The Dhudhuroa people (or Duduroa) are an
Indigenous Australian
Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...
people of North-eastern Victoria, in the
state of Victoria
Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...
, Australia. About 2,000 descendants exist in Australia in the early 21st century.
Name
The
endonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
Dhudhuroa has been analysed as being composed of the initial syllable ' of their word for "no" (') and a form of the word for "mouth" (').
Language
Dhudhuroa has been classified as belonging to the
Gippsland branch of the
Pama-Nyungan language family.
Robert M. W. Dixon classifies it, with
Pallanganmiddang, as one of the two languages comprising an Upper Murray Group.
Lexicostatistical analysis however shows that it is something of a language isolate within neighbouring languages, with which it shares no more than 11–16% of common vocabulary. It has various dialects, one being ''Ba Barwidgee.''
The language is currently undergoing a revival, and is being taught at
Bright
Bright may refer to:
Common meanings
*Bright, an adjective meaning giving off or reflecting illumination; see Brightness
*Bright, an adjective meaning someone with intelligence
People
* Bright (surname)
* Bright (given name)
*Bright, the stage na ...
Secondary College,
Harrietville Primary School,
Wooragee Primary School and
Dederang Primary School.
Country
The Dhudhuroa language is a language of north-eastern Victoria, existing from before European settlement. According to
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. He is best remembered for his work mapping the various tribal groupings of Aboriginal Australians ...
, the people inhabit a stretch of territory that encompasses around , embracing the areas defined by the
Mitta Mitta and
Kiewa rivers. It includes
Tallangatta
Tallangatta () is a town in north-eastern Victoria, Australia. The town lies on the banks of the Mitta Arm of Lake Hume, approximately south-east of Albury-Wodonga along the Murray Valley Highway. At the , Tallangatta had a population of 1 ...
and the
Murray River Valley land from
Jingellic and
Tintaldra
Tintaldra is a town in northeast Victoria, Australia in the Shire of Towong local government area and on the upper reaches of the Murray River, northeast of the state capital, Melbourne and east of the regional centre of Wodonga. At the , Ti ...
to
Albury
Albury (; ) is a major regional city that is located in the Murray River, Murray region of New South Wales, Australia. It is part of the twin city of Albury–Wodonga, Albury-Wodonga and is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of ...
. Tindale's reconstruction of the scanty source evidence to arrive at this conclusion has been judged "poor" due to its over-reliance on a single source, that of
A. W. Howitt, by R.M. Dixon.
it is estimated that there are about 2000 descendants of Dhudhuroa, and there is a Dhudhuroa Native Title Group.
Social organization
The early Australian ethnographer
Alfred Howitt categorized the Dhudhuroa as a
horde
Horde may refer to:
History
* Orda (organization), a historic sociopolitical and military structure in steppe nomad cultures such as the Turks and Mongols
** Golden Horde, a Turkic-Mongol state established in the 1240s
** Wings of the Golden Hor ...
of the Jaitmathang, an opinion shared by
Aldo Massola in 1962. Linguistically however the vocabulary they used differed from that noted down from tribal informants of various hordes of the Jaitmattang.
Alternative names
Tindale
* ''Tharamirttong, Tharamittong''
* ''Tharomattay''
* ' (strong-footed ones)
* '
* ''Ginning-matong''
* ''Dhooroomba(?)''
* ' (hordal term)
AIATSIS
* Djiningmiddang tribe
* Yaithmathang
* Jaitmatang
* Duduroa
* Djilamatang
* Kandangora
* Omeo tribe
* Theddora
* Yaitmathang
* Dhudhruwa
* Dhuduroa
* Do
* dor
* dee
* Dodora
* Dodoro
* Toutourrite
*
* Duduruwa
* Tharamirttong
* Tharamittong
*
*
*
*
Some words
* ' (fire)
* ' (bad)
* ' (good)
* ' (fish)
* ' (child)
* ' (father)
* ' (mother)
* ' (dog)
* ' (mountain)
* ' (gum tree)
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{authority control
Aboriginal peoples of Victoria (state)
History of Victoria (state)