Yorta-Yortan

The Yorta Yorta are an Aboriginal people of the riverine country where the Goulburn River joins the Murray, spanning north-eastern Victoria and the opposite bank in New South Wales, including the wetlands around Barmah. Like several Murray basin peoples, their name is a reduplication of their word for no. Their dialect continuum and Yabula Yabula form the Yotayotic branch of Pama-Nyungan, possibly an isolate within the family.

The river provided fish, waterfowl and routes for bark canoes, and the people lived in a network of related clans sharing the one speech. European overlanders first crossed their country in the 1830s, and pastoral runs were taken up along the rivers soon afterwards.