Australia, ANU E-Press, p 165]

IRONIES OF PRESERVATION

On 6 March 1844, Charles Sherratt and George Ormerod took out Occupation Licence No. 55 for 62 square miles. Their application described the land as being "60 miles north of Rivoli Bay known as the run country", and their address as "Woolirtirna Creek". Correspondence from Messrs Sherratt and Ormerod to the Commissioner of Crown Lands on 8 October 1845 repeats that their run is on "Woolirtirna Creek". But by 1847 Licence No. 55 for 62 square miles referred only to "George ORMEROD of Mosqueto Plains". It was sometime afterwards that the creek and the station acquired the name Naracoorte, by which they are known today.

Similarly, when Alexander Stewart occupied his run on the plains he called it "Woolgabuy", or "Woolgabra", referencing the large lagoon system that formed his southern border. But by 1847, when his Licence No. 103 for 140 square miles was renewed, the generalised address form "Alexander STEWART of Moscheto Plains" was used. Only after this time did the freshwater lakes become known as Bool Lagoon.

[Information for both paragraphs is from Geoff Manning's Compendium of the Place Names of South Australia, 2012, <geoffmanning.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mannings-Place-Names-fullversion.pdf>]

In heavy irony, the 'disappearance' of these first 'gestures' towards the First People was compounded by their replacement with other names also derived from Aboriginal language.

That "Woolirtirna" and "Woolgabuy" share the same stem-word 'wool' is a doubling of loss. The Bunganditj word wul means 'shadow', or 'reflection'. It suggests the mirror-like quality of still water, like that found in a lake or waterhole. This is remarkably 'close' observation, verging on contemplative. While the rest of the name eludes us, what we have left of the literal meaning is enough to mourn the passing of a richer spiritual context.

[Barry Blake, 2003, The Buganditj (Buwandik) Language of the Mount Gambier Region, Pacific Linguistics, Australian National University, Canberra, p 13]

SOUNDS OF SILENCE

Some Aboriginal placenames that have been retained in the district are represented in the map below. Narrative attempts to explain their meaning follow a clockwise direction, from 'Killaloona' to 'Wrattonbully'.

KILLANOOLA

The name of Seymour's station around the southern end of Bool Lagoon, it was occupied under license from 18 March 1846. Blake's identification is kil, 'water hen, coot' and ngurla, 'camp, nest'. Moorhen inhabit reeds and rushes on the edge of swamps and waterways.

The Nature Reserve of Bool Lagoon is synonymous with abundant bird life. "Aborigines who camped around its banks...made tunnels and traps amidst the paperbarks with sticks and woven nets". An example found last century by local farmer and conservationist Jack Hood was imaginatively described by him: "Two lines of two and three inch straight sticks were forced into the mud in a converging pattern, and in the final 'straight' several aboriginal hunters would hide and grasp or hit the bird with sticks as they passed by...several skilful hunters drove the birds towards the trap."

[Judy Murdoch, 1991, Bool Lagoon: A Changing Balance, pp 23-24]

BOOL LAGOON

An Aboriginal/English composite name. It is an example of when "a general term may in fact BE a specific term".

In the hypothetical situation of a colonial surveyor asking an Aboriginal guide, "What is the name of that?", the questioner expected a special word unique to the feature he was pointing at. But for the local person who answered him the object in front of them might have been the only one of its kind or size in that particular region -- THE hill or THE stream.

Experience from the related Kulin languages of western Victoria indicates that the word buluk, meaning lake or swamp, was sometimes misunderstood in this way. Lake Buloke in the Wimmera and Lake Bolac in the Western District were substantial both in size and importance for the local Aboriginal economy. To a person from that 'country' they were THE lake. The surveyors responded by dutifully writing down what they had been told, in effect, Lake 'lake'.

Something similar seems to have happened here, with the abbreviated general word bul, (pronounced 'bool' and common to Djadjawurrung, Djabwurrung, and Buandik), producing Lagoon 'lagoon'.

[Luise Hercus, 2009, 'Is it really a Placename?', in The Land is a Map, pp 64, 67]

MESSEMURRAY

The name for a sheep station held by George Garrie from 20 January 1848. It abutted Stewarts Range, a "stranded coastal dune formation" like Naracoorte Range, and incorporated Garrie's Swamp, a large flood-prone depression now called Garey's Swamp. The swamp was possibly a more significant site for the local Meintangk people than the ridge.

Manning has explained Messemurray as meaning "stoney ridge" and the etymolgy of the name supports the idea of "a place of stone". According to Blake, the word murra is shared with other West Kulinic language groups as marra, murre, murrait, and murray, all meaning 'stone'. And there is certainly a large limestone quarry at the end of Messamurray Road.

However, Naracoorte historian Judy Murdoch has proposed a bolder definition. Murdoch suggests Garey's Swamp is 'place of the stone'. The swamp was where "Aboriginal corroborees were held" and "people came from all around" to attend "ceremonial meetings for trade and marriage arrangements". Murdoch asks, "is it not possible that trading for stone axes took place there, in an area where no suitable stone existed?"

It sounds plausible. Limestone is 'soft'. Durable axe heads were made from flintier material. The Jardwadjali traded throughout western Victoria with their famous 'greenstone' axes from Mount William. Perhaps they came here too? Swamps were favoured places for exchange because they supplied sufficient food for numbers of people congregating in one place for any length of time.

[Manning's Place Names of South Australia, entries under 'Messemurray', 'Garrie's Swamp', and 'Naracoorte']

NARACOORTE

The name of a creek, a town, a sheep station and numerous roads, the origin of Naracoorte has been debated since European settlement. What is generally agreed is that it is a 'corruption' of the initial Aboriginal words.

Amidst the confusion, there is an opportunity for some basic revision about the sounds letters make. Consonants, when pronounced in their short abrupt form, are actually quite 'slippery'. Think 'b' and 'p', 't' and 'd', 'g' and 'k' -- virtually interchangeable. Similarly hard to pin down are the many alternative sounds that vowels make. The letter 'i' can be 'i', 'eye', or 'ee'; 'a' can be 'a', 'ay', 'aa' or 'uh'; 'u' is 'u', 'yu' or 'oo'. Those who try to write down Aboriginal languages have to negotiate these inconsistencies.

Dr Gunning, who settled there in 1849, said the name should be Gnanga-Kurt. Anthropologist Norman Tindale records the name as Ngarangurt. Blake's Buandik, or Bunganditj, lexicon indicates the South East of South Australian word ngrang means 'hole in the rocks', a term which "probably covered cave". A clear precedent is provided by Nangwarry, a small hamlet situated south of Penola. In that case Blake has no hesitation in equating the words ngrang wari with 'cave path'.

Clark's dictionary of south west Victorian placenames has kurt , or gurt, pronounced koort and goort (or 'coorte'), meaning 'small', with perhaps a comparative inference of 'smaller' or 'smallest'. This term is widespread, including Djargurdwurrung Koort-koort-nong and Tirangal-koort-koort, Girraewurrung Weri-weri-kurt, and Ganubanud Yan-yan-gurt.

In linguistic terms then, Naracoorte means a small (or smaller) hole in the rocks. The immediate thought that comes to mind is of a small hole in the limestone which opens out to a larger cavern below,  or 'the entrance to a cave'. From Naracoorte Creek (James's Quarry, Henscke's Quarry) to Mosquito Creek (Robertson's Cave), the Naracoorte Range is full of them.

The extension to 'creek' or 'waterhole' is the result of subsequent speculation from a European perspective. Penola historian Peter Rymill believes "the creek was of prime importance as stockwater to the early settlers, and Ormerod's Waterhole was the principal datum in the early surveys". Colonial sources mention "a large waterhole". The editor of an early newspaper repeated the legend, but admitted it was "a waterhole somewhere in the neighbourhood, the locality of which is not generally known".

[Ian Clark & Toby Heydon, 2002, Dictionary of Aboriginal Placenames of Southwest Victoria, Victorian Corporation of Aboriginal Languages, Melbourne]

KYBYBOLITE 

The first occupation licence was held by Edward Townsend. It was registered on 11 March 1847 with "Cadnite Creek" given as the location. "Records show the name changed from 'Townsends Run' to 'Kybybolite' in 1849. In a letter to the Colonial Secretary, dated 2 August 1856, Mr Heighway Jones, who held an occupation licence at 'Lake Cadnite' from 19 February 1846, spelt the name as 'Keibybolite'."

The term 'bolite' is from the common root bula meaning 'two'. In Buganditj it is rendered pulayt or bulayt. In Girrae wurrung it is boolirt or boolite. Poolaijelo, over the border and south of Langkoop, probably means 'two' of something. Unfortunately no obvious etymology has emerged for 'Kyby-'. We are left with the question "Two of what?"

Those associated with the property have said it meant "place of spirits". This is hard to prove when known Bunganditj and Jardwadjali terms -- 'bad' wrang or nhullam, 'spirit' wur, woor, wir, kulan, walim, truwam, 'dead', nuwa, nura, nuka -- do not sound at all like 'Kyby-'.

Murdoch has suggested 'runaway holes' (sink/soak holes caused by a rooftop collapse in a cave underneath) and mentions two, one on the Kybybolite Research Farm and the other on a nearby farm called 'Eurinima'. The one near the Kyby homestead "was known to be an object of dread to the Aborigines, as air movements caused 'sighs and moans' noises to be produced at times". The ghost story, the popular interpretation, lives on, and perhaps it should.

The mystery reflects the loss of Marditjali language and 'cultural knowledge'. Linguist Luise Hercus writes that Aboriginal placenames are "shorthand labels given to significant geographic features for the purposes of finding them again, referring to them, and passing on the knowledge of the place to other people." A method of making this information relevant and memorable was "the sequencing of placenames according to the travels of an Ancestral Being...Places are connected by the story."

Indigenous place-names are therefore "unpredictable...We can never guess what a place was called."

[Luise Hercus, 2009, 'Indigenous placenames: an Introduction', in The Land is a Map, pp 11-12, 63]

KOPPAMURRA

In keeping with its location, this name contains the word murra, meaning 'stone' or 'stony'. The root murr is common across West Kulin languages, as noted above with Messemurray. 

The area is one of sinkholes and, where the thin layer of red soil has eroded, smooth 'sheet' limestone. It also adjoins the Naracoorte Caves National Park and World Heritage Area.

However, the prefix koppa is not known. The district name Langkoop, directly over the border from Koppamurra, might have provided a clue, but it too resists complete translation. 'Lang-' may be a contraction of Lrang, meaning 'camp site' or 'resting place', but '-koop' is obscure. Of 'pooks' there are plenty, of 'koops' there are none.

WRATTONBULLY

William Wallace, the first squatter on this, the western part of his Elderslie run, used the name 'Boanodine' when he had it surveyed as Lease No. 170 in April 1851. The lease was terminated in 1861, when the land was sold to John Robertson of Struan as 'Warattenbullie'.

Wrattonbully has suffered a number of attempts to decipher its original meaning -- 'place of rising signal smokes', 'March-fly plain', 'bare abdomen'. Clark's western Victorian dictionary proposes wurrung buli, meaning 'big stomach'. Blake's Buandik lexicon repeats the possibility of wurung, 'big', and puli, 'stomach'.

But what was the contemporary significance of such a name? Even knowing the literal meaning of the words is of little interpretive use without cultural context. It also makes it impossible to accurately identify the natural feature it is referring to.

[Max Neale, 1984, Redgums and Hard Yacca: A History of Elderslie and Langkoop, pp 17-18]

Miscellany: MOSQUITO CREEK

John Robertson of Struan did not do local Aborigines the customary 'favour' of naming his run in their language. He stuck with Mosquito Creek or Robertson's Plains.

Mosquito Creek is a very early European appellation. The stream flows from swamps on the eastern side of Wallace's Elderslie, across Langkoop and Koppamurra, through the Naracoorte Range, and over the plains to Bool Lagoon. It waters Mardijali country seasonally but is spring fed from the Caves on into Meintangk country.

It is possible that 'Mosquito', spelt in colonial times as 'Musquitoe', and 'Moscheto', is partially derived from Buanganditj speech. The words kitju, kipa, kecho, and kitjuk are recorded terms for 'mosquito' and 'small ant', both 'biting' insects.

Clark's dictionary adds an alternative name from the Mardijali perspective. Clark notes that the Aboriginal name for Mosquito Creek was Brah, meaning 'to stab'. This is exactly what a mosquito does with its probiscus.

Brah evokes a picture of extending an arm, waiting for a mosquito to land on the skin, letting the insect settle, and watching its head strike down. Like the Meintangk gazing at their reflection in a waterhole (wul or wool, discussed earlier in this post), the Marditjarli were engaged in 'close' observation. They really knew their country because they understood its detail.

It seems right to conclude that their speech was similarly precise in its expression, with each object or place possessing a number of names according to which aspect of it that they wanted to describe.