Austr. Also 9 worley, worlie. [Native word ‘from the language of the Adelaide tribe’ (G. Taplin, Native Tribes S. Australia, 12).] An aboriginal’s hut. Also attrib.
1847. G. F. Angas, Savage Life, I. 105. Two men … approached one of the wurlies.
1848. G. B. Wilkinson, S. Australia, 323. The men break down branches of trees and strip bark to make themselves a worley or shelter.
1887. Mrs. Daly, Digging, etc., S. Australia, iv. 31. During a gold mining rush, the body of an unfortunate Chinaman was found half-roasted on a wurley fire. Cannibalism does not openly figure amongst aboriginal misdeeds, but in the northern part of Queensland it is no uncommon vice. Ibid., 67. They lived in wurleys just as the natives do in other parts of Australia. These miserable substitutes for houses are ‘lean-to’s,’ made of sheets of bark propped up by saplings.
