Wemba-Wemba
The Wemba-Wemba are an
Language
Country
Before European settlement in the nineteenth century, the Wemba-Wemba occupied the area around the
Social structure
The Wembawemba were registered as consisting of five hordes. Stone lists these hordes, residing around Towaninny, Meelool Station (with a name indicating they were thought to be quarrelsome), Lake Boga, Gonn on the Murray River (called the Dietjenbaluk ("always on the move"), and Bael Bael.[1]
Contact history
The explorer Thomas Mitchell was the first white man to cross Wembawemba territory, in 1836.[4]
Attempt to evangelize the Wembawemba
The Wembas-Wemba's religio-cultural worldview was centered on a
Two German Moravian missionaries, Reverend A.F.C. Täger and Reverend F.W. Spieseke, convinced that the Wembawemba, whom they called culli, were "the most wretched and bleakest (people), who live on God's earth",[6] established Lake Boga mission in 1851. The mission closed in 1856 due to lack of converts, disputes with local authorities and hostilities from local landholders.[7] The Moravian Church established a subsequent mission site in Wergaia territory near Lake Hindmarsh in 1856 (see Ebenezer Mission).[8]
Notes
- ^ Jensz notes the paradox that, conversely, at the Ebenezer Mission, pastors resorted to German to stop their converts, fluent in English, from understanding them when they were discussing certain issues. (Jensz 2010, p. 82)
Citations
- ^ a b c d Tindale 1974.
- ^ McBryde 1986, p. 83.
- ^ Jensz 2010, pp. 80–81.
- ^ Jensz 2010, pp. 73–74.
- ^ Clarke 2003, p. 382.
- ^ Jensz 2010, p. 74.
- ^ Jensz 2010, pp. 71–112.
- ^ Clark 1995.
Sources
- Barwick, Diane E. (1984). McBryde, Isabel (ed.). "Mapping the past: an atlas of Victorian clans 1835-1904". JSTOR 24045800.
- ISBN 0-85575-281-5.
- ISBN 978-1-921-66609-4.
- Clarke, P.A. (2003). "Australian Aboriginal Mythology". In Parker, Janet; Stanton, Julie (eds.). Mythology. Myths, Legends, & Fantasies. Global Book Publishing. pp. 382–401. ISBN 978-0-785-81790-1.
- Clarke, Philip A. (2008). Aboriginal Plant Collectors: Botanists and Australian Aboriginal People in the Nineteenth Century. Rosenberg Publishers. ISBN 978-1-877-05868-4.
- Jensz, Felicity (2010). ""Ein Fauler Fleck": Lake Boga, A Putrid Stain". German Moravian Missionaries in the British Colony of Victoria, Australia, 1848-1908: Influential Strangers. ISBN 978-9-004-17921-9.
- McBryde, Isabel (1986). "Artefacts, Language and Social Interaction: A Case Study from South –Eastern Australia". In Bailey, G. N.; Callow, P. (eds.). Stone Age Prehistory: Studies in Memory of Charles McBurney. ISBN 978-0-521-25773-2.
- ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.