Jakelbalak

Jakelbalak country lay between Pine Plains and Lake Albacutya in the Wimmera region of northwestern Victoria. The Jakelbalak were one of the local divisions of the Wotjobaluk, closely associated with the Wergaia-speaking world. Their neighbours included the Kromelak at Lake Albacutya and other communities along the Wimmera River, Outlet Creek and Lake Hindmarsh. Kinship and customary ties connected these named territories across the inland plains.

The lakes gave this country a distinctive rhythm. Albacutya filled intermittently from the Wimmera system and could retain water for years, attracting waterbirds and supporting fishing and gathering. Camps, hearths and shell middens around its shores preserve traces of this long use. Hunters and gatherers drew on knowledge of the changing availability of plants and animals, moving between lake margins and the surrounding woodland and plains. Thomas Mitchell's passage through the wider Wimmera in 1836 brought colonial exploration to the region near the end of this period. The Jakelbalak homeland already formed part of an inhabited inland network, its relationships centred on freshwater places rather than the distant southern islands.