Dhudhuroa people
Indigenous Australian people from North-east Victoria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Dhudhuroa people (or Duduroa) are an Indigenous Australian people of North-eastern Victoria, in the state of Victoria, Australia. About 2,000 descendants exist in Australia in the early 21st century.
Name
Language
Dhudhuroa has been classified as belonging to the Gippsland branch of the Pama-Nyungan language family.[3] Robert M. W. Dixon classifies it, with Pallanganmiddang, as one of the two languages comprising an Upper Murray Group.[4] Lexicostatistical analysis however shows that it is something of a language isolate within neighbouring languages, with which it shares no more than 11–16% of common vocabulary.[3] It has various dialects, one being Ba Barwidgee.[2]
The language is currently undergoing a revival, and is being taught at Bright Secondary College, Harrietville Primary School,Wooragee Primary School and Dederang Primary School.[5]
Country
The Dhudhuroa language is a language of north-eastern Victoria, existing from before European settlement.[6] According to Norman Tindale, the people inhabit a stretch of territory that encompasses around 4,700 square kilometres (1,800 mi2), embracing the areas defined by the Mitta Mitta and Kiewa rivers. It includes Tallangatta and the Murray River Valley land from Jingellic and Tintaldra to Albury.[7] Tindale's reconstruction of the scanty source evidence to arrive at this conclusion has been judged "poor" due to its over-reliance on a single source, that of A. W. Howitt, by R.M. Dixon.[8]
As of 2015[update] it is estimated that there are about 2000 descendants of Dhudhuroa, and there is a Dhudhuroa Native Title Group.[5]
Social organization
The early Australian ethnographer Alfred Howitt categorized the Dhudhuroa as a horde of the Jaitmathang,[7] an opinion shared by Aldo Massola in 1962.[9] Linguistically however the vocabulary they used differed from that noted down from tribal informants of various hordes of the Jaitmattang.[10]
Alternative names
Tindale
- Tharamirttong, Tharamittong
- Tharomattay
- Jeenong-metong (strong-footed ones)
- Dyinning-middhang
- Ginning-matong
- Dhooroomba(?)
- Theddora mittung (hordal term)[11]
AIATSIS
- Djiningmiddang tribe
- Yaithmathang
- Jaitmatang
- Duduroa
- Djilamatang
- Kandangora
- Omeo tribe
- Theddora
- Yaitmathang
- Dhudhruwa
- Dhuduroa
- Do
- dor
- dee
- Dodora
- Dodoro
- Toutourrite
- Theddora mittung
- Duduruwa
- Tharamirttong
- Tharamittong
- Tharo mattay
- Jeenong metong
- Dyinning middhang
- Ginning matong[12]
Some words
- ngiyambanba (fire)
- geberri (bad)
- gundja (good)
- yambo (fish)
- bandjina (child)
- mema (father)
- baba (mother)
- wingga (dog)
- dalga (mountain)
- gumbarro (gum tree)[10]