According to the early Australian ethnographer Alfred William Howitt, the name Wurundjeri, in his transcription Urunjeri, refers to a species of eucalypt, Eucalyptus viminalis, otherwise known as the manna or white gum, which is common along the Yarra River.[1] Some modern reports of Wurundjeri traditional lore state that their ethnonym combines a word, wurun, meaning Manna gum/"white gum tree"[2] and djeri, a species of grub found in the tree, and take the word therefore to mean "Witchetty Grub People".[3]
The Wurundjeri balluk[lower-alpha 1] was composed of two patrilines who resided in two distinct localities. These were respectively the Wurundjeri-willam and the Baluk-willam,[7] where willam means "camping ground"/dwelling.[8][9]
The Wurundjeri Willum resided throughout the territory on the Yarra running along its sources as far as Mount Baw Baw and to the area where it forms a junction with the Maribyrnong River.[2]
The Balluk-willam's territory cover an area from Mt. Baw Baw: Their territory covers the area south from Mount Baw Baw to Dandenong, Cranbourne and the swampland at the head of Western Port bay.[2]
As colonization began, it was estimated that something of the order of 11,500-15,000 Aborigines, composed of some 38 tribal groups, were living in the area of Victoria.[10][11] The earliest European settlers came across a park-like landscape extending inland from Melbourne, consisting of large areas of grassy plains to the north and southwest, with little forest cover, something thought to be testimony of indigenous sheet burning practices to expose the massive number of yam daisies which proliferated in the area.[12] These roots and various tuber lilies formed a major source of starch and carbohydrates.[13] Seasonal changes in the weather, availability of foods and other factors would determine where campsites were located, many near the Birrarung and its tributaries.
The Wurundjeri and Gunung Willam Balug clans mined diorite at Mount William stone axe quarry which was a source of the highly valued greenstone hatchet heads, which were traded across a wide area as far as New South Wales and Adelaide. The mine provided a complex network of trading for economic and social exchange among the different Aboriginal nations in Victoria.[14][15] The quarry had been in use for more than 1,500 years and covered 18hectares including underground pits of several metres. In February 2008 the site was placed on the Australian National Heritage List for its cultural importance and archeological value.[16]
Settlement and dispossession of the Wurundjeri lands began soon after a ceremony in which Wurundjeri leaders conducted a tanderrum ceremony, whose function was to allow outsiders temporary access to the resources of clan lands. John Batman and other whites interpreted this symbolic act, recorded in treaty form, as equivalent to medieval enfeoffment of all Woiwurrong territory.[2] Within a few years settlement began around Pound Bend with Major Charles Newman at Mullum Mullum Creek in 1838, and James Anderson on Beal Yallock, now known as Anderson's Creek a year later. Their measures to clear the area of Aboriginals was met with guerrilla skirmishing, led by Jaga Jaga, with the appropriation of cattle and the burning of fields. They were armed with rifles, and esteemed to be excellent marksmen, firing close to Anderson to drive him off as they helped themselves to his potato crop while en route to Yering in 1840. A trap set there by Captain Henry Gibson led to Jaga Jaga's capture and a battle as the Wurundjeri fought unsuccessfully to secure his release. Resistance was broken, and settlements throve. One elder, Derrimut, later stated:
You see…all this mine. All along here Derrimut's once. No matter now, me soon tumble down…Why me have no lubra? Why me have no piccaninny? You have all this place. No good have children, no good have lubra. Me tumble down and die very soon now.[17][18]
In 1863 the surviving members of the Wurundjeri tribe were given "permissive occupancy" of Coranderrk Station, near Healesville and forcibly resettled. Despite numerous petitions, letters, and delegations to the Colonial and Federal Government, the grant of this land in compensation for the country lost was refused. Coranderrk was closed in 1924 and its occupants bar five refusing to leave Country were again moved to Lake Tyers in Gippsland.
Wurundjeri today
All remaining Wurundjeri people are descendants of Bebejan, through his daughter Annie Borate (Boorat), and in turn, her son Robert Wandin (Wandoon). Bebejan was a Ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri people and was present at John Batman's "treaty" signing in 1835.[19]Joy Murphy Wandin, a Wurundjeri elder, explains the importance of preserving Wurundjeri culture:
In the recent past, Wurundjeri culture was undermined by people being forbidden to "talk culture" and language. Another loss was the loss of children taken from families. Now, some knowledge of the past must be found and collected from documents. By finding and doing this, Wurundjeri will bring their past to the present and recreate a place of belonging. A "keeping place" should be to keep things for future generations of our people, not a showcase for all, not a resource to earn dollars. I work towards maintaining the Wurundjeri culture for Wurundjeri people into the future.[lower-alpha 2]
Brown, Peter. "The Keilor Cranium". Peter Brown's Australian and Asian Palaeoanthropology. Archived from the original on 15 November 2011. Retrieved 3 November 2008.
Eidelson, Meyer (2000) [First published 1997]. The Melbourne Dreaming: A Guide to the Aboriginal Places of Melbourne. Aboriginal Studies Press.
Ellender, Isabel; Christiansen, Peter (2001). People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days. Merri Creek Management Committee. ISBN978-0-9577728-0-9.
Flannery, Tim (2002) [First published 1852]. "Introduction". In Morgan, John (ed.). The Life and Adventures of William Buckley. ISBN978-1-877-00820-7.
Fleming, James (2002). Currey, John (ed.). A journal of Grimes' survey: the Cumberland in Port Phillip January–February 1803. Banks Society Publications. ISBN978-0-949586-10-0. cited in Rhodes 2003, p.24
Wiencke, Shirley W. (1984). When the Wattles Bloom Again: The Life and Times of William Barak, Last Chief of the Yarra Yarra Tribe. S.W. Wiencke. ISBN978-0-9590549-0-3.
The Baw Baw National Park is a national park located on the boundary between the Victorian Alps and Gippsland regions of Victoria, Australia. The 13,530-hectare (33,400-acre) national park is situated approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) east of Melbourne and 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of the Latrobe Valley. The park contains the forest covered Baw-Baw Plateau and surrounds the Mount Baw Baw Alpine Resort.
The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in the south of Australia - up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys - which shares Culture and Language.
William Barak, named Beruk by his parents, the "last chief of the Yarra Yarra tribe", was the last traditional ngurungaeta (elder) of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, the pre-colonial inhabitants of present-day Melbourne, Australia. He became an influential spokesman for Aboriginal social justice and an important informant on Wurundjeri cultural lore.
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.
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.
Derrimut, was a headman or arweet of the Boonwurrung (Bunurong) people from the Melbourne area of Australia.
Simon Wonga, ngurungaeta and son of Billibellary, was an elder of the Wurundjeri people, who lived in the Melbourne area of Australia before European settlement. He was resolute that his people would survive the "onslaught" of white men.
Coranderrk was an Aboriginal reserve run by the Victorian government between 1863 and 1924, located around 50 kilometres (31 mi) north-east of Melbourne. The residents were mainly of the Woiwurrung, Bunurong and Taungurung peoples, and the first inhabitants chose the site of the reserve.
A Ngurungaeta is a Woiwurrung head man or tribal leader of clans of the Woiwurrung tribes and Taungurung Ngurai-illum Wurrung. Ngurungaeta held the same tribal standing as an Arweet of the Bunurong and Wathaurong people. The current Ngurungaeta is Murrundindi. The term became of particular importance as an identifier of senior men prepared to accept Anglo control in the latter part of the 19th century. It is unlikely that the term was used to express genuine recognition of senior members of traditional groups in the Melbourne area after the 1840s, following the death of Billibellary c. 1846.
Woiwurrung, Taungurung and Boonwurrung are Aboriginal languages of the Kulin nation of Central Victoria. Woiwurrung was spoken by the Woiwurrung and related peoples in the Yarra River basin, Taungurung by the Taungurung people north of the Great Dividing Range in the Goulburn River Valley around Mansfield, Benalla and Heathcote, and Boonwurrung by the six clans which comprised the Boonwurrung people along the coast from the Werribee River, across the Mornington Peninsula, Western Port Bay to Wilsons Promontory. 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.
Joy Murphy Wandin is an Indigenous Australian, Senior Wurundjeri elder of the Kulin alliance in Victoria, Australia. She has given the traditional welcome to country greeting at many Melbourne events and to many distinguished visitors where she says in the Woiwurrung language "Wominjeka Wurundjeri Balluk yearmenn koondee bik".
Billibellary was a song maker and influential ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan during the early years of European settlement of Melbourne. He was known by various names including Billi-billeri, Billibellary, Jika Jika, Jacky Jacky and Jaga Jaga. He was an astute and diplomatic leader, described as powerfully built with an influence and reputation that extended well beyond his clan.
The Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation, previously the Wurundjeri Tribe Land and Compensation Cultural Heritage Council, is a Registered Aboriginal Party representing the Wurundjeri people, an Aboriginal Australian people of Victoria.
Arweet/Ngarweet is an important tribal position in the Boonwurrung and Wathaurong peoples of the Indigenous Australian Kulin alliance who live from Western Port, Port Phillip, Geelong to Ballarat. An Arweet is a leader or headman and holds a similar tribal standing as a ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri people.
The Kulin languages are a group of closely related languages of the Kulin people, part of the Kulinic branch of Pama–Nyungan.
Aboriginal Victorians, the Aboriginal Australians of Victoria, Australia, occupied the land for tens of thousands of years prior to European settlement. Aboriginal people have lived a semi-nomadic existence of fishing, hunting and gathering and associated activities for at least 40,000 years.
Bebejan also known as Bebejern or Jerum Jerum, was a Ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri people of the Woiwurung language group in the present day Australian state of Victoria. The four Woiwurung clans collectively claimed the area of the Yarra River and its tributaries. Thus Bebejan's domain was Heidelberg to the source of the Yarra River.
The Mount William stone axe quarry is an Aboriginal Australian archaeological site in Central Victoria, Australia. It is located 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) northeast of Lancefield, off Powells Track, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of Romsey and 78 kilometres (48 mi) from Melbourne. Known as Wil-im-ee moor-ring, meaning "axe place" in the Woiwurrung language, the greenstone quarry was an important source of raw material for the manufacture of greenstone ground-edge axes, which were traded over a wide area of south-east Australia.
The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, and Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance.
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.
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