wilgie

English

Alternative forms

• wilgee, wilgi

Etymology

Borrowed from Nyunga wilgi.

Noun

wilgie (uncountable)

1. (Australia, chiefly Western Australia) A red ochre traditionally used as a pigment by the Aboriginal Nyunga people.
   • 1859, Kinahan Cornwallis, A Panorama of the New World, volume 1, page 183:

     […] round these fires were squatted the dark forms of men and women, unclad, save with the loose folds of an opossum rug, and unadorned save with a fish or other bone thrust through the cartilage of the nose, or the pendulums of the ears, and with wilgie and with paint.

   • 1902, May Vivienne, Travels in Western Australia […], page 56:

     A picture of one mourning for her brother shows her hair all screwed up in little knobs with wilgie clay and fat.

   • 1935 June, Ethel Hassell, D. S. Davidson, “Myths and Folk-Tales of the Wheelman Tribe of South-Western Australia—III”, in Folklore, volume 46, number 2, →JSTOR, page 130:

     While she was working Coomal came along with wilgie on his face and embraced her.