Wergaia facts for kids
The Wergaia or Werrigia people are an Aboriginal Australian group from the Mallee and Wimmera areas in north-western Victoria. They are made up of different family groups called clans. These people were also known as the Maligundidj. This name comes from the Wotjobaluk language and means "people belonging to the mallee eucalypt bushland," which covers a lot of their traditional lands.
Before Europeans arrived in the 1800s, the Wergaia people lived in an area that included places like Lake Hindmarsh, Lake Albacutya, Pine Plains Lake, Warracknabeal, Beulah, Hopetoun, Dimboola, Ouyen, and the Wimmera River.
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Wergaia Language
The Wergaia language was a type of Wemba-Wemba. This language belongs to the Kulinic group of Pama–Nyungan languages.
Nature and Resources
In 1836, an explorer named Thomas Mitchell explored the Wergaia lands. He wrote about how beautiful and fertile the land was. He mentioned "streams of unfailing abundance and plains covered with the richest pasturage." He also saw "stately trees and majestic mountains."
For the Wergaia people, this land was full of important foods. They ate kumpung, which are the roots of bulrush plants. They also ate lahoor, the yellow water lily, and dandelion yams. Rivers provided freshwater mussels and crayfish. The people carefully managed the bushland by using controlled fires.
George Augustus Robinson, an early government official, saw well-built thatched huts along the waterways. He also noted clever fish traps. One large trap system near Mount Duwil covered a huge area. It connected swamps, floodways, and rivers to help catch fish.
Around February and March, the Wergaia held a Festival of Laap. Many different tribes came together for this event. They socialized, settled disagreements, and enjoyed a sweet drink called laap. This sweet substance was collected from the sugary sap left by tiny insects (a type of psylla) on the leaves of the walkerie mallee gumtree. People could collect a lot of it each day.
History and Culture
The Aboriginal people have lived in this area for a very long time, at least 1,600 generations. There is proof that people lived in Gariwerd as far back as 30,000 to 20,000 years ago. This was even before the end of the last ice age.
Wergaia Society
The Maligundidj people were divided into 20 clans. Each clan had its own special territory. When they met an outsider, they would ask: ngaia yauarin? This meant "What is your flesh?" They wanted to know your place within their family system.
Their society was matrilineal, meaning family lines were traced through the mother. They had two main groups called moieties: gabadj (the southern black cockatoo) and grugidj (the white cockatoo). The group you belonged to was called a mir.
The Wergaia often married people from the Jardwadjali and Dja Dja Wurrung clans. They also held meetings and ceremonies with the Dadidadi, Wadiwadi, and Ladjiladji peoples who lived to their north.
Stories and Star Knowledge
According to stories from the Wudjubalug clan, the Dreamtime creator was Bunjil, the eaglehawk man. He was helped by the BramBram Ngul brothers, who lived in the Naracoorte caves. These brothers shaped the first people from a tree.
One Wergaia clan, the Boorong near Lake Tyrrell, were very good at studying the stars. They had advanced knowledge of astronomy. In the mid-1800s, a settler named William Edward Stanbridge learned about their star knowledge. He shared some of their system in a lecture in 1857. The Wergaia people connected the rising and setting of certain stars with different seasons and Dreamtime stories.
For example, when the star Marpeankuurk (Arcturus) rose in the north, it meant it was time to collect the larvae of wood ants. When Neilloan (Vega) set just after dark, it showed that malleefowl eggs were ready to be gathered. The setting of Coonartoorung (the Beehive Cluster) in the constellation of Cancer marked the start of autumn.
One Dreamtime story from the Wudjubalug people tells how Gnowee, the sun, was created. Before humans existed, the earth was dark. An ancient spirit named Pupperimbul threw an emu egg into the sky. It burst open and filled the sky with light. The patterns of the stars also showed family connections. Gnowee's sister was Chargee Gnowee (Venus), who was the wife of Ginabongbearp (Jupiter).
European Arrival and Changes
It is thought that the first contact with Europeans for the Wergaia people was through smallpox epidemics. These diseases arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 and quickly spread through Aboriginal trading routes. They caused many deaths before the 1830s. The Wudjubalug people called the disease thinba micka.
The explorer Edward John Eyre might have been the first European (called ngamadjidj by the Wergaia) seen by the Maligundidj. He followed the Wimmera River to Lake Hindmarsh in 1838. His reports about the well-watered land encouraged many settlers to come with their cattle and sheep.
The Wergaia people strongly resisted this arrival of settlers. For the first ten years of settlement, Europeans could not travel safely without weapons in Wergaia territory. One early settler, Horatio Cockburn Ellerman, arrived in 1846. He was known for being harsh towards Aboriginal people. The Wudjubalug people were particularly angry with him. Ellerman was involved in a sad event in 1846 where an Aboriginal woman was killed at Banji bunag. Ellerman took her orphaned child, a boy named Willie. Willie was later taken to Britain for education but sadly passed away there in 1852.
Dick-a-Dick was a Wudjubalug tracker. He became famous for finding the three Duff children who were lost in the Australian bush for nine days in 1864. This event gained national and international attention. Dick-a-Dick was also one of the Wudjubalug and Jardwadjali men who formed the first Australian Aboriginal cricket team in England in 1868.
In the early 1980s, the Aboriginal community in Horsham formed the Goolum Goolum Aboriginal Cooperative. Goolum goolum is a Wergaia word that means 'stranger', especially a dangerous one.
Ebenezer Mission
In 1859, two Moravian missionaries, Friedrich Hagenauer and F.W. Spieseke, set up the Ebenezer Mission in Wergaia country. The mission was at a place called Banji bunag, which was a traditional meeting and ceremony ground.
In 1902, the Victorian Government decided to close the Ebenezer Mission because there were not many people living there. The mission closed in 1904. Much of the land became government land and was opened up for new settlers. In the next 20 years, many Wergaia people were moved to Lake Tyers Mission in Gippsland. This happened with police escorts. Also, all food supplies to Ebenezer Mission were stopped, and children were taken from their families.
Native Title Recognition
The Indigenous peoples of the Wimmera region received native title recognition on December 13, 2005. This happened after a ten-year legal process. It was the first successful native title claim in south-eastern Australia and in Victoria. Justice Ron Merkel made the decision, which involved the Wudjubalug, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Wergaia, and Jupagalk people.
Justice Merkel specifically mentioned Wudjubalug elder Uncle Jack Kennedy. He explained how important his decision was: "The orders I propose to make are of special significance as they constitute the first recognition and protection of native title resulting in the ongoing enjoyment of native title in the State of Victoria and, it would appear, on the South-Eastern seaboard of Australia. These are areas in which the Aboriginal peoples suffered severe and extensive dispossession, degradation and devastation as a consequence of the establishment of British sovereignty over their lands and waters during the 19th century."
Important Wergaia People
See also
- Alfred William Howitt
