LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDHAWAL TRIBE, IN GIPPS- 

 LAND, VICTORIA. 



By R. H. MATHEWS, L.S. 



{Read October 4, 1907 •) 



In the following contribution I shall endeavor to give an outline 

 of the grammatical structure of the language of the Birdhawal 

 tribe, prepared from notes taken by myself among the survivors 

 of these people. Their hunting grounds were mainly in the extreme 

 eastern corner of the State of Victoria, but they also occupied a 

 small strip of country within the New South Wales frontier. Their 

 boundary may be approximately defined as follows: Commencing 

 on the sea coast, at Cape Conron, and reaching thence along the 

 coast to Mullacoota Inlet, including the following rivers and their 

 tributaries — Bemm, Cann, Thurra, Wingan and Genoa. The Bird- 

 hawal territory extended inland from the sea coast to Bonang, Dele- 

 gete, Craigie, and some other places in that district. 



It will be seen that the foregoing description crosses the boun- 

 dary between New South Wales and Victoria, and takes in the head 

 waters of the Queenboro, Bondi and Nungatta creeks. 



The initiation ceremony of the Birdhawal tribe, known as the 

 Dyerrayal, has been described by me with considerable fullness in 

 a contribution to the Anthropological Society of Vienna,^ to which 

 the reader is referred. 



All along their western side, the Birdhawal are met by the 

 Kurnai tribe, for a description of the extent of whose territory the 

 reader is referred to my article on " The Victorian Aborigines," 

 which I contributed to the Anthropological Society of Washington, 

 U. S. A., in 1898.^ For a short grammar and vocabulary of the 

 Kurnai, see my " Aboriginal Languages of Victoria," contributed to 

 the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1902.^ 



* Mitteil. d. Anthrop. Gesellsch. in Wien. Band XXXVII, 1907. 

 ' American Anthropologist, XL, pp. 326-330, with a map showing the dis- 

 tribution of the Native Tribes of Victoria. 



'Joum. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, XXXVI., pp. 71-106. 



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