The Bunurong, also spelt Bun wurrung or Boonwurrung, 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 Registered Aboriginal Party representing the Bunurong people is the Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation.
Language
Bunurong is one of the Kulin languages, and belongs to the Pama-Nyungan language family. The ethnonym occasionally used in early writings to refer to the Bunurong, namely Bunwurru, is derived from the word bu꞉n, meaning "no" and wur꞉u, signifying either "lip" or "speech".
Country
The Bunurong people are predominantly saltwater people whose lands, waters, and cosmos encompassed some of territory around Western Port Bay and the Mornington Peninsula.Its western boundary was set at Werribee. To the southeast, it extended from Mordialloc through to Anderson Inlet, as far as Wilson's Promontory. Inland its borders reached the Dandenong Ranges, and ran eastwards as far as the vicinity of Warragul.
In June 2021, the Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation and the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation, both registered Aboriginal Parties, agreed on a redrawing of their traditional boundaries developed by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council. The new borderline runs across the city from west to east, with the CBD, Richmond and Hawthorn included in Wurundjeri land, and Albert Park, St Kilda and Caulfield on Bunurong land. It was agreed that Mount Cottrell, the site of a massacre in 1836 with at least 10 Wathaurong victims, would be jointly managed above the line. However these new boundaries are disputed by some Wurundjeri and Bunurong people, including N'arweet Carolyn Briggs of the Bunurong Land and Sea Council.
In Bunurong belief, their territory was carved out by the creator Loo-errn as he moved from Yarra Flats down to his final resting place at Wamoon and, as custodians of this marr-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.
Clan structures Communities consisted of six land-owning groups called clans that spoke the Bunurong language and were connected through cultural and mutual interests, totems, trading initiatives, and marriage ties. Each had an Arweet, or clan leader.
The clans are: Yalukit-willam: East of Werribee River to St Kilda Mayone-bulluk: Carrum Carrum Swamp Ngaruk-Willam: Brighton, Mordialloc, Dandenong, and the area from Mount Martha to Mount Eliza Yallock-Bullock: Bass River and Tooradin Bunurong-Bulluk: Point Nepean to Cape Schank Yowenjerre: Tarwin River
Access by other clans to land and resources (such as the Birrarung, 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.
Bunurong moieties classified people either as Bunjil, that is eaglehawk, or Waang, namely raven.
Culture
Traditional life Information on traditional life has been passed down by Bunurong people from one generation to the next, and was also recorded by European settlers and administrators.
The Yalukit-willam clan of the Bunurong 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. Dogs were important and ceremonially buried.
The Bunurong people have oral histories that recount in detail the flooding of Port Phillip Bay ten-thousand years ago. The boundaries of Bunurong territory are defined by further floods 5000 years ago. Prior to this time, the bay was scrub-filled and passable on foot, and the Bunurong people hunted kangaroo and possums on it.
Food and hunting 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.
Men were the primary hunters. They hunted kangaroos, possums, kangaroo rats, bandicoots, wombats and lizards. They also caught fish and eels and collected shellfish. The Yallock-Bullock Bunurong made seasonal trips in canoes to French Island, where they harvested seal and mutton birds. 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.
Women were primarily gatherers. Murnong (or yam daisy) was a favourite food. Others were the black 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 the Kororoit Creek and other creeks in the area and covered the plain to the west. These murnong fields were destroyed by the introduction of sheep. Scholar Bruce Pascoe attributes the widespread fields of murrnong in certain areas to active farming by Aboriginal peoples. Women collected large quantities of tadpoles which were cooked beneath a bed of hot coals.
Robinson's diary describes how the Yalukit-willam caught emus and restrained their dingos.
Law and war Great enmity existed in particular between the Bunurong and the eastern Gunai, who were later deemed responsible for playing a role in the drastic reduction of the tribe's population. According to William Barak, the last traditional elder of the Wurundjeri people, the Bunurong were involved in a long-running dispute with the Gunai/Kurnai people from Gippsland over resources and women. The Yowengerra clan had almost been completely annihilated by 1836, largely as a result of attacks from the Gunai. 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 of Carrum Carrum Swamp.
Injury or death to a tribal member usually resulted in a conference to assess the facts, and, where thought unlawful, revenge was taken. In 1839, after one or two Bunurong/Woiwurrung were killed, a party of 15 men left for Geelong in order to retaliate against the malefactors, the Wathaurong. In 1840, the Bunurong became convinced that a man from a tribe in Echuca had used sorcery to ordain the death of one of their warriors, whose name had been sung while a possum bone discarded after a Bunurong meal, and encased in a kangaroo's leg bone, was roasted. Shortly afterward the named Bunurong man died, and the tribe revenged itself on the first Echuca tribesman who then came to visit their territory. It was arranged by word of mouth, passing from Echuca through the Nirababaluk and Wurundjeri, for a meeting to have justice done at Merri Creek. Nine or ten of the killed Echuca tribesman's kinsmen threw spears and boomerangs at the Bunurong warrior, armed with a shield, until he was wounded in the flank by a reed-spear. An elder of another, observing tribe, the Barababaraba, called it a day, the ordeal ended, and all celebrated a grand corroboree.
Bunurong Dreaming
Bunjil and Pallian creation story: Bunjil is the creator spirit of the Kulin people. Birrarung creation story: formation of the Birrarung River.
History during colonisation Initial contact and conflict with Europeans
The first documented contact between Europeans and the Bunurong was made in February 1802 when the British naval commander Lieutenant John Murray and his crew from the Lady Nelson came ashore in Port Phillip Bay for fresh water near present-day Sorrento. A wary exchange of spears and stone axes for shirts, mirrors and a steel axe, ended when the crew of Lady Nelson panicked, resulting in an exchange of spears and musket shots. Murray then ordered grapeshot and round shot to be fired from the carronades aboard the ship, mortally wounding several fleeing Bunurong people.
The following month, Captain Milius from the French ship Naturaliste, in the Baudin expedition, danced alone on a beach at Western Port for the natives, in a much more peaceful contact.
In 1803, Governor King sent Lieutenant Charles Robbins in to further explore Port Phillip. This surveying party, which included Charles Grimes, found Bunurong habitations at Tootgarook, Carrum Carrum, and on the banks of the Yarra River.
Sullivan Bay convict colony
Later that same year, it was decided by the British colonial authorities to establish a convict colony at Port Phillip Bay. David Collins of the Royal Navy arrived aboard with over 400 convicts and marines in September 1803. Whilst landing at Sullivan Bay near present-day Sorrento, the colonists encountered a group of Bunurong whom they pursued, shot at and then burnt down their huts, killing one of them. Collins later attempted to placate the situation with the offering of blankets and biscuits.
Collins sent First Lieutenant James Hingston Tuckey to explore Port Phillip. Tuckey, after skirmishing with around 200 Aborigines at Corio Bay, advised Collins that there were better places around Port Phillip but, as these areas were "full of natives" that would "require four times the strength" of his current armed forces to displace, Collins decided to disband the colony and move it to Van Diemen's Land. During their seven months at Sullivan Bay, around 18 colonists died and seven convicts absconded. One of these run-aways, William Buckley, survived and lived a mostly traditional Aboriginal lifestyle with the Wathaurung until the British returned in 1835.
Abduction by sealers
From around 1801, the Bunurong people, living primarily along the Port Phillip and Western Port coast, had their livelihoods affected by seal hunters. The sealers' abduction of Bunurong men and women to work as slaves and provide sexual gratification, caused massive upheaval to the social structure of Aboriginal groups, including the Bunurong, whose coastlands were visited by sealers.
By 1826, Phillip Island was a permanent base for sealers and a report by the French explorer, Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1830, attributed the absence of Bunurong on Phillip Island, to the violent methods of the sealers in abducting local people. Sealers such as Thomas Hamilton and Old Scott lived seasonally at Western Port for years with abducted Indigenous women.