Jardwadjali

The Jardwadjali (also known as Jadawadjali) people are Indigenous Australians who occupy the lands in the upper Wimmera River watershed east to Gariwerd (Grampians) and west to Lake Bringalbert. The towns of Horsham, Cavendish, Coleraine, Apsley, Minyip and Donald are within their territory. There were 37 Jardwadjali clans who formed an alliance with the neighboring Djab wurrung people through intermarriage, shared culture, trade and moiety system. The Jardwadjali society is matrilineal.

Language

The Jardwadjali language shares 90 percent common vocabulary with Djab wurrung. Sub-dialects include Jagwadjali, Mardidjali, and Nundadjali.

History

The Jardwadjali people have lived in the area for up to 30,000 to 40,000 years, certainly with evidence of occupation in Gariwerd many thousands of years before the last ice-age. One site in the Victoria Range (Billawin Range) has been dated from 22,000 years ago.

It is likely that first contact with Europeans was through smallpox epidemics which arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 and rapidly spread through the trading networks of indigenous Australians and killed many people in two waves before the 1830s. One Wotjobaluk account called the disease thinba micka and that it killed large numbers of people, and disfigured many more with pock-marked faces, and came down the Murray River sent by malevolent sorcerers to the north.