Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/111

II sinks down so that a traveller would not think that he was crossing the boundary between any waters, much less those which divide the Darling waters from the Hunter River. This probably facilitated the spread of the powerful Kamilaroi.

To the north-east and adjoining the Geawe-gal were two tribes, or perhaps two sections of a large tribe, one on the Paterson River and the other, to which my correspondent refers, being on the Williams and its tributary, the Chichester. After careful inquiries I have not succeeded in learning the name of this tribe with certainty. So far, however, as I am able to form an opinion, the name Gringai may be used, since it is given for those blacks who lived in that part of the country lying about Dungog. They were distributed over the country in local groups called by them "Nurra."

Their territory extended up the valley of the Williams and its tributaries to their sources, and southwards for about 8 miles below Dungog. There were Nurras all over this district, at convenient distances apart, each of which consisted of six to nine huts, or families. In 1840 the blacks in this tract of country numbered about 250 all told. They intermarried with the people of the Paterson River on the one side, and those of the Gloucester on the other.

From Port Stephens to the Queensland border there is a stretch of coast of over 300 miles in length. It is a comparatively narrow strip of well-watered and generally fertile country between the sea and the Great Dividing Range. Formerly it was inhabited by numerous tribes which have now almost become extinct.

Very little has been recorded as to their tribal organisation, beliefs and customs, but what there is suggests to me that they probably differed from the inland Kamilaroi tribes much as other coast tribes further south differed from those inland, but not so much perhaps in their local, as in their social, organisation.

Amongst these were the Kombaingheri, whose four sub-