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Djerait

The Djerait were an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory

Language

The Djerait language was said to have been mutually intelligible with that of the Mulluk-Mulluk who spoke a Daly river language, being as distant as ancient Greek dialects were to each other. And it was also said to be interchangeable with that spoken by the Pongaponga.[1]

Country

According to Norman Tindale, the Djerait occupied some 500 square miles (1,300 km2) of tribal land on the north shores of Anson Bay, extending north to Point Blaze.[2] Neighbouring tribes were the Mulluk-Mulluk, the Madngella the Pongaponga and the Wogait.[1]

People

The Jesuit missionary Donald Mackillop stated that the Djerait were a "small but intelligent tribe".[1]

Some words

  • yinnung delluk (bamboo nose stick)[3]
  • wennu. (conical helmet smeared with pipe clay and topped with a bone to which an emu plume is affixed)[4]
  • barang (dangerous night spirit, noseless and with blanks for facial eyes, with two organs on the back for seeing at great distances.'[5]

Alternative names

  • Tjerait
  • Cherait, Cherite[1]
  • Sherait[6]
  • Jeerite
  • Scherits
  • Tjiras[7]
  • Paperbark natives[6]

Notes

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d Mackillop 1893, p. 254.
  2. ^ Tindale 1974, p. 223.
  3. ^ Basedow 1907, p. 9.
  4. ^ Basedow 1907, p. 16.
  5. ^ Basedow 1907, p. 18.
  6. ^ a b Basedow 1907, p. 2.
  7. ^ Tindale 1974, p. 224.

Sources

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