Jaitmatangi

The Jaitmatang, also spelled Yaithmathang and often called the Omeo people, are an Aboriginal people of the alpine country of north-eastern Victoria, holding the upper Mitta Mitta River and the plains around Omeo. Their tongue, Yaithmathang, is treated by linguists as a dialect of Ngarigo within the Pama-Nyungan family, close to the languages of the neighbouring Ngarigo and Wolgal, and distinct from the Dhudhuroa spoken immediately to their north. Early ethnographers counted groups such as the Djilamatang among their hordes.

Europeans first penetrated their highland lands in 1828, after which pastoral runs and then gold diggings overran the country and the Jaitmatang were nearly swept away within a generation.