| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Pre contact – at least 500.[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| Boonwurrung language,English | |
| Religion | |
| Australian Aboriginal mythology | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Woiwurrung,Wathaurong,Taungurong,Djadjawurrung |
TheBoonwurrung,[2][3] also speltBunurong orBun wurrung, are anAboriginal people of theKulin nation, who are thetraditional owners of the land from theWerribee River toWilsons Promontory in the Australian state ofVictoria. Their territory includes part of what is now the city and suburbs ofMelbourne. They were called theWestern Port orPort Philip tribe by the early settlers, and were in alliance with other tribes in the Kulin nation, having particularly strong ties to theWurundjeri people.
TheRegistered Aboriginal Party representing the Boonwurrung people is theBunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation.
Boonwurrung is one of theKulin languages, and belongs to thePama-Nyungan language family.[4] Theethnonym occasionally used in early writings to refer to the Bunwurrung, namelyBunwurru, is derived from the wordbu:n, meaning "no" andwur:u, signifying either "lip" or "speech".[5] This indicates that the Boonwurrung language may not be spoken outside of their country - their clan's territory.[6]
The Boonwurrung people are predominantlysaltwater people whose lands, waters, and cosmos encompassed some 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2) of territory aroundWestern Port Bay and theMornington Peninsula. Its western boundary was set atWerribee. To the southeast, it extended fromMordialloc through toAnderson Inlet, as far asWilson's Promontory. Inland its borders reached theDandenong Ranges, and ran eastwards as far as the vicinity ofWarragul.[5][7][8]
“Saw nothing but grassy country, open forest, plenty gum and wild cherry. Saw where the natives had encamped,
plenty of trees notched where they had climbed for opossums. …There are herds of forest kangaroo immensely large,a short distance from the settlement, also flocks of emus on the western plains fifty and sixty in a drove. …The countrythrough which I travelled to the Salt Water (Maribyrnong) River had a park-like appearance, kangaroo grass being the
principal, the trees she-oak, wattle, honeysuckle. Saw a blue flower, thorny appearance. Numerous old native huts.”
— George Robinson 1836. The journals of George Augustus Robinson, chief protector, Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate.
In June 2021, theBunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation and theWurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation, bothregistered Aboriginal Parties, agreed on a redrawing of their traditional boundaries developed by theVictorian Aboriginal Heritage Council. The new borderline runs across the city from west to east, with theCBD,Richmond andHawthorn included in Wurundjeri land, andAlbert Park,St Kilda andCaulfield on Bunurong land. It was agreed thatMount Cottrell, the site of amassacre in 1836 with at least 10 Wathaurong victims, would be jointly managed above the 160 m (520 ft) line.[9] However these new boundaries are disputed by some Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people, including N'arweetCarolyn Briggs of the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council.[10]
In Boonwurrung belief, their territory was carved out by the creatorLoo-errn as he moved fromYarra Flats down to his final resting place atWamoon and, as custodians of thismarr-ne-beek country, they required outsiders to observe certain ritual prohibitions and to learn their language if the newcomers were to enter their land without harm.[11]
Communities consisted of six land-owning groups calledclans that spoke the Boonwurrung language and were connected through cultural and mutual interests, totems, trading initiatives, and marriage ties. Each had anArweet, or clan leader.[12]
The clans are:
Access by other clans to land and resources (such as theBirrarung, or Yarra River) was sometimes restricted depending on the state of the resource in question. For example; if a river or creek had been fished regularly throughout the fishing season and fish supplies were down, fishing was limited or stopped entirely by the clan who owned that resource until fish were given a chance to recover. During this time, other resources were utilised for food. This ensured the sustained use of the resources available to them. As with most other Kulin territories, penalties such as spearings were enforced upon trespassers.[citation needed]
Boonwurrungmoieties classified people either asBunjil, that iseaglehawk, orWaang, namelyraven.[14]
Information on traditional life has been passed down by Boonwurrung people from one generation to the next, and was also recorded by European settlers and administrators.[6]
The Yalukit-willam clan of the Boonwurrung were semi-nomadic hunter gatherers who moved around to seasonal food sources in their territory to take advantage of seasonably available food resources. Their hunting equipment and techniques had been highly developed to the environment and they had a highly detailed knowledge of their Country. This knowledge was passed from one generation to the next. They had to work only about five hours a day.[6] Dogs were important and ceremonially buried.[15]
The Boonwurrung people haveoral histories that recount in detail the flooding of Port Phillip Bay ten-thousand years ago. The boundaries of Boonwurrung territory are defined by further floods 5000 years ago. Prior to this time, the bay was scrub-filled and passable on foot, and the Boonwurrung people hunted kangaroo and possums on it.[6]
The Yalukit-willam would spend up to a few weeks in one spot, depending on the water and food supply. Major camps were often set up close to permanent fresh water, leaving archaeological evidence of the places they lived. These archaeological sites include surface scatters,shell middens, isolated artefacts and burials.[6]
Men were the primary hunters. They hunted kangaroos, possums, kangaroo rats, bandicoots, wombats and lizards. They also caught fish and eels and collected shellfish. Some Boonwurrung people made seasonal trips in canoes toFrench Island, where they could gather swan eggs.[16] In coastal and swamp areas there was plenty of bird life to hunt, including ducks and swans. There were abundant eels, yabbies, and fish in Stony and Kororoit creeks, and the Yarra River. Men were experts at spearing eels and Robinson notes in his diary in 1841 two men catching 40lbs of eel "in a very short time". The coast provided saltwater fish, mussels, cockles and small crabs.[6]
Women were primarily gatherers.Murnong (or yam daisy) was a favourite food. Others were theblack wattle gum, the pith of tree ferns,native cherries,kangaroo apples and various fungi. Murnong grew all year was best eaten in spring. Tubers were collected in vast amounts in string bags. Fresh murnong could be eaten raw, or if less fresh, murnong could be roasted or baked in earth ovens. Murnong used to grow in great amounts along theKororoit Creek and other creeks in the area and covered the plain to the west.[6] These murnong fields were destroyed by the introduction of sheep. ScholarBruce Pascoe attributes the widespread fields of murrnong in certain areas to active farming by Aboriginal peoples.[17] Women collected large quantities of tadpoles which were cooked beneath a bed of hot coals.[6]
Robinson's diary describes how the Yalukit-willam caught emus and restrained their dingos.
When the natives want to kill emu they get up a cherry tree before daylight with a large spear, and having put a quantity of
cherries in a certain spot under the tree, conceal themselves above with a clear place for them to thrust the spear down.At day dawn the emu is heard coming by the noise it makes, and if this is a tree they have been at before they are sure
to come again, when they begin eating, and then the native thrusts the spear through them. …Saw several wild dogs on the settlement belonging to the country. …The aborigines tie up the fore foot of their dogs to prevent them going astray, instead of roping them round the neck as we do. At the native encampment, I saw two dogs thus tied.
— George Robinson 1840. The journals of George Augustus Robinson, chief protector, Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate.
Initial contact was made in February 1801 whenLieutenant Murray and his crew from theLady Nelson came ashore for fresh water near present-daySorrento. A wary exchange ofspears andstone axes for shirts, mirrors and a steel axe, ended when the crew ofLady Nelson panicked, resulting in spears flying,musket shots and the use of theship's cannon, wounding several fleeing Boonwurrung people.[18] The following month, Captain Milius from theFrench shipNaturaliste, in theBaudin expedition, danced alone on a beach at Western Port for the natives, in a much more peaceful contact.[18]
Just before and overlapping the period of British exploration and settlement, the Boonwurrung were involved in a long-running dispute with theGunai/Kurnai people fromGippsland. According toWilliam Barak, the last traditionalelder of theWurundjeri people, the conflict was a dispute over resources, which resulted in heavy casualties being suffered by the Boonwurrung. Many Gunnai raids occurred to abduct Boonwurrung women. The Yowengerra had almost been completely annihilated by 1836, largely as a result of attacks from the Gunai.[19] During 1833–34, around 60–70 Bunurong people, if a report has been correctly interpreted,may have been killed in a raid by Gunai when they were camped to the north ofCarrum Carrum Swamp.[20]
The Boonwurrung people, living primarily along the Port Phillip and Western Port coast, may have had their livelihoods affected byEuropean seal hunters. The sealers' abduction of Boonwurrung women and taken to Bass Strait Islands and Tasmania may have caused inter-tribal conflicts, and by analogy, this may also apply to the Boonwurrung, whose coastlands were visited by sealers.[21] A report byJules Dumont d'Urville in 1830 attributed the absence of Boonwurrung onPhillip Island, which was a camp for sealers, as due to the latter's behavior.[22] As late as 1833, nine Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung women, and a boy, Yonki Yonka, were kidnapped and ferried across to the sealers' Bass Strait island bases.[23] Contact with sealers would have exposed the coastal tribes to European diseases, and this would have exercised a heavy impact on demographics, and the economic and social ties binding the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung peoples, as would the possible effects of infectious diseases contracted from these sealers.[1]
James Fleming, one of the party of surveyorCharles Grimes inHMSCumberland who explored theMaribyrnong River and theYarra River as far asDights Falls in February 1803, reported smallpox scars on several aboriginal people he met, suggesting that asmallpox epidemic might have swept through the tribes around Port Philip before 1803, reducing the population.[24] Broome puts forward that two epidemics of smallpox decimated the population of the Kulin tribes by perhaps killing half each time in the 1790s and again around 1830.[25][a] This theory has been challenged, however, by modern historical diagnosticians, who argue that the observed symptoms in the early ethnographical literature are compatible withimpetigo andringworm.[26]
One particularly notable person at the time of European settlement in Victoria wasDerrimut, a Boonwurrung elder, who informed early European settlers in October 1835 of an impending attack by clans from theWoiwurrung group. The colonists armed themselves, and the attack was averted. Benbow andBillibellary, from theWurundjeri, also acted to protect the colonists as part of their duty of hospitality. Derrimut later became very disillusioned and died in the Benevolent Asylum at the age of about 54 years in 1864. A few colonists erected atombstone to Derrimut inMelbourne General Cemetery in his honour.[citation needed]
By 1839, the Boonwurrung had been reduced to 80–90 people, with only 4 of 19 children under four years old, from a probable pre-contact population of greater than 500 people. By 1850Protector William Thomas estimated just 28 Bunurong people living on Boonwurrung land.[citation needed]
In 1852, the Boonwurrung were allocated 340 hectares (840 acres) at Mordialloc Creek while the Woiwurrung gained 782 hectares along the Yarra at Warrandyte. TheAboriginal 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.[27] TheAboriginal Protection Board revoked these two reserves in 1862–1863, considering them now too close to Melbourne.[28]
In March 1863, after three years of upheaval, the surviving Kulin leaders, among themSimon Wonga andWilliam Barak, led forty Wurundjeri,Taungurung (Goulburn River) and Boonwurrung people over theBlack Spur and squatted on a traditional camping site onBadger Creek nearHealesville and requested ownership of the site. This becameCoranderrk Station, named after the Woiwurrung word for theVictorian Christmas bush.[29] Coranderrk was closed in 1924 and its occupants were moved toLake Tyers inGippsland.[30]
Great enmity existed in particular between the Boonwurrung and the eastern Gunai, who were later deemed responsible for playing a role in the drastic reduction of the tribe's population.[31]
Injury or death to a tribal member usually resulted in a conference to assess the facts, and, where thought unlawful, revenge was taken.[32] In 1839, after one or two Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung were killed, a party of 15 men left forGeelong in order to retaliate against the malefactors, theWathaurong.[33]In 1840, the Boonwurrung became convinced that a man froma tribe inEchuca hadused sorcery to ordain the death of one of their warriors, whose name had been sung while a possum bone discarded after a Boonwurrung meal, and encased in a kangaroo's leg bone, was roasted. Shortly afterward the named Boonwurrung man died, and the tribe revenged itself on the first Echuca tribesman who then came to visit their territory.[3] It was arranged by word of mouth, passing from Echuca through theNirababaluk andWurundjeri, for a meeting to have justice done atMerri Creek. Nine or ten of the killed Echuca tribesman's kinsmen threw spears and boomerangs at the Boonwurrung warrior, armed with a shield, until he was wounded in the flank by a reed-spear. An elder of another, observing tribe, theBarababaraba, called it a day, the ordeal ended, and all celebrated a grand corroboree.[34]
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