Djerait

The Djerait were an indigenous Australian people of the Northern Territory

Language

The Djerait language was said to have been mutually intelligible with that of the Mulluk-Mulluk who spoke a Daly river language, being as distant as ancient Greek dialects were to each other. And it was also said to be interchangeable with that spoken by the Pongaponga.^[1]

Country

According to Norman Tindale, the Djerait occupied some 500 square miles (1,300 km²) of tribal land on the north shores of Anson Bay, extending north to Point Blaze.^[2] Neighbouring tribes were the Mulluk-Mulluk, the Madngella the Pongaponga and the Wogait.^[1]

People

The Jesuit missionary Donald Mackillop stated that the Djerait were a "small but intelligent tribe".^[1]

Some words

• yinnung delluk (bamboo nose stick)^[3]
• wennu (conical helmet smeared with pipe clay and topped with a bone to which an emu plume is affixed)^[4]
• barang (dangerous night spirit, noseless and with blanks for facial eyes, with two organs on the back for seeing at great distances)^[5]

Alternative names

• Tjerait
• Cherait, Cherite^[1]
• Sherait^[6]
• Jeerite
• Scherits
• Tjiras^[7]
• Paperbark natives^[6]