The Jaitmatang, also spelled Yaithmathang, are an

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples o ...

people of the

State of Victoria Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in ...

Name

Jaitmatang/Yaithmathang, according to the early ethnographer

Alfred William Howitt Alfred William Howitt , (17 April 1830 – 7 March 1908), also known by author abbreviation A.W. Howitt, was an Australian anthropologist, explorer and naturalist. He was known for leading the Victorian Relief Expedition, which set out to e ...

, may have derived from ''Ya-yau'' their word for "yes," and ''thang'' ("speech/tongue").

Language

Ian D. Clark, after subjecting evidence for the Omeo languages in early wordlists, identified a distinctive tongue differing substantially from those – Dhudhuroa and Pallanganmiddang – spoken by tribes to the immediate north. After then examining whether it might be a variety of Ngarigu or had a separate name Harold Koch and others consider it a southern variety of the Yuin sub-branch of the Yuin-Kuric language family. Koch's analysis points to a possibility that the Jaitmatang, like their neighbours the Wolgal and the

Ngarigo The Ngarigo People (also spelt Garego, Ngarego, Ngarago, Ngaragu, Ngarigu, Ngarrugu or Ngarroogoo) are Aboriginal Australian people of southeast New South Wales, whose traditional lands also extend around the present border with Victoria. Lang ...

, spoke dialects of one language, with Clark considering it a dialect of Ngarigo.

Country

The Jaitmatang's lands extended some , including the headwaters of Mitta Mitta and Tambo rivers; from the Indi River to "Tom Groggin Run" and perhaps even the

Ovens River The Ovens River, a perennial river of the north-east Murray catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the alpine and Hume regions of the Australian state of Victoria. Location and features Formed by the confluence of the East ...

. To the south their tribal boundaries ran to

Omeo Omeo ( ) is a town in Victoria, Australia on the Great Alpine Road, east of Mount Hotham, in the Shire of East Gippsland. At the 2016 census, Omeo had a population of 406. The name is derived from an Aboriginal word for 'mountains' or 'hill ...

and Mount Delusion, 25 miles north of Omeo.

Social organization

Hordes:- * ''Kandangoramittung'' (horde on the Omeo plains) * The Djilamatang were considered by early authorities to have been a hordes of the Jaitmathang. * According to

Robert Hamilton Mathews Robert Hamilton Mathews (1841–1918) was an Australian surveyor and self-taught anthropologist who studied the Aboriginal cultures of Australia, especially those of Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland. He was a member of the ...

's reference to a "Theddora horde" actually denoted a distinct tribal grouping, Dhudhuroa. Norman Tindale separates them, though noting that Aldo Massola supported the traditional view that the Jaitmatang and Dhudhuroa belonged to the same tribal unity. The Jaitmathang had an annual migratory cycle, camping on the lower plateaus of their land through the colder, winter period, and then, once the snow began to melt, shifting into the highlands to pass the summer hunting in the alpine zone.

History of contact

The Jaitmathang lands were first penetrated and settlements began to be established there, in 1828. Following the

Victorian gold rush The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capita ...

, miners also discovered gold in the Omeo area, at Livingstone Creek, off the Mitta Mitta River, and as the news spread, a large mass of gold-diggers rushed to settle and pan the waters of the area. Within a decade, by 1862, only 4-5 Jaitmathang could be counted who had survived the disruption.

Alternative names

* ''Ya-itma-thang'' * ''Yaithmathang'' * ''Muddhang'' (Mitta Mitta horde) * ''Mudthang'' * ''Kandangoramittung'' (horde on the Omeo plains) * ''Jandangara'' * ''Gundanara, Gundanora'' * ''Brajerak'' (rude

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, o ...

for them used by coastal tribes).

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * {{authority control Aboriginal peoples of Victoria (Australia) History of Victoria (Australia)