Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/90

64 a still more distant tribe near Aramac. A few of them accompanied the Kumbukabura, and when the Wakelbura went to the Mutabura or the Yankibura ceremonies, it was only a few of them who did so, in company with Auanbura or Kumbukabura people. The same applies to all the distant tribes, which had some relations with the Wakelbura, and visited them. The rule was that the nearer tribe came in a body, and the more distant were represented by a few members, who accompanied some other friendly tribe.

Another tribe to be mentioned is the Dalebura, whose country was within a fifty-mile radius round Lammermoor Head Station at the Thomson River.

My correspondent spoke of this tribe as the "faithful Dalebura."

The farthest range south of the four sub-class system of which I have taken the Wakelbura as the type, appears to be about Thargominda, 400 miles in a direct line from that tribe. The point is, however, the extreme limit also of the Buntamurra tribe, whose country extends from Thargominda to Kaiabara Creek in the north-west, the Paroo River in the east, and a considerable distance up the Bulloo River northwards.

It is, in fact, situated on the boundary of this class system, and in touch with the two-class system of the Darling River tribes.

Similar statements have been made to me as to the tribes which occupied the country between the Belyando, the Burdekin, and the coast, thus connecting the inland tribes with those north and south of the Kuinmurbura. The organisation of all these tribes on a geographical basis may be assumed, whether they are properly described as tribes or should be considered as their component parts.

The particulars given as to the tribes of this part of Australia are a good instance of the manner in which a large tract of country claimed by any one tribe is parcelled out among its lesser divisions. It is in such cases most difficult to decide whether one has to do with a single tribe,