1904.] MATHEWS — NATIVE TRIBES OF VICTORIA. 55 



nothing had been done to record and preserve the native languages 

 of Victoria, and also that the rites and customs of the people had 

 not received the attention which their importance deserved. 



Perhaps it should be mentioned that in 1898 I contributed to the 

 Anthropolo.2:ical Society at Washington a paper dealing with the 

 initiation ceremonies and divisional systems of the Victorian abori- 

 gines.^ In 1902 I read another paper on the aboriginal languages 

 of Victoria before the Royal Society of New South Wales.' On 

 the present occasion it is intended to supply further information 

 not included in my former memoirs. The whole of this article has 

 been prepared by me from notes written down by myself from the 

 lips of the aboriginal speakers. When the difficulties encountered 

 in obtaining such particulars from an uncultivated race are taken 

 into consideration, I feel sure that all necessary allowances will be 

 made for any imperfections of my work. 



In all the aboriginal languages of Victoria the pronouns and 

 pronominal affixes have two forms in the first person of the dual 

 and plural — one of which includes, and the other excludes, the 

 party spoken to. Again, inflection for person and number is not 

 confined to the pronouns and verbs, but extends to many of the 

 nouns, prepositions, adverbs and interjections. I was the first 

 author to report, in any of the Australian languages, the important 

 grammatical forms referred to in this paragraph.' 



The items of folklore show the proclivity of the native mind to 

 account for any specialties of animal structure, or remarkable for- 

 mations in hills, trees, lakes and the like. Under the head of 

 " Sociology," although the names of the phratries have been known 

 for some time, yet many new and important details have been 

 gathered and reported in this article. 



The natives of the southwestern portion of Victoria have a habit 

 of distinguishing the neighboring tribes by means of the second 

 personal pronoun, *'thou," of their respective dialects. For exam- 

 ple, the Dhauhurtwurru are known as the Ngutuk people, the Bun- 

 gandity as the Nguro people, and so on. A more widely prevalent 

 practice is to name the dialect of a tribe by the lip, which is sym- 

 bolical of speech. For this purpose they suffix to the name of the 

 tribe the native word, wurru, lip ; or its possessive form, wurrung, 



'^American Anthropologist, Vol. xi, pp. 325-343, with map of Victoria. 

 ^Journ. Koy. Soc. N, S. Wales, Vol. xxxvi, pp. 71-106. 

 3 Ibid., Vol. XXXV, p. 127. 



