Topics: Culture

Mathews finally settles on the spelling “Darkinung” for publication. Mathews writes that all the cultural information he obtains is: “by personal inquiries among the few old natives who still speak their own dialect

Of Darkinung country, Darkinung people, and Darkinung culture Mathews writes: “One of the principal dialects was the Darkinung, which was spoken by the natives occupying the country on the southern side of the Hunter River, from Jerry’s Plains downward toward Maitland, extending southerly to Wollombi Brook, Putty Creek, and including the Macdonald, Colo, and Hawkesbury Rivers

Both are fully initiated men and have known kinship and personal totem names: Charlie is Ippai, grey kangaroo; Joe is Kubbi, bandicoot

They knew it as ‘Kihimatta’, which in their local dialect meant a “sign of sleeping places”.

Burbung of the Darkinung tribes

Gooburra is the last known “full blood” from the Hawkesbury-Hunter ranges to undergo traditional male initiation

The paintings in the cave consist of 40 two-hand stencils and one boomerang

The Manly News , 10 March 1899 reports “Twenty years ago, [Alderman] Adam Russell [who had a contracting business] says he unearthed the skeletons of Aboriginals on the flat near Fairy Bower steps, and thinks it must have been a burying place for our dusky predecessors.”

Aboriginal people reported still living at Quakers Hat Bay near Beauty Point, Middle Harbour. (D Keed, 28 May 1984, Manuscript, Local History section, North Sydney Library) Another important area where the northern clans gathered is Narrabeen Lagoon.