22/12/2021
SOME NOTES ON THE JAITMATHANG TRIBE - BOUNDARIES
P.D. Gardner
“The Jaitmathang tribe, also known as the Kandangoramittung and the Omeo tribe, occupies a region in the Australian Alps (now in the state of Victoria) for many hundreds of years. As far as I am aware no studies have been made to determine accurately the age of occupation of this region, but Josephine Flood’s studies of high country shelters in the A.C.T. give estimates of about 3000 years compared with the lower altitude, but much nearer, sites at Buchan and New Guinea cave on the Snowy River with estimates of about 18000 years. Future discoveries will probably push Flood’s estimates back, and thus also the period of Aboriginal occupation and exploitation of the high country. This question of occupation of the alpine/sub-alpine region is further complicated by major climatic changes within the time scale considered.
According to the boundaries outlined by Tindale, the Jaitmathang tribe, along with the neighbouring Minjambuta, (Mt. Buffalo) almost soley occupied alpine / sub-alpine country. The Omeo tribe have been most commonly thought of as representing the mountain Aboriginies of Victoria. It should be noted that although the Jaitmathang and Minjambuta can basically be considered mountain tribes there were a further eight tribes who claimed mountain territory and had access to both high plains and peaks.
The Jaitmathang country included the high country of Cobungra, Mt. Hotham and the Bogong High Plains to Mt. Stawell and Tongio on the Tambo river in the south, across to Mt. Tambo and Limestone Creek in the east of Tom Groggin on the Indi in the north-east and included the present day towns of Tawanga and Mitta Mitta on its northern extremities. The Jaitmathang country adjoined the Duduroa and Djilamatang tribes to the north, the Ngarigo to the east, the Brabiralung to the south and Minjambuta to the west.
The notion of fixed and rigid geographic boundaries appears to be a European conception that is probably not so easily applied to the pre-European era. In eastern Victoria it seems that the boundaries often overlapped, and there is also one possible instance of the opposite - a ‘no-mans land’ which was basically unoccupied and unclaimed. The boundaries between allied and related tribes (language and cultural links as well as agreed common ancestry) appear to have been more clearly defined and approximate the European idea. However the political boudaries between allies and relations often did not apply to the movements of small groups and individuals. This rather fluid definition of a boundary was often of little relevence when laws granted special access and rights to neighbouring tribes. This seems to be especially so with regards food laws. Howitt gives a good example of this in Gippsland when he described how the Brabiralung tribal members (whose claimed territory went from Mt. Hotham to the Gippsland Lakes) as having sole rights to the swan’s eggs on Raymond Island, even though the island itself was part of the Tatungalung tribe’s territory. The salient point being that the two tribes were closely related - culturally, ancestrally and linguistically. Such types of food laws that trangressed political boundaries probably originated out of a climate of abundance. Almost certainly similar rights of access after particular foods existed within the Jaitmathang territory although as far as I am aware none has been recorded. Almost certainly the Duduroa and possibly other Upper Murray tribes had access to Bogong moths in specific parts of Jaitmathang territory as well as probably harvesting the moths co-operatively with them."
