NATIVE TRIBES OE PORT DARWIN. 
630 
if correct, needs verification — * that with permission granted it may be 
used as a highway for a tribal journey, and game and other food may 
at such time be taken from it to supply the needs of the band 
travelling upon it. 
The land is subdivided among the several families, with territorial 
rights, and the ownership is a real one. I have heard strong expres- 
sions of dissatisfaction at a friend who had outstayed his welcome, 
and it was forcibly put to him that food was not so plentiful that his 
presence was any longer desirable. During the wet season a good 
number congregate at Port Darwin ; but, the il season over,” the 
several members of a family, with the exception of those engaged by 
the whites, may usually be found “ sitting down, ”f at one of their 
country residences upon the ancestral manor. These are wtirleys of 
the usual construction, made of bark, in section egg-shaped, and 
arranged in a circle or segment of a circle, the openings being towards 
the centre. “ Hunting boxes” or “ fishing lodges” are formed of 
boughs thatched with grass or reed. 
At Port Darwin, oil the Lammerru Beach, as it has been for 
generations, is the camp of the family in whom that part is vested, 
among them being also descendants of black trackers introduced by 
the police from the McArthur or other districts. A half-mile 
distant, at the head of Smith and Cavenagh streets, is the main camp 
of the LarrakPa, comprising several circles of wurleys (at onetime four 
circles, with from three to seven wurleys forming the circle or seg-‘ 
ment), and another quarter of a mile on, towards Point Emery, was at 
the same period the camp of the Daly family. About 150 yards 
removed from the LarrakPa main camp north is a second camp, con- 
taining three circles of wurleys, in which reside W ulnars, related to 
the LarrakPa by alliance or descent. One of these is occupied by the 
family named after Emu, a headman of the Wulnar, who, although 
spare, stands 6 feet 7 inches in height ; the second by the family 
of another Wuluar headman whom I know only as the brother of 
Mmnergwon-gwa (a savage of 6 feet 1 inch, splendidly built, not to be 
trusted) and father of Lbngkiba ; the third I can identify only by two 
boys, W‘annung-a and Mannmitt. Another W ulnar camp has been 
formed in the scrub on the north-east Bide of Cavenagh street, which 
is frequented by natives of that tribe coming in from the bush who 
are not related to the LarrakPa. 
At the camps each circle preserves its privacy, and the blacks to 
be seen within it are members of the family, or visitors who are tribal 
brothers ; even the children in their play together do not go to each 
other’s houses, but whistle or call from without. The camps are not 
kept particularly clean, but human or canine excreta does not defile 
them, and the dogs devour the bones or other refuse from a meal ; 
both males and females, however, urinate in close proximity, whites 
not being present, unabashed, and without concealment of the action 
or parts. 
* The usual highway may have been for some distance only upon the neutral belt, 
and not the belt itself the highway for Alligator River blacks, for instance, proceeding 
to Port Darwin from Burrundi. 
t This turn of expression would seem to prevail over the whole continent ; where 
we say a man is living at Burrundi, the black says he is “ sitting down.” 
