NORTH gUEKNSLAND ETHNOGRAPHY — ROTH. 83 



indicating " speech-similar-with," applied to and by the natives 

 around the Endeavour River, and over Butcher's Hill country 

 respectively. Koko baldja signifies " speech-abrupt," descriptive 

 of the blacks of the mouth of the Bloonifiekl River, the Mission 

 Reserve, and Conneuiara Selection. Koko-piddaji or "speech- 

 poor devil ! ", a term employed in the sense of pity and 

 compassion, in reference to the Aljoriginals who speak it being 

 in their time the weakest and most imposed upon ; they used to 

 occupy King's Plain country, the Tableland, and Mount Amos, 

 but are almost extinct now. The Ko-ko-minni or "speech-good 

 people" have their home around the Middle Palmei' River. The 

 Koko-warra, i.e., " speech-bad, crooked," etc., in the .sense of not 

 being intelligible to others, and so " foreign " i"* applied by them- 

 selves as well as by their more southern neighbours to various 

 mutually-friendly groups of natives wandering over the hinter- 

 land south ai.d east of Princess Charlotte Bay, speaking within 

 certain limits similar dialects and practising similar usages and 

 customs ; 1 say certain limits advisedly because although foi- 

 instance the Kennedy River boys speak very difterently from 

 those on the Jack River, they are yet mutually intelligible. It 

 is indeed curious to find a few hundreds of these people 

 collectivel}'^ .speaking of themselves and their mes.s-mates as 

 Koko-warra without apparently having any idea as to the 

 meaning of the term. Anothei' example is Koko-nego-di, or 

 " speech-there-with," a term applied by the Cape Bedfoi d Blacks 

 to the people (and language) along the coast-line from Barrow 

 Point to Cape Melville. On the other hand, in very many cases, 

 tiie name of the language has nothing whatever to do with the 

 people speaking it. Indeed, it may be absent altogether, there 

 being no occasion for its use, it may have a now unknown 

 meaning, it may be compounded from the first person pronoun 

 (e.g., the tennn-ngada and marma-n^a^i dialects of the Mission 

 River, Albatross Bay), and it may be indicated by its place of 

 origin — thus, Yuro-Kappa, Kia-Kappa, and Yilbar-Kappa denote 

 the Bowen,' Proserpine, and Charters Towers languages 

 respectively, while Koko-rarmul, and Koko-lama-lamadescril)es 

 what is spoken on portions of the Moreliead River and Princess 

 Charlotte Bay. Similarly in the Cairns District, the Kungganji, 

 Yirkanji, and Yidinji speak kunggai, yirkai, and yidi 

 respectively. 



4. In the following notes dealing with Ethnographical 

 Districts I propose leferring only to those few where, during the 

 past thirteen years I have lived, with the natives on terms of 

 fairly personal intimacy, and then but to' place on record the 



