Bangerang

The Bangerang, also spelled Pangerang and Bangarang, are Indigenous Australians. They lived in what is now north-eastern Victoria, along the Murray River to Echuca, and into southern Riverina in New South Wales. They might not have been a separate tribe, as Norman Tindale thought, but part of many Yorta Yorta tribes.

Country

Norman Tindale said Bangerang lands covered about 6,700 square kilometres (2,600 sq mi). Their land was around the lower Goulburn River valley and stretched west to the Murray River. It included areas east and west of Shepparton, and also Wangaratta, Benalla, and Kyabram. Their land went south as far as Toolamba and Violet Town.

History of contact

Some Bangerang people were among about 26 Indigenous people killed by troopers at Moira Swamp/Lake Barmah on December 15, 1843.

Social structure

Norman Tindale said the Bangerang group, also called the Yorta Yorta, had eight groups or clans, but others may be included too. These groups are:

Moiraduban
Waningotbun (at Kotupna)
Maragan (maybe Maraban)
Owanguttha
Wongatpan (who liked fishing)
Towroonban (who hunted opossums)

We know more about the Wongatpan and Towroonban clans because they lived where the ethnographer Edward Micklethwaite Curr had his farm.

Other names

Panggarang, Pangorang, Pangurang, Pine-gorine, Pine-go-rine, Pinegerine, Pinegorong
Bangerang, Banjgaranj
Pallaganmiddah
Jabalajabala (from the word jabala meaning no), a name applied to western Pangerang hordes)
Yaballa, Yabula-yabula
Waningotbun
Maragan
Owanguttha
Yurt (exonym used by northerners and the Ngurelban, from jurta, meaning no)
Yoorta
Moiraduban
Moitheriban
Bangarang

References

↑ "There were eight well-defined hordes the names of which generally terminated in [-pan] or [-ban]. Curr and Mathews both show that Pangerang hordes extended a little way downriver from Echuca on both banks; these western hordes were called Jabalaljabala by downriver tribes. Three of Curr's Pangerang hordes are separated as the Kwatkwat. The hordes shown by Curr north of the Murray River belong to other tribes."
↑ Mentioned by Tindale as derived from John Fraser (1892). According to Peter Sutton this spelling came from R.H. Mathews.

Sources

Barwick, Diane E. (1984). McBryde, Isabel (ed.). "Mapping the past: an atlas of Victorian clans 1835–1904". Aboriginal History. 8 (2): 100–131. JSTOR 24045800.
Bowe, Heather; Morey, Stephen (1999). The Yorta Yorta (Bangerang) language of the Murray Goulburn: including Yabula Yabula. Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 978-0-858-83513-9.
Furphy, Samuel (2013). Edward M. Curr and the Tide of History. Australian National University. ISBN 978-1-922-14471-3.
"Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930". University of Newcastle.
Smyth, Robert Brough (1878). The Aborigines of Victoria: with notes relating to the habits of the natives of other parts of Australia and Tasmania (PDF). Vol. 1. Melbourne: J. Ferres, gov't printer – via Internet Archive.
Sutton, Peter (2004). Native Title in Australia: An Ethnographic Perspective. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-44949-6.
Threlkeld, L E; Fraser, John (1892). Fraser, John (ed.). An Australian language as spoken by the Awabakal, the people of Awaba, or lake Macquarie (near Newcastle, New South Wales) being an account of their language, traditions, and customs. Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer.
Tindale, Norman Barnett (1974). Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits, and Proper Names. Australian National University Press. ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.
West, Raymond (1962). Those Were the Days: A Story of Shepparton, Victoria, and to Some Extent, Its District. Waterwheel Press.

[4] "There were eight well-defined hordes the names of which generally terminated in [-pan] or [-ban]. Curr and Mathews both show that Pangerang hordes extended a little way downriver from Echuca on both banks; these western hordes were called Jabalaljabala by downriver tribes. Three of Curr's Pangerang hordes are separated as the Kwatkwat. The hordes shown by Curr north of the Murray River belong to other tribes."

[9] Mentioned by Tindale as derived from John Fraser (1892). According to Peter Sutton this spelling came from R.H. Mathews.

[FOOTNOTETindale1974131,_207-1] Tindale 1974, pp. 131, 207.

[FOOTNOTENewcastle-2] Newcastle.

[FOOTNOTETindale1974207-3] 1 2 Tindale 1974, p. 207.

[FOOTNOTEFurphy201337-5] Furphy 2013, p. 37.

[FOOTNOTETindale1974156-6] 1 2 Tindale 1974, p. 156.

[FOOTNOTEThrelkeldFraser1892-7] Threlkeld & Fraser 1892.

[FOOTNOTESutton200495-8] Sutton 2004, p. 95.