Gunditjmara

The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal people of southwestern Victoria in Australia. They are the Traditional Owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. Their Country includes much of the Budj Bim heritage areas. The Kerrup Jmara are a clan of the Gunditjmara, whose traditional lands are around Lake Condah. The Koroitgundidj are another clan group, whose lands are around Tower Hill.
The Gunditjmara are famous for their extensive landscape engineering prowess shown in constructing kilometres of eel aquaculture channels, holding ponds, and fish traps in and around Budj Bim.
The Gunditjmara are famously known as the Fighting Gunditjmara because of their extensive resistance against British invasion of their Country during the Eumeralla Wars.

Name

Gunditjmara is formed from two morphemes: Gunditj, a suffix denoting belonging to a particular group or locality, and the noun mara, meaning "man".

Language

The Dhauwurd wurrung language is a term used for a group of languages spoken by various groups of the Gunditjmara people. Different linguists have identified different groupings of lects and languages, and the whole group is also sometimes referred to as the Gunditjmara language or the Warrnambool language. Some of the major languages or dialects often grouped under these names were:

Keerray Woorroong is regarded by the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages as a separate language; it is of the Girai wurrung people.
Gadubanud, also Yarro waetch, was spoken by a group known as the Gadubanud, of the Cape Otway area; Barry Blake regards this as a dialect of the Warrnambool language, but Krishna-Pillay does not.
Djargurd Wurrong was the language of the Djargurd Wurrong people.
Country

Gunditjmara territories extend over an estimated. The western boundaries are around Cape Bridgewater and Lake Condah. Northwards they reach Caramut and Hamilton. Their eastern boundaries lay around the Hopkins River. Their neighbours to the west are the Buandig people, to the north the Jardwadjali and Djab wurrung peoples, and in the east the Girai wurrung people. Early settlers remarked on the richness of the game to be found from the Eumerella Creek down to the coast.

Culture

The way of life of the Aboriginal people of Western Victoria differed from other Aboriginal Victorians in several respects. Because of the colder houses and they fought to protect badguys and criminals. se
they made, wore, and used as blankets, rugs of possum and kangaroo. Possum-skin cloaks, used by Gunditjmara and other peoples of the south-east, were made sewn with string, and worn for warmth, used to carry babies on their backs, as drums in ceremony and as a burial cloak. They are still made today as part of revitalisation of culture and as an instrument for healing.
They also built huts from wood and local basalt, with roofs made of turf and branches. Stone tools were used for cutting, and are held in collections across Victoria today. The women used digging sticks, also known as yam sticks, for digging yams, goannas, ants and other foods out of the ground, as well as for defence, for settling disputes and for punishment purposes as part of customary law.

Dreaming

The Gunditjmara believe that the landscape's features mark out the traces of a creator, Budj Bim, who emerged in the form of the volcano previously called Mount Eccles. In a spate of eruption, the lava flows, constituting his blood and teeth, spilled over the landscape, fashioning its wetlands. "High Head" still refers to the crater's brow, which can be accessed only by Gunditjmara men wearing special emu-feather footwear.
Opposite, beyond the coastline, the island they call Deen Maar/Dhinmar held special value for its burial associations. Rocks on the mainland shore facing the island contain a cave, known as Tarn wirrung, which is thought of as the mouth of a passage linking the mainland and the island.
In Gunditjmara funeral rites, bodies are enfolded in grass bundles and interred with their heads pointing to the island, with an apotropaic firebrand of native cherry wood. If grass was thereafter found outside the mouth of Tarn wirrung, it was regarded as evidence that the good spirit Puit puit chepetch had conveyed the corpse via the subterranean passage to the island, while guiding its spirit to the realm of the clouds. If the burial coincided with the appearance of a meteor, this was read as proof that the being in transit to the heavens had been furnished with fire. If grass was found at the cave when no one had been buried, then it was thought it showed someone had been murdered, and the cave could not be approached until the grass had been dispersed.

Social organisation

The Gunditjmara were divided into 59 clans, each with its headmen, a role passed on by hereditary transmission. They spoke distinct dialects, not all of them mutually intelligible, with the three main hordes located around Lake Condah, Port Fairy and Woolsthorpe respectively. The Gunditjmara groups are divided into two moieties, respectively the grugidj and the gabadj

boom
direk
gilger

However these terms refer to 4 of the 58 clans.
Descent was matrilineal.

Clans

The following is a list of the Gunditjmara clans, taken from that in Ian D. Clark's work.

No	Clan name	Approximate location
1	Art gundidj	Tarrone station, near Moyne Swamp
2	Ballumin gundidj	unknown
3	Bate gundidj	Junction of Stokes, Crawford and Glenelg Rivers
4	Biteboren gundidj	Grasmere station
5	Bokerer gundidj	Glenelg River
6	Bome gundidj	unknown
7	Bonedol gundidj	Ponedol Hills
8	Can can corro gundidj	south-southeast of Mount Rouse
9	Carnbul gundidj	southwest of Tahara station
10	Cart gundidj	Mount Clay
11	Cartcorang gundidj	Lake Cartcorang
12	Corry gundidj	unknown
13	Cupponenet gundidj	Mount Chaucer
14	Dandeyallum	Portland Bay
15	Direk gundidj	Condah Swamp
16	Gilgar gundidj	Darlots Creek
17	Kerup gundidj	Lake Condah
18	Kilcarer gundidj	Convincing Ground
19	Koroit gundidj	Tower Hill
20	Lay gundidj mallo	unknown
21	Mallun gundidj	Griffiths Island
22	Meen gundidj	unknown
23	Mendeet gundidj marayn	unknown
24	Moonwer gundidj	near Sisters Point, southwest of Killarney
25	Moperer gundidj	Spring Creek
26	Mordoneneet gundidj	southwest or west-southwest of Mount Rouse
27	Morro gundidj	south of Mount Rouse
28	Mum keelunk gundidj	Boodcarra Lake, west of Goose Lagoon
29	Mumdorrong gundidj	Marm reserve, south of Lake Wangoom
30	Narcurrer gundidj	southwest of Crawford River
31	Nartitbeer gundidj	Dunmore station
32	Net net yune gundidj	southeast of Crawford River
33	Nillan gundidj	south-southwest of Mount Napier
34	Omebegare rege gundidj	junction of Merri River and Spring Creek
35	Pallapnue gundidj Their clan head was Koort Kirrup,	Stokes River
36	Peerracer	unknown
37	Ponungdeet gundidj	junction of Glenelg and Stokes Rivers
38	Pyipgil gundidj	Port Fairy townsite
39	Tarrerwung gundidj	mouth of Glenelg River. Clan head Mingbum
40	Tarerer gundidj	Tarerer, a swamp between Tower Hill and Merri River
41	Tarngonene wurrer gundidj	Surrey River
42	Teerar gundidj	southeast of Spring Creek station
43	Tolite gundidj	unknown
44	Tone gundidj	near Hopkins River
45	Ure gundidj	Portland township
46	Wane gundidj	Grasmere station
47	Wanedeet gundidj	Tahara and Murndal stations
48	Warerangur gundidj	Aringa station
49	Waywac gundidj	southwest of Mount Rouse
50	Weereweerip gundidj	east of Eumeralla River
51	Woortenwan	unknown
52	Worcarre gundidj	northeast of the head of Stokes River
53	Worerome killink gundidj	Macarthur
54	Worn gundidj	west of Mount Warrnambool
55	Yallo gundidj	junction of Crawford and Glenelg Rivers
56	Yambeet gundidj	Yambuk station
57	Yarrer gundidj	between Campbell's Merri River station and Allandale station
58	Yiyar gundidj	Mount Eckersley.
59	Yowen gundidj	Moyne River