Woiwurrung

Prehistory of Australia—The shoreline of Tasmania and Victoria connected by land bridge about 14,000 years ago, showing some of the human archaeological sites

Wurundjeri is a common recent name for people who have lived in the Woiwurrung area for up to 40,000 years, according to Gary Presland.[lower-alpha 1] They lived by fishing, hunting and gathering, and made a good living from the rich food sources of Port Phillip both before and after its flooding about 7,000–10,000 years ago, and the surrounding grasslands.[3]

At the Keilor Archaeological Site a human hearth excavated in 1971 was radiocarbon-dated to about 31,000 years BP, making Keilor one of the earliest sites of human habitation in Australia.[4] A cranium found at the site has been dated at between 12,000[5] and 14,700 years BP.[4]

Archaeological sites in Tasmania and on the Bass Strait Islands have been dated to between 20,000 – 35,000 years ago, when sea levels were 130 metres below present level allowing Aboriginal people to move across the region of southern Victoria and on to the land bridge of the Bassian plain to Tasmania by at least 35,000 years ago.[6][7]

During the Ice Age about 20,000 years BP, the area now known as Port Phillip would have been dry land, and the Yarra and Werribee river would have joined to flow through the heads then south and south west through the Bassian plain before meeting the ocean to the west. Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands became separated from mainland Australia around 12,000 BP, when the sea level was approximately 50m below present levels.[6] Port Phillip was flooded by post-glacial rising sea levels between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago.[6]

Oral history and creation stories from the Wathaurong, Woiwurrung and Boon wurrung languages describe the flooding of the bay. Hobsons Bay was once a kangaroo hunting ground. Creation stories describe how Bunjil was responsible for the formation of the bay,[8] or the bay was flooded when the Yarra river was created (Yarra Creation Story[9]).

Sewn and incised possum-skin cloak of Wurundjeri origin (Melbourne Museum)

The Woiwurrung tribes would have been aware of the Europeans, through the close relationship to the Boon wurrung people of the coast who came into contact with the Baudin expedition on the French ship Naturaliste during 1801, and then the British settlement at Sullivan Bay in 1803, near modern-day Sorrento, Victoria. William Buckley, a convict, escaped from this abortive settlement and lived for more than 30 years with the Wathaurong people before approaching John Batman's party in 1835. He told George Langhorne in 1836:

I frequently entertained them (the Wada wurrung), when sitting around the campfires, with accounts of the English People, Houses, Ships – great guns etc. to which accounts they would listen with great attention – and express much astonishment.[10]

The Boon wurrung people, living primarily along the Port Philip and Western Port coast, were also subjected to raids on their camps by sealers from at least 1809 to as late as 1833, which were frequently violent with men being killed and the women being abducted and enslaved by sealers for sexual partners and taken to the Islands in Bass Strait where the sealers had their camps.[7] This would have impacted the economic and social ties binding the Woiwurrung and Boon wurrung peoples.

James Fleming, one of the party of Charles Grimes in HMS Cumberland who explored the Maribyrnong River and the Yarra River as far as Dights Falls in February 1803 reported smallpox scars on several Aboriginal people he met, indicating that a smallpox epidemic had swept through the tribes around Port Philip before 1803 reducing the population.[11] Broome puts forward that two epidemics of smallpox almost annihilated the Kulin tribes by perhaps killing half each time in the 1790s and again around 1830.[12] The Wurundjeri incorporated these epidemics in their oral tradition as the Mindi, a rainbow serpent from the Northwest sent to destroy or afflict any people for bad deeds, hissing and spreading white particles from its mouth from which disease could be inhaled.

Any plague is supposed to be brought on by the Mindye or some of its little ones. I have no doubt that, in generations gone by, there has been an awful plague of cholera or black fever, and that the wind at the time, or some other appearance from the north-west has given rise to this strange being.[13]

1880s Artist impression of Batman's Treaty being signed

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Batman's_Treaty

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Governor Bourke's Proclamation, 26 August 1835

On 6 June 1835 John Batman met with eight elders of the Woiwurrung people including Bebejan and Billibellary, the traditional owners of the lands around the Yarra River. The meeting took place on the bank of a small stream, likely to be the Merri Creek and treaty documents were signed along with exchanges of goods by both sides.[14] For a purchase price including tomahawks, knives, scissors, flannel jackets, red shirts and a yearly tribute of similar items, Batman obtained about 200,000 hectares (2,000 km²) around the Yarra River and Corio Bay. The total value of the goods has been estimated at about £100 in the value of the day.[15] In return the Woiwurrung offered woven baskets of examples of their weaponry and two Possum-skin cloaks, a highly treasured item. After the treaty signing, a celebration took place with the Parramatta Aborigines with Batman's party dancing a corroboree.[16]

The treaty was significant as it was the first and only documented time when European settlers negotiated their presence and occupation of Aboriginal lands.[17] The Treaty was immediately repudiated by the colonial government in Sydney. The 1835 proclamation by Governor Richard Bourke implemented the doctrine of terra nullius upon which British settlement was based, reinforcing the concept that there was no land owner before British possession and that Aboriginal people could not sell or assign the land, and individuals could only acquire it through distribution by the Crown.[18]

Wurundjeri near Collins Street, Melbourne, 1839. Watercolour by W. Knight

Derrimut, an arweet of the Boon wurrung informed the early European settlers in October 1835 of an impending attack by "up-country people". The colonists armed themselves, and the attack was averted. Benbow from the Boon wurrung and Billibellary, from the Wurundjeri, also acted to protect the colonists in what is perceived as part of their duty of hospitality.[19]

In 1840, conflict erupted at the Battle of Yering, near present-day Yarra Glen, in which Border Police under the direction of Commissioner of Lands, Captain Henry Gisborne captured Wurundjeri leader Jaga Jaga, eliciting a violent confrontation involving 50 Wurundjeri clansmen where shots were exchanged.[20][21]

As early as 1843 Billibellary requested land for the Wurundjeri to settle. In August 1850 it is likely that the Woiwurrung requested land at Bulleen, but William Thomas, a Protector of Aborigines in Victoria, rejected their request as being too close to white settlement. In 1852 the Woiworrung gained 782 hectares along the Yarra at Warrandyte, while the Boon wurrung were allocated 340 hectares at Mordialloc Creek. These reserves were never staffed by whites and were not permanent camps, but acted as distribution depots where rations and blankets were distributed, with the intention being to keep the tribes away from the growing settlement of Melbourne.[22] The Aboriginal Protection Board revoked these two reserves in 1862 and 1863, considering them then too close to Melbourne.[23]

Tullamareena escaping from a Melbourne gaol around 1838

The Woiwurrung and Boon Wurrong people bore the brunt of the effects of British settlement in the Foundation of Melbourne from 1835 onwards, with the population declining rapidly. In the 27 years following the foundation of Melbourne, the population of Woiworung and Boon wurrung language groups was reduced from 207 to 28 people. Many people were killed by diseases, including venereal disease, introduced by the Europeans. The birth rate also drastically declined for Woiwurrung and Boon wurrung with only five births between 1838 and 1848, while there were 52 deaths for the same period.[24] William Thomas remarked in 1844 that "Infanticide I am persuaded is most awfully on the increase though it cannot be detected—their argument has some reason 'No good pickaninnys now no country'".[lower-alpha 2][25]

On the instructions of Charles La Trobe a Native Police Corps was established and underwritten by the government in 1842 in the hope of civilising the Aboriginal men. It was based at Narre Warren, but later moved to Merri Creek and continued in operation until disbanded in January 1853. As senior Wurundjeri elder, Billibellary's cooperation for the proposal was important for its success, and after deliberation he backed the initiative and even proposed himself for enlistment, but resigned after about a year when he found that it was to be used to capture and even kill other natives. He did his best from then to undermine the Corps and as a result many native troopers deserted and few remained longer than three or four years. Participation in the police corps failed to stop troopers participating in tribal ceremonies, gatherings and rituals.[26][27]

In 1863 the surviving members of the Woiwurrung tribes and speakers 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.

It is generally considered that before European settlement, six separate clans existed:

• Wurundjeri-balluk & Wurundjeri-willam: Yarra Valley, Yarra River catchment area to Heidelberg
• Bulluk-willam: south of the Yarra Valley extending down to Dandenong, Cranbourne, Koo-wee-rup Swamp
• Gunnung-willam-balluk: east of the Great Dividing Ranges and north to Lancefield
• Kurung-jang-balluk: Melton to Werribee River to Sunbury
• Marin-balluk (Boi-berrit): land west of the Maribyrnong River, Sunshine and Sunbury
• Kurnaje-berreing: the land between the Maribyrnong and Yarra Rivers

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Tanderrum

When foreign people passed through or were invited onto Woiwurrung lands the ceremony of Tanderrum – freedom of the bush – would be performed. This allowed safe passage and temporary access and use of land and resources by foreign people. It was a diplomatic rite involving the landholder's hospitality and a ritual exchange of gifts.

• Bunjil & Pallian Creation Story: Bunjil is the Creator spirit of the Kulin People.
• Birrarung Creation Story: formation of the Birrarung River.[9]
• Mindi: Mindi is a rainbow serpent from the northwest who spreads disease to those who have been bad, but cannot act without Bunjil's permission.[13]