(2) <i>adj</i>. and <i>n</i>. wild, wild natives, used especially in Queensland. The explanation given by Lumholtz (1890) is not generally accepted. The word <i>mail</i>, or <i>myall</i>, is the aboriginal term for "men," on the Bogan, Dumaresque, and Macintyre Rivers in New South Wales. It is the local equivalent of the more common form <i>murrai</i>.
1830. R. Dawson, `Present State of Australia,' p. 41:
"On my arrival I learnt from the natives that one party was still at work a considerable distance up the country, at the source of one of the rivers, called by the natives `Myall,' meaning, in their language, Stranger, or a place which they seldom or never frequent."
1839. T. L. Mitchell, `Three Expeditions,' vol. i. p. 192:
"This tribe gloried in the name of `Myall,' which the natives nearer to the colony apply in terror and abhorrence to the `wild blackfellows,' to whom they usually attribute the most savage propensities."
1844. `Port Phillip Patriot,' Aug. i, p. 4, col. 4:
"Even the wildest of the Myall black fellows—as cannibals usually are—learned to appreciate him."
1847. J. D. Lang, `Cooksland,' p. 447:
"Words quite as unintelligible to the natives as the corresponding words in the vernacular language of the white men would have been, were learned by the natives, and are now commonly used by them in conversing with Europeans, as English words. Thus <i>corrobbory</i>, the Sydney word for a general assembly of natives, is now commonly used in that sense at Moreton Bay; but the original word there is <i>yanerwille</i>. <i>Cabon</i>, great; <i>narang</i> little; <i>boodgeree</i>, good; <i>myall</i>, wild native, etc. etc., are all words of this description, supposed by the natives to be English words, and by the Europeans to be aboriginal words of the language of that district."
1881. A. C. Grant, `Bush Life in Queensland,' vol. ii. p. 171: