The heartland of their country lay west of the Great Dividing Range, around the upper Dutton and Flinders rivers and stretched from near Mount Sturgeon southwards as far as Caledonia.
Our main informant for the earliest period is Robert Christison who took up an extensive tract of land for pastoral purposes between the Landsborough and Thomson rivers, reckoned their numbers at about 300.
[b] His daughter describes his first contact in the following terms: One day, with Gailbury, overtaking some blacks, he chose a fine-looking young fellow and rode after him, heading him back from the scrub that he was making for to the open plain.
Thereupon the black fellow sprang to the ground and threw his arms round the horse's neck, supplicating the terrified animal that snorted and backed, broke the reins, and galloped off.
He claims that there was also a rapid drop in their use of their native language as they adopted a variety of English, the result of mixing with the kanaka workforce which had been imported to help take on the main burden of working the station.
[15] With regard to the elderly, citing several cases of deep care he had had occasion to observe: a girl crippled from birth was seen, then aged 60, being born by groups of the tribe, taking turns, on a litter; another 'a fragile useless old woman,' was on the point of drowning, when she was saved by several men plunging into a swollen river, or a mother watching over her sick child for several days while abstaining from food and drink, and refusing any consolation when it died.