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Sat 19 Oct 1946 - Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949)
Page 2 - Aboriginal Names
Aboriginal Names
Writing to the Editor, Mr. H.
Hatton, of Byangum, states: I do
not agree with the interpretations
quoted by Mr. J. I. Young, of the
native, meaning of the name, Mur-
willumbah. When I was a boy,
my only playmates were Woolum-
bin Harry and Peter and Biddy
Scott, abo. youngsters, of my own
age. We used to teach each other
our respective languages, and as
a result I learned something I
still remember.
There was much amusement
about the way we pronounced each
other's words. Murwillumbah
should be Moorwooloobah.
The name of any place ending
with "bar" meant a place facing
the east, or, as the blackfellows
put it, "where sun come up."
Check up on any place ending
with "bar" and you will find this
was right. There may be odd
cases in which it does not, but I
do not know of any: and if there
are the names may have been
changed by white people in the
old days.
What is called Chinderah now
was called Cudgen, which means
"big water." The other side of the
river was Chinderah. The black
name of what is now Cudgen was
Cudgerabar, which was taken from
the view of the big water, the
Pacific Ocean.
Wooloom meant a hill or high
place, and the native name for
Mount Warning was Wooloombin,
the highest place.
Moora meant something big or
rather something bigger than any
thing else of that kind. A black-
fellow named Pointar had a large
dog. I asked why he was called
that name and was told he 'cob-
bon big nuggum,' meaning because
he was a very large dog.
You will note that when the
town was given this name it was
not the Murwillumbah of today,
but rather the Government re-
serve, which would be Ewing
Street on the east and the Main
Street of today and Queensland
Road on the west; so I would say
that "Big Hill facing east" was
really the name as the aboriginal
pronounced it.
I do not wish it to be supposed
that I cast any reflection or doubt
on what Mr. Young said about
the meaning of the name, or his
sources of the information.
If a blackfellow were asked
what was the meaning of a name
he would be quite as likely to say
"A good place to camp" or "like
a blackfellow's nose," or any other
of the answers that have been
put forward, or anything else
that came to his mind at the
time.
The black did not like being
asked questions of that kind and
regarded anyone who asked them
as a stickbeak and mischief-maker.
There are few who had the op-
portunity of knowing the black-
fellow as well as I. Many think
of them as people of low in-
tellect and do not give them the
credit they deserve; but we who
consider ourselves a superior race
might have learned much from them.
The black at home or
or abroad could tell a good story,
whether fact or fiction, but never
a suspicion of gossip entered into
their conversation or ways, and
for that reason, when asked what
this or that meant, they would
look on it with suspicion and won-
der why the white man asked
about things which, in their opin-
ion, were no business of his. Gen-
erally they gave an answer of
some sort and often there would
be a bit of quiet sarcasm in the
answer, especially to a stranger.
Article identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193122989
Page identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page21628880
APA citation
Aboriginal Names (1946, October 19). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949), p. 2. Retrieved March 14, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193122989
MLA citation
"Aboriginal Names" Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949) 19 October 1946: 2. Web. 14 Mar 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193122989>.
Harvard/Australian citation
1946 'Aboriginal Names', Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949), 19 October, p. 2. , viewed 14 Mar 2025, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193122989
Wikipedia citation
{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193122989 |title=Aboriginal Names |newspaper=[[Tweed Daily]] |volume=XXXIII, |issue=245 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=19 October 1946 |accessdate=14 March 2025 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}

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