G'day celtaddict,

Well, there is no reason not to have a mixed group ... the name looks like a Koori word - and may have been an indicator of a group with a definite line or emphasis. They seem to be a local group in the Gippsland area, which has a Kurnai background ... and was an area of both profitable timbergetting and mining ... and then farming. I would imagine that most Koori survivors, in an area as developed and settled as this, would be of mixed ancestry.

John Warner's CD Pithead in the Fern is all set in this area and I'll try John for any further insights. John's music partner, Margaret, is a 'catter ... but relatively infrequent (ie ... not as fanatically addicted as some of us!) and she doesn't seem to have noticed this thread.

The spelling "warrigal' (a Dharuk - Sydney area Koori - word for our dingo, or native dog) is the standard ... but the spelling "warragul' was used by the Boola Boola group, on their recording - and I did think that might have been a local variant. Kurnai land is about 650 kilometres south of the Dharuk, but the east coast languages are a continuum of small changes up and down the coast. There would be Kurnai descendants still, despite massacres ... although they intermarried with Western Australian Nyungar women under the Mission's care ... and were "educated" out of as much of their own culture as possible!

Boola Boola is a site in the Gippsland area, but that's not an area with which I have any more than a passing tourist's knowledge. John may be more able to help on the geography. I notice that the Celtic Festival was in the Gippsland area ... and they may have adopted some of the Celtic material for its anti-English sentiment ... or their may be Celtic blood amongst them ... the Celts were always less 'racist' in British colonies than the upper-class English!

Regards,

Bob Bolton