Ballaroke
   Tdondarup
   Ngotak
   Nagarnook
   Nogonyuk
   Mongalung
   Narrangur.

“But in different districts the members of these families give a local name to the one to which they belong, which is understood in that district, to indicate some particular branch of the principal family.  The most common local names are,

   Didaroke
   Gwerrinjoke
   Maleoke
   Waddaroke
   Djekoke
   Kotejumeno
   Namyungo
   Yungaree.

“These family names are common over a great portion of the continent; for instance, on the Western coast, in a tract of country extending between four and five hundred miles in latitude, members of all these families are found.  In South Australia, I met a man who said that he belonged to one of them, and Captain Flinders mentions Yungaree, as the name of a native in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

“These family names are perpetuated, and spread through the country, by the operation of two remarkable laws:—­

“1st.  That children of either sex, always take the family name of their mother.

“2nd.  That a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name.”

From this it appears that the natives of that part of the country have in addition to their other ordinary names a family or surname, which is perpetuated through successive generations on the mother’s side.  This is not the case as far as my observations and inquiries have enabled me to ascertain among the numerous tribes frequenting the Murray river, and Mr. Moorhouse assures me that he has been equally unable to detect any coincidence of the kind among the tribes frequenting the district of Adelaide.

The division, numbers, and names of the various tribes are also subjects of difficulty and uncertainty.  As far as my researches have yet extended upon this point, it appears to me, first, that groups of natives have a distinctive or a local appellation, derived from the particular place they belong to, as Barmerara maru, the natives frequenting the lake called Barmera:  Moolyoolpero maru, the natives frequenting the lagoon called Moolyoolko, and so on.  Secondly, a general or tribal name, as Narwijjerook, a native of the tribe so called, which includes the natives of Barmera and various others in that neighbourhood.  Karn-brickolenbola, a native of the tribe so called, and which includes various groups around Mooroonde.  Thirdly, it appears that wherever a change occurs in the name of the tribes to which contiguous groups of natives may belong, there is a corresponding change in the dialect or language spoken; thus the Narwij-jerook speak a dialect called Narwijjong, the Karn-brickolenbola tribe the Aiawong dialect, and so on.

In many of these dialects there appears to be little more difference than exists among the counties in England.  Such is the case up the course of the Murray from Lake Alexandrina to the Darling; and such Captain Grey found to be the case throughout a great part of Western Australia.  In others the dialects are so totally unlike one another, that natives, meeting upon opposite sides of a river, cannot speak to or understand a word of what each other say, except through the medium of a third language, namely that spoken by the natives of the river itself, and which is totally unlike either of the other two.