Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/73

II local groups, each having a definite tract of hunting and food ground, and the aggregate of these groups forms the tribe. The sons inherit, or perhaps to speak more correctly occupy, as a matter of birthright, the country which their fathers hunted over. Such is the local organisation of a typical two-class tribe with descent in the female line.

To the south of the Dieri were the Mardala, a hill tribe inhabiting the terminations of the Flinders Range. At the time when I became acquainted with the Dieri, the Mardala were a source of great trouble to the settlers in that district, which was the frontier of the settlements. The leader in the attacks on the settlers was a Mardala black named Inabuthina, but better known to the whites as Pompey. He was a leading man in his tribe, but had to escape and take refuge with the Dieri for burning huts and killing white men—in other words, defending his country. His inveterate enmity to the white men extended to those blacks who assisted them in opening up the country. A black boy of that division of the Dieri tribe which lived about Blanchwater, and therefore immediately adjoined the Mardala, whom I had with me on an expedition, was killed after my return by Inabuthina for having acted as my guide and been too friendly with the white men.

Beyond the Mardala there was a tribe of the same organisation extending to the coast at Port Lincoln called Parnkalla.

Extending west from Port Lincoln, as far as Point Brown, and inland to the Gawler Ranges, is the Nauo or Willuro tribe. The Tidni tribe, also called Hilleri, extends from Point Brown to the head of the Great Australian Bight, and about 50 miles inland.

These tribes are all organised in the same manner as the Parnkalla, and therefore belong to the great group of tribes about Lake Eyre.

Extending from the Tidni tribe up to the boundaries of the southern Urabunna, the Kuyani and the Wiranguru, is a large tribe known as the Kukata, and spoken of by the Dieri as a fierce tribe, but having the same organisation as themselves.