Kurung people

Last updated

The Kurung were identified as an indigenous Australian group of the State of Victoria by Norman Tindale. The theory that they constituted an independent tribe has been challenged with modern scholarship generally considering them a clan, associated to one of two major tribes. Their language is unconfirmed.

Contents

Name

Tindale, prefacing his remarks with an admission that '(t)he triangle between Melbourne, Echuca and Albury remains one of the problem areas,' [1] cited in support of treating the Kurung as a distinct tribal entity the material given in 1856 for the deliberation of the Legislative Council of Victoria. According to this early documentation, the Kurung were one of 5 distinct tribes in and around Melbourne, the others being the Taungurong, the Wurundjeri, the Bunurong and the Wathaurung. [2]

Diane Barwick notes that Tindale's distinction of Kurung and Wurundjeri (Woiworrung) where the former is now subsumed under the latter, raised a Wurundjeri clan to full autonomous tribal status. He did so, she suggests, from inferences drawn on the basis of a single manuscript, [3] the handiwork of a Protector of Aborigines William Thomas (1793-1867) This mixed vocabulary [lower-alpha 1] was gleaned at Bacchus Marsh on the Wathaurung Marpeang-bulluk clans's territory, adjacent to the lands of the Wurundjeri Kurung-jang-baluk and Gunung-William-baluk [5]

Country

Tindale assigned to the Kurung an estimated 1,300 square miles (3,400 km2) of land extending from the western side of Port Phillip Bay, between the Werribee River and Geelong and running inland up the Moorabool River as far as the Great Dividing Range. He states that inland they inhabited areas west as far as Ballarat, and Ballan. Canning and Thiele have them no further north than Sunbury. [6]

Alternative names

Notes

  1. 'The 'Bacchus Marsh' list is Wathawurrung, but the list labelled ' Melbourne' has 57% agreement with Wathawurrung and only 49% agreement with the other sources for the Melbourne language. On morphological grounds it is clearly Melbourne, i.e. Woiwurrung.' [4]

Citations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wurundjeri</span> Aboriginal Australian people who inhabited the Melbourne area before colonisation

The Wurundjeripeople are an Australian Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of Melbourne. They continue to live in this area and throughout Australia. They were called the Yarra tribe by early European colonists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bacchus Marsh</span> Town in Victoria, Australia

Bacchus Marsh is an urban centre and suburban locality in Victoria, Australia located approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) north west of the state capital Melbourne and 14 kilometres (9 mi) west of Melton at a near equidistance to the major cities of Melbourne, Ballarat and Geelong. The population of the Bacchus Marsh urban area was 24,717 at the 2021 census. Bacchus Marsh is the largest urban area in the local government area of Shire of Moorabool.

The Boonwurrung, also spelt Bunurong or Bun wurrung, are an Aboriginal people of the Kulin nation, who are the traditional owners of the land from the Werribee River to Wilsons Promontory in the Australian state of Victoria. Their territory includes part of what is now the city and suburbs of Melbourne. They were called the Western Port or Port Philip tribe by the early settlers, and were in alliance with other tribes in the Kulin nation, having particularly strong ties to the Wurundjeri people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Werribee River</span> River in Victoria, Australia

The Werribee River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip catchment that is located on the expansive lowland plain southwest of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The headwaters of a tributary, the Lerderderg River, are north of Ballan near Daylesford and it flows across the basalt plain, through the suburb of Werribee to enter Port Phillip. A linear park follows the Werribee River along much of its course. In total the Werribee River completes a journey of approximately 110 kilometres (68 mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taungurung</span>

The Taungurung people, also spelt Daung Wurrung, are an Aboriginal people who are one of the Kulin nations in present-day Victoria, Australia. They consist of nine clans whose traditional language is the Taungurung language.

The Wadawurrung nation, also called the Wathaurong, Wathaurung, and Wadda Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in the area near Melbourne, Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula in the state of Victoria. They are part of the Kulin alliance. The Wathaurong language was spoken by 25 clans south of the Werribee River and the Bellarine Peninsula to Streatham. The area they inhabit has been occupied for at least the last 25,000 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woiwurrung–Taungurung language</span> Pama–Nyungan language spoken in Australia

Woiwurrung and Taungurung are Aboriginal languages of the Kulin nation of Central Victoria. Woiwurrung was spoken by the Woiwurrung and related peoples in the Yarra River basin, and Taungurung by the Taungurung people north of the Great Dividing Range in the Goulburn River Valley around Mansfield, Benalla and Heathcote. They are often portrayed as distinct languages, but they were mutually intelligible. Ngurai-illamwurrung (Ngurraiillam) may have been a clan name, a dialect, or a closely related language.

The murnong or yam daisy is any of the plants Microseris walteri, Microseris lanceolata and Microseris scapigera, which are an important food source for many Aboriginal peoples in southern parts of Australia. Murnong is a Woiwurrung word for the plant, used by the Wurundjeri people and possibly other clans of the Kulin nation. They are called by a variety of names in the many different Aboriginal Australian languages, and occur in many oral traditions as part of Dreamtime stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gadubanud</span> Aboriginal Australian group from the Cape Otway area in Victoria

The Gadubanud (Katubanut), also known as the Pallidurgbarran, Yarro waetch or Cape Otway tribe (Tindale), are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. Their territory encompasses the rainforest plateau and rugged coastline of Cape Otway. They were thought to have become extinct quickly following the onset of European colonisation, and little is known of them. However, some may have found refuge at the Wesleyan mission station at Birregurra, and later the Framlingham mission station, and some people still trace their descent from such a remnant.

The Gulidjan people, also known as the Kolakngat, or Colac tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian tribe whose traditional lands cover the Lake Colac region of the state of Victoria, Australia. They occupied the grasslands, woodlands, volcanic plains and lakes region east of Lake Corangamite, west of the Barwon River and north of the Otway Ranges. Their territory bordered the Wathaurong to the north, Djargurd Wurrung to the west, Girai Wurrung to the south-west, and Gadubanud to the south-east.

The Geelong Baseball Association (GBA), is an Australian baseball association and league based in Geelong, Victoria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Girai wurrung</span> Aboriginal Australian people of present-day western Victoria

The Girai wurrung, also spelt Kirrae Wuurong and Kirrae Whurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people who traditionally occupied the territory between Mount Emu Creek and the Hopkins River up to Mount Hamilton, and the Western Otways from the Gellibrand River to the Hopkins River. The historian Ian D. Clark has reclassified much of the material regarding them in Norman Tindale's compendium under the Djargurd Wurrung, a term reflecting the assumed pre-eminence of one of their clans, the Jacoort/Djargurd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kulin languages</span> Pama–Nyungan language group of Australia

The Kulin languages are a group of closely related languages of the Kulin people, part of the Kulinic branch of Pama–Nyungan.

The Boonwurrung language, also anglicised as Bunurong, Bun wurrung, and other variant spellings, is an Aboriginal Australian language traditionally spoken by the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation of central Victoria prior to European settlement in the colony of Victoria. The last remaining traditional native speakers died in the early 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wadawurrung language</span> Australian language of Victoria, Australia

Wadawurrung, also rendered as Wathawurrung, Wathaurong or Wada wurrung, and formerly sometimes Barrabool, is the Aboriginal Australian language spoken by the Wathaurong people of the Kulin Nation of Central Victoria. It was spoken by 15 clans south of the Werribee River and the Bellarine Peninsula to Streatham. Glottolog classifies Wathawurrung as extinct, however various regional programs and initiatives promote the usage and revitalisation of Wathaurong language

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woiwurrung</span>

The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance.

The Pangerang, also spelt Bangerang and Bangarang, are the Indigenous Australians who traditionally occupied much of what is now north-eastern Victoria stretching along the Murray River to Echuca and into the areas of the southern Riverina in New South Wales. They may not have been an independent tribal reality, as Norman Tindale thought, but one of the many Yorta Yorta tribes. For the purposes of this article, they are treated separately, according to those sources that maintain the distinction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ngooraialum</span> Indigenous Australian tribal sub-group

Ngooraialum were an indigenous Australian tribal subgroup, one of 3 comprising the Ngurai-illam Wurrung, though Norman Tindale placed them among the Taungurung. They inhabited land along the Goulburn River in central Victoria, north of Mitchellstown, at Murchison, above Toolamba, within 40 miles (64 km) of the Murray-Goldburn junction. The heart of their land was Noorillim, which they called Waaring.

The Ngurelban or Ngurai-illamwurrung are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria.

The Pallanganmiddang, otherwise known as the Waywurru, were an Indigenous Australian people of North-eastern Victoria, in the state of Victoria, Australia. Recent scholarship has suggested that In Norman Tindale's classic study his references to a Djilamatang tribe and their language arguably refer in good part to the Pallanganmiddang

References