Hi all

I transcribed the piece below from The Moretom Bay Courier of Sat. 28th July 1855.

Image HERE

The phonetric rendering of the Aboriginal phrse may hold a clue to the Aboriginal language that may be the source of the word jimbuck/jumbuck/jumpbuck

ABORIGINAL POESY. COMMUNICATED TO THE "GEELONG ADVERTISER."

Many people who suppose that the music of the Corobra is appended to, senseless rhapsodies, will be startled to hear that many of the songs, are satire, full of pith, directed by the swarthy improvisatore at the passing events of the day; and others are pure incantations, and war songs full of fearful meaning. The well-known madrigal which begins with; "Boudjerie jumbuck patta gra pat ter gra,'' 'May be literally translated-

"Pretty little lampkin, nibble up the grass, nibble up the grass,
And unconscious remain of the fast approaching pain,
When to cruel butcher's knife thou deliver'st up thy life,
And leave thy little playmates careering on the plain."
Tho' thou hast done no ill,
The white man will thee kill;
He has seized the Kootites' lands,
And thy blood will stain his hands,
And thy lubra young and coy!
He'll yard her and he'll guard her,
And from the wild dog ward her;
Yet he guards but to destroy."

One of their poetical shafts is directed at the Church, and is piquant and pointed-
"Big, big master's gunya is gloomy and bare!
No damper, nor tea, nor mutton is there;
But old man book, where yabberan cry;
Big master send plenty of tea bye and bye,
For him we might fast till corobra day,
As on earth 'tis his rule to give nothing away."

The following is somewhat Ossianic:-
"The sun slept in his trees, pure as the waters of Murrumbridgee;
But he is jump up on the morrow covered with blood.,
It was the red blood of the Roronga,
And the Great Spirit grumbled wild
Because it was not avenged,
And sent storms and big rain to wash it away!"

The following, with which we conclude for the present, is sarcastic enough:-
'The whiteman, like a bullock, toils for food,
(ln chase the black man finds food and sport together),
Takes rum that makes him mad to do him good;
(The stream supplies the black - he needs no other).
To crown his folly builds a dungeon cold,
And is himself the first its walls enfold;
For days, or weeks or years he withers there,
While the poor black roams free as mountain air."

gunya = house.
old man book = An old book only
yabberan = clergyman.
corobra day = Last day.

Fergus