Derrimut (1810c - 28 May 1864), was a headman or arweet

Arweet

Arweet is an important tribal position in the Boon wurrung and Wathaurong tribal 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 held a similar tribal standing as a ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri...

 of the Boonwurrung people from the Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

 area of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

He informed the early European settlers in October 1835 of an impending attack by "up-country tribes". The colonists armed themselves, and the attack was averted. Benbow from the Bunurong and Billibellary

Billibellary

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...

, from the Wurundjeri

Wurundjeri

The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...

, also acted to protect the colonists in what is perceived as part of their duty of hospitality.

He fought in the late 1850s and early 1860s to protect Boonwurrung rights to live on their land at Mordialloc Reserve. When the reserve was closed in July 1863, his 'people' were forced to unite with the remnants of Woiwurrung and other Victorian Aboriginal communities to settle Coranderrk

Coranderrk

Coranderrk was an Indigenous Australian mission station set up in 1863 to provide land under the policy of concentration, for Aboriginal people who had been dispossessed by the arrival of Europeans to the state of Victoria 30 years prior. The mission was formally closed in 1924 with most residents...

 Mission station, near Healsville.

Derrimut became very disillusioned and died in a Benevolent Asylum at the age of about 54 years in 1864. In his honour, over his body, interred in the Melbourne General Cemetery according to European rather than Aboriginal rites, a tombstone was erected.

The Melbourne suburb of Derrimut

Derrimut, Victoria

Derrimut is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 18 km west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Brimbank. At the 2006 Census, Derrimut had a population of 1501....

is named after him.