Mid-North Coast: Aboriginal tribes with localities, 1938
ITEM 05
'Aboriginal words and names chiefly from the Upper Clarence River Dialect, collected by Thomas George Hewitt of Grafton and Lismore', ca. 1909 and transcribed with additional notes by Robert L. Dawson, 6 June 1938
Full catalogue record available online at: http://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110368294.
‘Billy was … one of the very few surviving natives who saw the first Europeans arrive and settle on the Clarence … The late Mr Hewitt has left on record much that Billy imparted to him … Billy lived to see Grafton a city of 8000 inhabitants arise from a wilderness, and to see their hunting grounds transformed into farms and the wide expanse of grass land where roamed the emu and the kangaroo, into paddocks to feed cattle and horses … With all his friends gone he had little to make him care for life, and he now has passed away at a good old age. “Kooahmatte! Koorahm Nyah-gan!” — “Northern Star”’, from obituary in Richmond River Express and Casino Kyogle Advertiser, 27 August 1915
