I took a walk amongst them [the First Nations of the Adelaide Plains] who were in their wurlies, saw a collection of naked boys and girls, men and women, either entirely or half so. They are quite innocent in this respect and the women think nothing of (stalking) bolt upright in perfect nudity.

They were good wurleys at the beginning of the winter, but towards the latter end of the winter they got turned out of them by the fleas—which they frequently do. They have been turned out of the last wurley some time in August; and I gave them a lot of reeds and tried to persuade them to build some more wurleys. They said they did not require them as they were going to corroboree, and they did not like building new wurleys—they must have a make-shift wurley.

Poor [William John] Wills's remains we found lying in the wurly in which he died, and where [John] King, after his return from seeking the natives, had buried him with sand and rushes.

A woman is supposed to signify her consent to the marriage by carrying fire to her husband's wurley [footnote: This word wurley is from the language of the Adelaide tribe. The Narrinyeri word is mante. I have used "wurley" because it is more generally understood by the colonists.] and making his fire for him. An unwilling wife will say, when she wishes to signify that she was forced into marriage with her husband, "I never made any fire in his wurley for him." In case of a man having two wives, the elder is always regarded as the mistress of the hut or wurley.

And so those boys with stealthy pace / Returned the saddles to their place; / Then to their wurly quickly hied, / No doubt delighted with their ride.

After hunting through the forest into the afternoon I came to the wurley that had inside it a coolamon and a possum-skin cape, a club, a hatchet with a metal head, and a knife with a horn handle.

Before night fell, they made themselves a shelter like a wurly by collecting large Wollemi pine fronds from the forest floor, leaning them against each other to make a peaked hut and joining them together with vines. It would offer some protection while they slept.

But latterly they came in good numbers, and commenced a nightly system of annoyance by dancing their corroberies:[…]. Finding remonstrance of no avail, one evening, when they were all seated quietly at the wurlie [footnote: Encampment.], I fired a charge of small shot into the midst of them, and retired to the hut: in the morning they had all disappeared.

Wurley

Meaning

Noun

Synonyms