78 THE WOMBAT. 



Let us here consider a few facts that go to support such 

 an inference, first tracing the word bang (which has apparently 

 been pressed into pronominal service), or at least the same 

 combination of letters, as used in the aboriginal dialects of 

 Victoria. Bang means flesh in Jajowerong dialect. Bang, 

 body, occurs at Lake Hindmarsh. Woddowro itself gives 

 two examples : hann-mo-reu, it is fat, which literally would 

 perhaps be " flesh fat " or " body fat " ; and 



Bangik, body ; (used by Witouro or Ballarat natives.) 

 Bang, man is found at the Lower Murray. 

 (Bangganoo, brother, at the River i'arra.) 

 Bang-bang-go, woman, in the Western district of Victoria. 

 Bang-go-ok, children, at Mt. Talbot. 

 (Bangondeduk, black man, in the Ballarat district. 



Now it seems safe to affirm that we probably have in 

 these examples the same word appearing with but different 

 shades of meaning. If the word is not a compound, bang, 

 flesh, may be regarded as its simplest form. With ik 

 suffixed, as in the Ballarat dialect, it signifies that human 

 flesh wherein is (or was) the breath of life, the human body. 

 Bang, body, of Lake Hindmarsh, and bang, man, of the 

 Yarra dialect expresses the same idea. In the name of the 

 smaller and weaker sex, bang-bang-go, woman, we ma}' regard 

 the reduplication, by which the Australian, like other 

 agglutinative languages, marked emphasis, as referring to the 

 maternal function, the producing of many bodies : go, the 

 suffix in E. Australian dialects sometimes serving as ' of the,' 

 sometimes as ' to,' or, growing more elastic, according to the 

 intention of the speaker, appearing literally meaning ' with 

 regard to,' completes this supposed aboriginal notion. In 

 bang-go-ok, children, I would look upon ok as a contraction of 

 gorok or worok, female : baugook would thus mean ' bodies- 

 of-the-female,' Anglicc, the offspring of the woman. 



Now the word bang of the Woddowro pronouns is either 

 identical or not identical with the word bang, body. Possibly 

 the negative view is correct ; perhaps the words are homonyms. 

 But we may incline to the affirmative view when confronted 

 with the striking illustration that the Yarra dialect affords in 

 Murvumbeek, the pronoun I. We have just seen that in 

 this compound and in Bangik, I, of Woddowro, the principle 

 of construction is the same, both probably being words of 

 another class used as pronouns. Strange to say, in both 

 compounds also the first part of the word has the same in- 

 dependent meaning,* Murrum, body, Bang, body. 



''"Very probably this also applies to Murriniihi.k, I; I\Inrriuiih!/."ii, yon, in 

 Ta-oungurong dialect, which was spoken at Mt. Al< ixaiideo arid the 

 Campaspe river, where the word for body is marramhon. Gnwrdons, 

 Knanlon, mother (Woddowro), show an analogy as regards the cliahge of 

 vowel. As in luarrtnii.boii, oo forms the terminal suffix of other nouns in 

 the Ta-onngurong dialect. 



