NOTES ON SOME NATIVE DIALECTS OF VICTORIA. 245 
over the country watered by the Yarra and Plenty rivers, 
including the site on which Melbourne and its suburbs now 
stand. This man died onthe 15th August last at Coranderrk 
Aboriginal Station, near Healesville, Victoria, and was 
buried in the cemetery there the following day. When I 
was at Coranderrk in 1898, Mr. J. Shaw, the manager, 
told me he thought ‘“‘ Billy Bérak’’ was then about 75 years 
old, which would make his age at the time of his death 80 
years. He was the last pure-blood survivor of his tribe, 
and spoke the Woiwurru tongue, but he also understood the 
Binwirru. He belonged to the wa (or crow) totemic 
division, for particulars respecting which, and the laws of 
intermarriage and descent, the reader is referred to an 
article I contributed to the Anthropological Society at 
Washington in 1898." 
I have been several times at the Aboriginal Station at 
Coranderrk, and on each occasion visited “‘ Billy Bérak ”’ at 
his hut there, and obtained from him all available informa- 
tion respecting the language and initiation ceremonies of 
his people. He was a merry old fellow, and frequently 
sang some of his native chants for my benefit. Incidentally 
he told me that he had been several years in the Police 
Force as a “‘tracker’’—that he had been thrice married, 
but had no children living. He remembered the visit of 
Batman to Port Phillip Bay and the Yarra river, although 
himself onlyalad atthe time. My last visit to Coranderrk’ 
was in April of the present year. Poor old “‘ Bérak”’ was 
*«The Victorian Aborigines: their Initiation Ceremonies and Divis- 
ional Systems,” American Anthropologist, Vol. x1., pp. 325 — 343, with map 
of Victoria. 
? Coranderrk is a corruption of korranderrak, the aboriginal name of a 
small tree or shrub usually found near watercourses. Numbers of these 
trees grow along the banks of Badger Creek, on which Coranderrk 
Aboriginal Station and grounds are situated. It is commonly known as 
the “ mint bush,” and its botanical name is Prostanthera lasiander, of the 
natural order Labiate. 
