The Jitajita, otherwise spelt Yitayita, are an indigenous Australian people of southern New South Wales.
The Yitayita spoke one of the languages of the lower Murray river group that included Dadi Dadi and Kureinji,[1] as is distinctive for the large number of monosyllables in its vocabulary.[2]
The tribal name Jitajita is a reduplicative endonym formed from their word for 'no' (jita).[3] Numerous tribes in the area defined themselves in terms of the negative used. Early ethnographers marveled at the variety of words for 'no' among the Riverine tribes, as an index of the differences in their languages. Peter Beveridge remarked:
Each tribes possesses a gnalla wattow or postman, who can speak and understand the dialects of all the tribes within a radius of 150 miles. The persons of these officials are held sacred, even by tribes which are at feud with their own: they therefore negotiate all matters of barter and trade policy.[a]
The Jitajita lands covered some 4,800 square miles (12,000 km2), north of the Lachlan River from near Booligal - to vicinity of Balranald, west to Carrawathal. They appear to have been closely related to the Muthi Muthi.[3] Their northwestern boundaries reached the edge of the Parintji domain.[4]
Source: Tindale 1974
