Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/98

72 occupied the Yarra flats and the upper part of that river to its source, including the northern slopes of the Dandenong Mountains, thence by Gardiner's Creek to the Yarra River, and by it to the Darebin Creek.

(2) The Kurnaje-berreing, in two subdivisions: (a) under the headman Billi-billeri, lived at and had the custody of the aboriginal stone quarry near Lancefield, occupied the site of Melbourne and the country up the eastern side of the Saltwater River and its western branch to Mount Macedon, also the western half of the country lying between the Saltwater and Plenty Rivers; (b) under the headman Bebe-jan, the country on the Darebin Creek, and on the Yarra River thence to about Warrandyte, and also the watershed of the Plenty River and Diamond Creek.

(3) The Boi-berrit, under their headman Bungerim lived on the western side of the Saltwater River, with their headquarters about Sunbury, and the western end of Mount Macedon.

These clans were again divided into lesser groups of people, and each had its own definite tract of country and food ground.

Tribes belonging to the Kulin nation lived on all the rivers rising in the Victorian Alps from the Yarra round northwards to the Ovens River. The Wurunjerri was one of them, and it may be well to say here something of the country they inhabited, or at least visited, during the summer months. The Great Dividing Range, which to the west of Melbourne sinks to a comparatively low ridge, with only isolated mountains, rises on the north-east to a great chain, which reaches its highest altitudes on either side of the border between the States of Victoria and New South Wales. The great spurs of these mountains enclose valleys through which rivers flow northwards to the Murray, and southwards to Bass Strait. Tribes such as the Wurunjerri claimed the rivers flowing through their country, to their sources, where their summer hunting grounds were situated.