43-603: The Dandenong Creek (Aboriginal Bunwurrung : Narra Narrawong or Dandinnong ) is an urban creek of the Port Phillip catchment, located in the eastern and south-eastern Greater Melbourne region of the Australian east coast state of Victoria . The creek descends approximately 550 metres (1,800 ft) over its course of 53 kilometres (33 mi) before joining the Eumemmerring Creek to form
86-660: A botanist . Dandenong Creek has its headwaters in the Dandenong Ranges near Olinda , sourced by a series of springs and small runoff streams within the Dandenong Ranges National Park . The creek can be roughly separated into three sections: The series of open space reserves along the Dandenong Creek and its tributaries provide important habitat for many urban wildlife in the outer eastern/southeastern suburbs. The creek
129-454: A smallpox epidemic might have swept through the tribes around Port Philip before 1803, reducing the population. 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. This theory has been challenged, however, by modern historical diagnosticians, who argue that the observed symptoms in
172-493: A day. Dogs were important and ceremonially buried. The Boonwurrung people have oral 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. The Yalukit-willam would spend up to
215-598: 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. Some Boonwurrung people made seasonal trips in canoes to French Island , where they could gather swan eggs. In coastal and swamp areas there
258-553: A location on the body from 1 to 16. After 16, at the top of the head, the count follows the equivalent locations across the other side of the body. Some Boonwurrung words for animals and plants include: Boonwurrung 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
301-494: 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 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. It was arranged by word of mouth, passing from Echuca through
344-399: A message stick with markings to indicate the number and type of people involved and a prop to indicate the type of event, such as a ball for a Marn grook event. The location of meeting was spoken, but neighbouring clans might not use the same language, so a sign language was used to indicate the number of days in the future when the people should assemble. The number was indicated by pointing to
387-602: A probable pre-contact population of greater than 500 people. By 1850 Protector William Thomas estimated just 28 Bunurong people living on Boonwurrung land. In 1852, the Boonwurrung were allocated 340 hectares (840 acres) at Mordialloc Creek while the Woiwurrung gained 782 hectares along the Yarra at Warrandyte. The Aboriginal reserves were never staffed by whites and were not permanent camps, but acted as distribution depots where rations and blankets were distributed, with
430-670: 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 . The Boonwurrung people, living primarily along the Port Phillip and Western Port coast, may have had their livelihoods affected by European 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
473-469: A role in the drastic reduction of the tribe's population. 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 Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung were killed, a party of 15 men left for Geelong in order to retaliate against the malefactors, the Wathaurong . In 1840, the Boonwurrung became convinced that
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#1732791907177516-588: A short distance from the settlement, also flocks of emus on the western plains fifty and sixty in a drove. …The country through 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.” In June 2021, the Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation and
559-627: A steel axe, ended when the crew of the Lady Nelson panicked, resulting in spears flying, musket shots and the use of the ship's cannon , wounding several fleeing Boonwurrung 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. Just before and overlapping
602-568: A westerly direction and servicing several industrial estates in the catchment of Dandenong Creek. The tributary is commonly contaminated with plastic litterings and heavy metals , and authorities have made several attempts to prevent pollution which spreads downstream into Dandenong Creek. The list below notes current bridges that cross over the Dandenong Creek. Some are road and rail bridges, whilst others are pedestrian and equestrian crossings. Bunwurrung language Woiwurrung , Taungurung and Boonwurrung are Aboriginal languages of
645-725: Is also the home of one of the largest remaining populations of Yarra Gum , and a series of linear parks , nature reserves and wetlands are located along it. A bike path known as the Dandenong Creek Trail runs alongside for a significant distance. The health of the creek in these urban areas ranges from moderate to very poor and has been the focus of a number of clean-up campaigns in recent years. An industrial wastewater stream known as Old Joes Creek flows into Dandenong Creek, with its confluence in Bayswater . This drain runs underground for much of its course, running in
688-399: Is now known as the Dandenong Creek were the indigenous Bunurong people of the Kulin nation who referred to the creek as Narra Narrawong ; while others gave the creek the name Dandenong, sometimes spelled as Dand-y-non or Tanjenong by early settlers, believed to mean "high" or "lofty". The first European to see the creek near its source was in 1839 and is believed to be Daniel Bunce,
731-703: 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 Bunwurrung, namely Bunwurru , is derived from the word bu:n , meaning "no" and wur:u , signifying either "lip" or "speech". This indicates that the Boonwurrung language may not be spoken outside of their Country - their clan's territory. The Boonwurrung people are predominantly saltwater people whose lands, waters, and cosmos encompassed some 3,000 square miles (7,800 km ) of territory around Western Port Bay and
774-642: The Black Spur and squatted on a traditional camping site on Badger Creek near Healesville and requested ownership of the site. This became Coranderrk Station, named after the Woiwurrung word for the Victorian Christmas bush . Coranderrk was closed in 1924 and its occupants were moved to Lake Tyers in Gippsland . Great enmity existed in particular between the Boonwurrung and the eastern Gunai, who were later deemed responsible for playing
817-618: The Great Dividing Range in the area of the Goulburn River , with which it shares 80%. Woiwurrung, Taungurong and Boonwurrung have been considered by linguists to be dialects of a single Central Victorian language, whose range stretched from almost Echuca in the north, to Wilsons Promontory in the south. R. Brough Smyth wrote in 1878 that "The dialects of the Wooeewoorong or Wawoorong tribe (River Yarra) and
860-777: 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
903-480: 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. Boonwurrung is closely related to Woiwurrung, with which it shares 93% of its vocabulary, and to a lesser degree with Taungurung spoken north of
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#1732791907177946-519: 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 . “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,
989-539: The Patterson River (of which it can be considered the de facto main stem ) and eventually draining into the Beaumaris Bay . Together with its distributary Mordialloc Creek and the culvert -linked Kananook Creek and Elster Creek, the so-called "Dandenong Catchment" has an overall catchment of approximately 882 km (341 sq mi). The traditional custodians of the land surrounding what
1032-622: The Wurundjeri , 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 a tombstone to Derrimut in Melbourne General Cemetery in his honour. By 1839, the Boonwurrung had been reduced to 80–90 people, with only 4 of 19 children under four years old, from
1075-746: 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
1118-581: 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 Boonwurrung people is the Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation . Boonwurrung
1161-468: The Boonoorong tribe (Coast) are the same. Twenty-three words out of thirty are, making allowances for differences of spelling and pronunciation, identical; five have evidently the same roots, and only two are widely different". The following is the Woiwurrung dialect: It is not clear if the two rhotics are trill and flap, or tap and approximant. Vowels in Woiwurrung are /a e i o u/. In the case of
1204-410: 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
1247-424: The Boonwurrung, whose coastlands were visited by sealers. A report by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1830 attributed the absence of Boonwurrung on Phillip Island , which was a camp for sealers, as due to the latter's behavior. 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. Contact with sealers would have exposed
1290-459: The Woiwurrung pronouns, the stem seems to be the standard ngali ' you and I ' , but the front was suffixed to wa- , so wa+ngal combines to form wangal below. In Kulin languages there is no grammatical gender. A numbering system was used when Wurundjeri clans sent out messengers to advise neighbouring clans of upcoming events, such as a ceremony, corroboree , a challenge to fight or Marn grook ball game. Messengers carried
1333-493: 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. When
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1376-718: 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. James Fleming, one of the party of surveyor 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, suggesting that
1419-518: The early ethnographical literature are compatible with impetigo and ringworm . One particularly notable person at the time of European settlement in Victoria was Derrimut , a Boonwurrung Elder, who informed early European settlers in October 1835 of an impending attack by clans from the Woiwurrung group. The colonists armed themselves, and the attack was averted. Benbow and Billibellary , from
1462-410: The intention being to keep the tribes away from the growing settlement of Melbourne. The Aboriginal Protection Board revoked these two reserves in 1862–1863, considering them now too close to Melbourne. In March 1863, after three years of upheaval, the surviving Kulin leaders, among them Simon Wonga and William Barak , led forty Wurundjeri, Taungurung (Goulburn River) and Boonwurrung people over
1505-580: 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. Initial contact was made in February 1801 when Lieutenant Murray and his crew from the Lady Nelson came ashore for fresh water near present-day Sorrento . A wary exchange of spears and stone axes for shirts, mirrors and
1548-414: 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
1591-460: The newcomers were to enter their land without harm. Communities consisted of six land-owning groups called clans that spoke the Boonwurrung 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: Access by other clans to land and resources (such as the Birrarung, or Yarra River )
1634-542: The period of British exploration and settlement, the Boonwurrung were involved in a long-running dispute with the Gunai/Kurnai people from Gippsland . According to William Barak , the last traditional elder of the Wurundjeri 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
1677-450: The resources available to them. As with most other Kulin territories, penalties such as spearings were enforced upon trespassers. Boonwurrung moieties classified people either as Bunjil , that is eaglehawk or Waang , namely raven . 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. The Yalukit-willam clan of
1720-489: 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
1763-706: Was agreed that Mount Cottrell , the site of a massacre in 1836 with at least 10 Wathaurong victims, would be jointly managed above the 160 m (520 ft) line. However these new boundaries are disputed by some Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung people, including N'arweet Carolyn Briggs of the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council. In Boonwurrung 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
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1806-523: 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)
1849-405: 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
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