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Art. VII. — A Few Notes on the Dialects, Habits, Customs, 

 and Mythology of the Lower Murray Aborigines. By 

 Petee Beveridge, Esq. 



[Read 9th September, 1861.] 



The Aborigines herein described inhabit the valley of the 

 Murray Eiver from Lake Boga to the Moornpal Lakes in- 

 clusive. They are divided into seven tribes, each tribe 

 having a distinct name, and very nearly a distinct dialect. 



They are named as follows : — Boora Boora, Watty Watty, 

 Waiky Waiky, Litchy Litchy, Yairy Yairy, and Darty 

 Darty. Each name is the negative of the dialect spoken by 

 the respective tribes. 



These tribes average about fifty-five in number, old and 

 young ; the males preponderate very considerably. The only 

 apparent reason for this excess is because of the great numbers 

 of women who die from their husband's ill-usage, and from dis- 

 eases, the consequence of their own profligacy. There are 

 very few of either sex under the age of fifteen, and the pre- 

 ponderance of those under that age are by European fathers. 



The mortality amongst them during the last fifteen years 

 has been very great indeed. The diseases to which they 

 have chiefly fallen victims, have been of a pulmonary or 

 venereal nature, or a combination of both. They also suffer 

 very much from scurvy during the winter months, when 

 food is scarce, and the blood becomes impoverished by poor 

 diet. They do not appear to have any contagious diseases, 

 such as fevers, &c, although many of the adults are marked 

 with small-pox ; this, however, may have been contracted 

 by the natives in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and passed 

 on from one tribe to another, until it had ravaged the whole 

 country. In speaking of this disease, the old men say that 

 their sufferings were fearful in the extreme, and the deaths 

 so numerous that they could not inter them, therefore they 

 left the bodies where they died, and shifted their camps to 

 some other place. They repeated this manoeuvre day after 

 day, until the whole atmosphere was tainted with the de- 

 composing carcases ; they thought that not one would escape 

 death, and had arrived at such a pitch of misery as to make 

 them careless whether they died or not. The hot summer, 

 however, set in, when the distemper gradually left them, but 

 it was years before they got over the panic. This seems to 



