THE ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES OF VICTORIA. 93 



a strip of country along the sea-coast. This tribe is men- 

 tioned by R. B. Smyth in his valuable work on " The 

 Aborigines of Victoria." 



As the Brabirrawulung was formerly an important and 

 centrally situated tribe, I propose adopting its name for the 

 language spoken in eastern Victoria from Tarwin River to 

 Cape Howe, and reaching back from the sea-coast northerly 

 to the Australian Alps. In my former article on the native 

 tribes of Victoria, 1 I adopted the name Kurnai (or Kunnai) 

 a native word meaning "man," to distinguish all the people 

 within the geographic limits above mentioned. I now 

 think, however, that the term "Brabirrawulung Nation" 

 is more appropriate, because it is the name of one of the 

 native tribes within the region under consideration. Mr. 

 E. M. Ourr states that in his opinion, the Gippsland (Bra- 

 birrawulung) tribes are all the same stock — one descended 

 from the other. 2 It has fallen to my lot to be the first 

 to explain the constitution of their language. There 

 are some differences in the vocabularies of the people 

 occupying the eastern and western portions respectively 

 of the area above described, but the fundamental elements 

 of their grammar are the same throughout. The marriage 

 laws and totemic system of the Brabirrawulung nation are 

 the same as those in force among the adjoining coastal 

 tribes of New South Wales, described by me in a previous 

 communication to this Society. 3 



Nouns. 

 Number. — There are three numbers — singular, dual and 

 plural. Dyira, a kangaroo. Dyirabulung, a couple of 

 kangaroos. Dyirawamba, several kangaroos. 



1 "The Victorian Aborigines : their Initiation Ceremonies and Divisional 

 Systems" — American Anthropologist, Vol. xi., pp. 330-331, and map 

 snowing distribution of the native tribes of Victoria. 



2 " The Australian Race," Vol. in., p. 540. 



3 Journ. Royal Soc. N. S. Wales, Vol. xxxiv., pp. 263, 264. 



