Meetings for exchanging articles and products occurred between tribes, which were scattered over a very significant stretch of land. Journeys to the region of neighbouring tribes were usually undertaken in connection with initiation ceremonies or they were linked with dances, songs and corroborees to increase game or induce rain or good weather. The travel routes taken on these occasions seem to be fixed and recognised from time immemorial.

In the territory of one tribe there might be an abundance of hard wood suitable for making certain weapons, while at another place there would be a great amount of stone for producing axes and knives or grinding seeds, and in such a case the mutual exchange of goods would be of benefit to both peoples. Those whose territory produced red ochre or other pigments, animal skins and so on, might exchange with tribes which had a wealth of rare feathers, grass tree wood for making fire by rubbing, or other products.

Craft products formed an object of trade exchange in the same way or were given away as presents. One group, for example, who were present at the big ceremonial meetings, might have had opossum fur strings, hip girdles from human hair, wristbands, grass necklaces or the like; others perhaps brought magnificent shields, stone knives and weapons of all sorts, while again others had dilly bags,^[25] kangaroo teeth, fish nets and the like.

As a result of this trade, different articles found their way into areas that were relatively distant from their place of production or origin. The Murawarri natives from Culgoa River would, for example, attend a ceremonial meeting at the Darling River in the region of Brewarrina, where they would meet with the Ngeumba tribe from the Bogan, and numerous articles would be exchanged between them. We could assume that a boomerang cut from a special kind of wood, produced on the Culgoa River, came upwards along the Bogan to Nyngan. In the course of one or two years the then owner perhaps went to a meeting of the Wongaibon at Willandra Billabong and there traded the weapon with a man. The new owner could now carry it to a ‘fair’ at the Lachlan River and later it might perhaps be brought further to the Wirraidyuri tribe at the Murrumbidgee River.

Although the transactions at these native ‘fairs’ were for the most part restricted to the exchange of specific articles for others of a different kind, such as necklaces for boomerangs, it nevertheless happens, not too rarely, that some men, who had friendly relations with each other, or between whom a kind of kinship existed, exchanged similar articles, such as a shield for a shield, a spear for a spear, apparently as a memento. Also, here and there presents are made to relatives or men who have undergone particular rituals, without a counter gift.

These trade meetings also provided a suitable occasion for exchanging and spreading folklore of different tribes, as well as their superstitions, songs and corroborees. The traditional beliefs were transmitted from tribe to tribe over great distances, and even when the details were heavily altered so as to be in accord with the changed surroundings, the essential elements of many of these stories seem to have preserved the imprint of their shared origin.

In most of their legends there is a tendency to explain some peculiarity of animal burrows or particular characteristics, as well as to give reasons for unusual shapes of lakes, rivers, trees or other natural phenomena. In this way ideas were exchanged between distant tribes, which never associated with each other. Single words of a language could also be spread from district to district over long stretches of land.