Buandig
Encyclopedia
The Buandig people are Indigenous Australians from the Mount Gambier
region in western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia
.
in her 1880 book on the Buandig people - The Booandik Tribe of South Australian Aborigines: A Sketch of Their Habits, Customs, Legends, and Language -
The largest clan, according to Smith, was the Booandik who occupied country from the mouth of the Glenelg River
to Rivoli Bay North (Beachport
), extending inland for about 30 miles. The other clans occupied country from between Lacepede Bay
to Bordertown
. The Buandig shared tribal borders with the Ngarrindjeri
people of the Coorong and Murray mouth to the west, the Bindjali and Jardwadjali
to the north and the Gunditjmara people to the east.
Anthroplogist Norman Tindale
argued in 1940 and again in 1974 that at the time of European settlement the Buandig were under territorial pressure from the Jardwadjali
people to the north forcing the Buandig territorial boundary south from Gariwerd towards present day Casterton
. However Professor Ian D. Clark counter claims that the ethnohistoric and linguistic evidence doesn't support Tindale's claims regarding the boundaries between the Buandig and Jardwadjali.
and called their language Drualat-ngolonung (speech of man), or Booandik-ngolo (speech of the Booandik).
settled near Portland
, starting the movement of European settlers and their sheep, cattle, horses and bullocks across the Western plains of Victoria and the south east region of South Australia. Settlement occurred rapidly over the following two decades with significant frontier conflict taking place involving theft of sheep, spearings, massacres and poisoning of the natives.
According to Pendowen, Neenimin and Barakbouranu narrated to Christina Smith:
In 1843 Henry Arthur
joined his brother Charles in establishing a sheep run at Mount Schank
. Trouble with Buandig people and dingoes, however, drove the Arthur brothers to sell up in 1844. The Hentys also had problems with their Mount Gambier sheep runs with theft of their sheep and shepherds speared to death in 1844. Such heavy loses occurred that the Henty's were forced to withdraw all their flocks from the Mount Gambier run, according to a report in the Portland Mercury on 24 April 1844. The Leake brothers on their Glencoe Station also reported problems losing 1000 sheep from their 16000 flock during 1845. Hostilities are reported to have continued around the Glenelg River
region for the next two years.
Mistreatment of aborigines was at a level in 1845 where the commissioner of police drew attention to the atrocious treatment in the Rivoli Bay District:
In 1849 the Avenue Range Station Massacre occurred in the (Mount Gambier region of South Australia. At least 9 indigenous Buandig Wattatonga clan people were allegedly murdered by the station owner James Brown who was subsequently charged with the crime. The case was dropped by the Crown for lack of European witnesses as blacks were unable to testify under oath. Christina Smith's source from the Wattatonga tribe refers to 11 people killed in this incident by two white men. The cause of the massacre was the theft of sheep for food.
A report by Mr Smith to Dr Moorhouse
, the Protector of Aborigines
, in April 1851 reveals that "the natives belonging to the Rivoli Bay Tribe (Buandig) are all quiet, and most of them usefully employed in one way or another by the settlers." The report also raises with concern that "infanticide has been and is still practiced amoung the natives here.", and "relations existing between native woman and the Europeans are very discreditable."
Even by 1854 settlers felt threatened by the Buandig people. The Leake Brothers of Glencoe Station erected 'Frontier House' in 1854 - a 'large homestead with slits in the walls through which rifles could be used against any likely intruder' according to local historian Les Hill.
Gradually a certain accommodation was made with Buandig people working as station hands, shearers and domestic servants while remaining on their own land.
According to Bell and Marsden, aboriginal people made encampments of wurleys on the edge of Kingston and even moved into cottages at Rosetown on Kingston's northern side in 1877. The people often moved camp seasonally gathering and using traditional foods and using the traditional local burial ground. They record that the Blackford Reserve on the Bordertown Road was another locality where aboriginal people lived until the 1970s. Kingston and Bordertown were the territorial border shared between the Buandig and the Ngarrindjeri
.
In the Penola to Coonawarra area it was reported that the Buandig had lived in the region for tens of thousands of years but that the last local aborigines died in 1902.
There are many people in the region who identify as Buandig people today. Descendants of the Buandig and the Meintangk clan of the Ngarrindjeri
continue to nurture and protect their culture through the Kungari Aboriginal Cultural Association based in Kingston SE.
Mount Gambier, South Australia
Mount Gambier is the largest regional city in South Australia located approximately 450 kilometres south of the capital Adelaide and just 17 kilometres from the Victorian border....
region in western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
.
Traditional Lands
According to Christina SmithChristina Smith (teacher and missionary)
Christina Smith was a teacher and Christian missionary who documented the lives, customs, legends, and language of the Buandig Indigenous Australians from the Mount Gambier region in western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia....
in her 1880 book on the Buandig people - The Booandik Tribe of South Australian Aborigines: A Sketch of Their Habits, Customs, Legends, and Language -
- "The aborigines of the South-East were divided into five tribes, each occupying its own territory, and using different dialects of the same language. Their names were Booandik, Pinejunga, Mootatunga, Wichintunga, and Polinjunga."
The largest clan, according to Smith, was the Booandik who occupied country from the mouth of the Glenelg River
Glenelg River (Victoria)
The Glenelg River is a river in southwestern Victoria and southeastern South Australia in Australia. The river starts in the Grampian Ranges and runs for over 350 kilometres, making it the longest river in south-west Victoria. A short stretch of the lower end winds through South Australia before...
to Rivoli Bay North (Beachport
Beachport, South Australia
Beachport is a small coastal town 379 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, South Australia, located in the Wattle Range Council. Known for its 772 metre long jetty , Beachport is located on the northern end of Rivoli Bay...
), extending inland for about 30 miles. The other clans occupied country from between Lacepede Bay
Kingston District Council
The Kingston District Council is a Local Government Area located on the central Limestone Coast, South Australia. Established in 1873 as the Lacepede District Council, the council name was changed in April 2000 due to the new direction hoped to be taken by the council at that time.-History:The area...
to Bordertown
Bordertown, South Australia
Bordertown is a small South Australian town near the Victorian border. It is where the Dukes Highway and the railway line, the two main routes between Adelaide and Melbourne, cross Tatiara Creek....
. The Buandig shared tribal borders with the Ngarrindjeri
Ngarrindjeri
The Ngarrindjeri are a nation of eighteen "tribes" consisting of numerous family clans who speak similar dialects of the Ngarrindjeri language and are the traditional Aboriginal people of the lower Murray River, western Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of southern, central...
people of the Coorong and Murray mouth to the west, the Bindjali and Jardwadjali
Jardwadjali
The Jardwadjali people are Indigenous Australians who occupy the lands in the upper Wimmera River watershed east to Gariwerd and west to Lake Bringalbert. The towns of Horsham, Cavendish, Coleraine, Asply, Minyip and Donald are within their territory...
to the north and the Gunditjmara people to the east.
Anthroplogist Norman Tindale
Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist and entomologist. Born in Perth, his family moved to Tokyo from 1907 to 1915, where his father worked as an accountant at the Salvation Army mission in Japan. Soon after returning to Australia, Tindale got a job at the South...
argued in 1940 and again in 1974 that at the time of European settlement the Buandig were under territorial pressure from the Jardwadjali
Jardwadjali
The Jardwadjali people are Indigenous Australians who occupy the lands in the upper Wimmera River watershed east to Gariwerd and west to Lake Bringalbert. The towns of Horsham, Cavendish, Coleraine, Asply, Minyip and Donald are within their territory...
people to the north forcing the Buandig territorial boundary south from Gariwerd towards present day Casterton
Casterton, Victoria
Casterton is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Glenelg Highway, 42 kilometres east of the South Australian border, in the Shire of Glenelg. The Glenelg River passes through the town...
. However Professor Ian D. Clark counter claims that the ethnohistoric and linguistic evidence doesn't support Tindale's claims regarding the boundaries between the Buandig and Jardwadjali.
Language
The Buandig spoke the Bungandidj languageBungandidj language
Bungandidj or Buandig is an extinct language of Australia, once spoken by the Buandig people, Indigenous Australians from the Mount Gambier region in present-day western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia....
and called their language Drualat-ngolonung (speech of man), or Booandik-ngolo (speech of the Booandik).
Society
The Buandig were divided into two marriage classes: Kumite and Kroke, with children being assigned their mother's class. Within the Kumite class there were five major animal totems (fishhawk, pelican, crow, black cockatoo and snake), and within the Kroke class there were four major animal totems (owl, teatree, edible root, and the white crestless cockatoo). Other animals, plants, and inanimate elements were assigned a class. These totemic items were treated as the friend of a person imposing restrictions on eating these totems, except under extreme circumstances when due sorrow and remorse was expressed.Pre History
The Buandig people are likely to have occupied this area for tens of thousands of years. Midden heaps on the foreshore of Lake Eliza in the Little Dip Conservation Park have been dated at around 10,000 years old.First Contact
First contact between the Buandig and Europeans occurred in the early 1820s. Panchy from the Buandig recounted to Christina Smith the story of the first sighting of ships at Rivoli Bay in either 1822 or 1823, and his mother's abduction for 3 months before she was able to escape when the ship put in to Guichen Bay.Conflict and dispossession
In November 1834 Edward HentyEdward Henty
See also Western District Edward Henty ,was a pioneer and first permanent settler in the Port Phillip district , Australia....
settled near Portland
Portland, Victoria
The city of Portland is the oldest European settlement in what is now the state of Victoria, Australia. It is the main urban centre of the Shire of Glenelg. It is located on Portland Bay.-History:...
, starting the movement of European settlers and their sheep, cattle, horses and bullocks across the Western plains of Victoria and the south east region of South Australia. Settlement occurred rapidly over the following two decades with significant frontier conflict taking place involving theft of sheep, spearings, massacres and poisoning of the natives.
According to Pendowen, Neenimin and Barakbouranu narrated to Christina Smith:
- We tasted the mutton, and found it very good ; but we buried the damper, as we were afraid of being poisoned.
In 1843 Henry Arthur
Henry Arthur
Henry Arthur was nephew to the fourth Lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen's Land, George Arthur. He was an original investor in the Port Phillip Association and was the first European to settle in the area now known as Arthurs Creek, Victoria....
joined his brother Charles in establishing a sheep run at Mount Schank
Mount Schank
Mount Schank is an inactive maar volcano in the south-east of South Australia, near Mount Gambier. It was named by James Grant in 1800 after Admiral John Schank, designer of Grant's ship, the HMS Lady Nelson....
. Trouble with Buandig people and dingoes, however, drove the Arthur brothers to sell up in 1844. The Hentys also had problems with their Mount Gambier sheep runs with theft of their sheep and shepherds speared to death in 1844. Such heavy loses occurred that the Henty's were forced to withdraw all their flocks from the Mount Gambier run, according to a report in the Portland Mercury on 24 April 1844. The Leake brothers on their Glencoe Station also reported problems losing 1000 sheep from their 16000 flock during 1845. Hostilities are reported to have continued around the Glenelg River
Glenelg River
Glenelg River may refer to:*Glenelg River , which briefly crosses the border to South Australia.*Glenelg River...
region for the next two years.
Mistreatment of aborigines was at a level in 1845 where the commissioner of police drew attention to the atrocious treatment in the Rivoli Bay District:
- ... damper poisoned with corrosive sublimate … [and] driving the Natives from the only watering places in the neighbourhood. The Native women appear likewise to have been sought after by the shepherds, whilst the men were driven from the stations with threats.
In 1849 the Avenue Range Station Massacre occurred in the (Mount Gambier region of South Australia. At least 9 indigenous Buandig Wattatonga clan people were allegedly murdered by the station owner James Brown who was subsequently charged with the crime. The case was dropped by the Crown for lack of European witnesses as blacks were unable to testify under oath. Christina Smith's source from the Wattatonga tribe refers to 11 people killed in this incident by two white men. The cause of the massacre was the theft of sheep for food.
A report by Mr Smith to Dr Moorhouse
Matthew Moorhouse
Matthew Moorhouse pioneer in Australia, Protector of Aborigines, pastoralist and politician in South Australia.Moorhouse studied medicine and obtained the degree of M.R.C.S. in 1836. He practiced medicine in Hanley, Staffordshire when the Crown appointed him protector of aborigines. He arrived in...
, the Protector of Aborigines
Protector of Aborigines
The role of Protectors of Aborigines resulted from a recommendation of the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines . On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report.The report recommended that Protectors of...
, in April 1851 reveals that "the natives belonging to the Rivoli Bay Tribe (Buandig) are all quiet, and most of them usefully employed in one way or another by the settlers." The report also raises with concern that "infanticide has been and is still practiced amoung the natives here.", and "relations existing between native woman and the Europeans are very discreditable."
Even by 1854 settlers felt threatened by the Buandig people. The Leake Brothers of Glencoe Station erected 'Frontier House' in 1854 - a 'large homestead with slits in the walls through which rifles could be used against any likely intruder' according to local historian Les Hill.
Gradually a certain accommodation was made with Buandig people working as station hands, shearers and domestic servants while remaining on their own land.
According to Bell and Marsden, aboriginal people made encampments of wurleys on the edge of Kingston and even moved into cottages at Rosetown on Kingston's northern side in 1877. The people often moved camp seasonally gathering and using traditional foods and using the traditional local burial ground. They record that the Blackford Reserve on the Bordertown Road was another locality where aboriginal people lived until the 1970s. Kingston and Bordertown were the territorial border shared between the Buandig and the Ngarrindjeri
Ngarrindjeri
The Ngarrindjeri are a nation of eighteen "tribes" consisting of numerous family clans who speak similar dialects of the Ngarrindjeri language and are the traditional Aboriginal people of the lower Murray River, western Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of southern, central...
.
In the Penola to Coonawarra area it was reported that the Buandig had lived in the region for tens of thousands of years but that the last local aborigines died in 1902.
There are many people in the region who identify as Buandig people today. Descendants of the Buandig and the Meintangk clan of the Ngarrindjeri
Ngarrindjeri
The Ngarrindjeri are a nation of eighteen "tribes" consisting of numerous family clans who speak similar dialects of the Ngarrindjeri language and are the traditional Aboriginal people of the lower Murray River, western Fleurieu Peninsula, and the Coorong of southern, central...
continue to nurture and protect their culture through the Kungari Aboriginal Cultural Association based in Kingston SE.
See also
- Bungandidj languageBungandidj languageBungandidj or Buandig is an extinct language of Australia, once spoken by the Buandig people, Indigenous Australians from the Mount Gambier region in present-day western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia....
- Christina SmithChristina Smith (teacher and missionary)Christina Smith was a teacher and Christian missionary who documented the lives, customs, legends, and language of the Buandig Indigenous Australians from the Mount Gambier region in western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia....
- teacher and lay missionary to the Buandig people