Dja Dja Wurrung - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Dja Dja Wurrung, also known as the Jaara people and Loddon River tribe, is a native Aboriginal

Victorian Aborigines

The Indigenous Australians of Victoria, Australia occupied the land for tens of thousands of years prior to European settlement. According to Gary Presland Aborigines have lived in Victoria for about 40,000 years living a semi-nomadic existence of fishing, hunting and gathering, and farming...

tribe which occupied the watersheds of the Loddon

Loddon River

The Loddon River is a 392-km long tributary of the Murray River that flows through central and northern Victoria, Australia. The river rises near Trentham and flows by Glenlyon. It then flows generally northward through Guildford and Newstead, 40 km west of Bendigo through the Cairn Curran...

and Avoca River

Avoca River

The Avoca River drains a substantial part of Victoria, the southernmost state of mainland Australia. The river rises at the foot of Mount Lonarch in the Central Highlands near the small town of Amphitheatre, and flows north for 270 km through Avoca, Charlton and Quambatook...

s in the Bendigo region of central Victoria, Australia. They were part of the Kulin

Kulin

The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...

alliance of tribes. There were 16 clans, which adhered to a patrilineal system. Like the other Kulin peoples there were two moeties: Bunjil

Bunjil

In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Bunjil the eagle is a creator deity, culture hero and ancestral being. In the Kulin nation in central Victoria he was regarded as one of two moiety ancestors, the other being the trickster Crow. Bunjil has two wives and a son, Binbeal the rainbow. His brother...

the eagle and Waa

Crow (Australian Aboriginal mythology)

In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Crow is a trickster, culture hero and ancestral being. In the Kulin nation in central Victoria he was known as Waa and was regarded as one of two moiety ancestors, the other being the more sombre eaglehawk Bunjil...

the crow.

History

The Dja Dja Wurrung were bound to their land by their spiritual belief system deriving from the Dreaming, when mythic beings had created the world, the people and their culture. They were part of established trade networks which allowed goods and information to flow over substantial distances.

There is evidence that smallpox swept through the Dja Dja Wurrung in 1789 and 1825, which would have decimated the population at the time. The epidemics were incorporated into aboriginal mythology as a giant snake, the Mindye, sent by Bunjil

Bunjil

, to blow magic dust over people to punish them for being bad.

The trade networks would have carried news of the strange white men settling on the Eora

Eora

The Eora are the Aboriginal people of the Sydney area, south to the Georges River, north to the Hawkesbury River, and west to Parramatta. The indigenous people used this word to describe where they came from to the British. "Eora" was then used by the British to refer to those Aboriginal people...

land in the early 1790s and progressively invading peoples further west and south-west of Sydney. Thomas Mitchell was probably the first white man to be seen in Dja Dja Wurrung country when he explored and surveyed central Victoria in 1836, reporting he had found large fertile plains. The invasion of the Goulburn and Loddon Districts began the following year by squatters eager to carve out a station and run.

Munangabum

Main article - Munangabum
Munangabum
Munangabum was an influential clan head of the Liarga balug and Spiritual Leader or neyerneyemeet of the Dja Dja Wurrung people in central Victoria, Australia....

Munangabum

Munangabum was an influential clan head of the Liarga balug and Spiritual Leader or neyerneyemeet of the Dja Dja Wurrung people in central Victoria, Australia....

was an influential clan head of the Liarga balug and Spiritual Leader or neyerneyemeet of the Djadja wurrung who lived through two small pox epidemics and shaped his peoples response to invasion and European settlement in the 1830s and 1840s. On 7 February 1841 Munangabum was shot and wounded by settlers while his companion Gondiurmin died at Far Creek Station, west of Maryborough. Three settlers were later apprehended and tried on 18 May 1841 but were acquitted for want of evidence as aborigines could not give evidence in courts of law. He was murdered in 1846 by a rival clan-head from the south.

Rape and Frontier Sexual Interaction

An important source of frontier conflict was sexual relations between European settlers and aboriginal women. Historian Bain Attwood claims that aboriginal clans may have sought to incorporate whites into their kinship society through sexual relations with its principles and obligations of reciprocity and sharing, however this was misconstrued by the settlers as prostitution, resulting in cultural misunderstanding and conflict. Adbuction and rape of aboriginal women was also relatively common, often leading to violent interactions. While most squatters ignored such sexual interactions by their employees and even participated, there were a few like John Stuart Hepburn

John Stuart Hepburn

John Stuart Hepburn was an early pastoralist and landholder in Victoria, Australia.Hepburn was born in Scotland in 1800. He initially became a seafaring man and progressed to become a Master of a 226 ton brig, The Alice. In 1835 the Alice sailed for Hobart...

who discouraged sexual interactions between his employees and the Dja Dja Wurrung.

Edward Parker commented:

"Were the settlers generally to follow the example of Mr Hepburn, much of the liberal intercourse between the labouring men and native women, and consequently the endangering of property, would be suppressed".

Parker expressed in 1842 the "firm conviction... that nine out of ten outrages committed by the blacks" derived either directly or indirectly from sexual relations. While he considered the "labouring classes" the worst offenders he also indicated there were "individuals claiming the rank of gentleman and even aspiring to be administrators of the law" who abused Aboriginal women.

The widespread abuse of aboriginal women lead directly to an epidemic of venereal disease of syphilis and gonorrhea which had a major impact on reducing the fertility of Dja Dja Wurrung women and increased the mortality rate of infants.

Massacres

The European settlement of Western Victoria in the 1830s and 1840s was marked by resistance to the invasion often by driving off sheep which then resulted in conflict and sometimes a massacre of aboriginal people. The Dja Dja wurrung peoples experienced two waves of settlement and dispossession: from the south from 1837 and from the north from 1845.

Very few of these reports were acted upon to bring the settlers to court. On the few occasions when this did happen the cases were dismissed because aborigines were denied the right to give evidence in courts of law. The incidents listed below are just the cases that have been reported, it is likely other incidents occurred that were never documented officially. Neil Black, a squatter in Western Victoria writing on 9 December 1839 states the prevailing attitude of many settlers:

"The best way [to procure a run] is to go outside and take up a new run, provided the conscience of the party is sufficiently seared to enable him without remorse to slaughter natives right and left. It is universally and distinctly understood that the chances are very small indeed of a person taking up a new run being able to maintain possession of his place and property without having recourse to such means -- sometimes by wholesale..."

Table: reported massacres in Dja Dja wurrung territory to 1859

Date	Location	Aborigines involved	Europeans involved	Aboriginal Deaths reported
March-April 1838	Unknown	Dja Dja Wurrung, clan unknown	two Europeans	Koonikoondeet and another man
Winter 1838	Darlington Station, about 16 km from Lancefield	Dja Dja Wurrung or Taungurong Taungurong The Taungurong people, also known as the Daung Wurrung, were nine clans who spoke the Daungwurrung language and were part of the Kulin alliance of indigenous Australians. They lived to the north of and were closely associated with the Woiwurrung speaking Wurundjeri people...	Captain Sylvester Brown's employees	13 people

June 1838	Waterloo Plains	unknown	employees of WH Yaldwyn, CH Ebden Charles Ebden Charles Hotson Ebden was an Australian pastoralist and politician.Ebden was born in 1811 at the Cape of Good Hope in the Cape Colony, the son of merchant and banker John Bardwell Ebden and his wife Antoinetta... , H Munro, and Dr W Bowman	7 or 8-but probably many more people
February 1839	Maiden Hills	Dja Dja Wurrung, clan unknown	John Davis and Abraham Braybrook, convict shepherds, and William Allan	Noorowurnin and another person
May 1839	Campaspe Plains, see the Campaspe Plains massacre Campaspe Plains massacre Campaspe Plains massacre, occurred in 1839 in Central Victoria, Australia as a reprisal raid against Aboriginal resistance to the invasion and occupation of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Daung Wurrung lands... for detail	Taungurong, clan unknown	Charles Hutton and party of settlers	About 40 killed
June 1839	Campaspe Plains, known as the Campaspe Plains massacre Campaspe Plains massacre Campaspe Plains massacre, occurred in 1839 in Central Victoria, Australia as a reprisal raid against Aboriginal resistance to the invasion and occupation of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Daung Wurrung lands...	Dja Dja Wurrung, clan unknown	Charles Hutton and party of mounted police	At least 6 people killed, many wounded
late 1839 or early 1840	Middle Creek, known as the Blood Hole Blood Hole massacre The Blood Hole massacre occurred at Middle Creek 6 – 7 miles from Glengower Station between Clunes and Newstead at the end of 1839 or early 1840 killing an unknown number of Aborigines from the Grampians district who were on their way home after trading goods for green stone axe blanks which they...	Dja Dja Wurrung, clan unknown	Captain Dugald McLachlan and his employees	Unknown

August 1840	unknown	Dja Dja Wurrung, clan unknown	one of Henry Dutton's assigned servants	Pandarragoondeet
7 February 1841	14 Mile Creek, Glenmona Station west of Maryborough	Dja Dja Wurrung, Galgal gundidj clan	William Jenkins, William Martin, John Remington, Edward Collin, Robert Morrison	Gondiurmin, Munangabum wounded
15 May 1844	100 km north of Pyrenee range	presumably Dja Dja Wurrung	Native Police Corps Native Police Corps An Australian Native Police Corps was first established in 1842 in the Port Phillip District of the Australian colony of New South Wales... in the charge of Crown Commissioner FA Powlett and HEP Dana	Leelgoner
28 June 1846	Avoca River near Charlton	Dja Dja Wurrung, clan unknown	John Fox	one person

Loddon Aboriginal Protectorate Station at Franklinford

See Also: Franklinford, Victoria
Franklinford, Victoria
Franklinford is a small community in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia, located in the Shire of Hepburn. It was the site chosen by Edward Stone Parker to build the Loddon Aboriginal Protectorate station at Franklinford in January 1841 which was an important focus of the Dja Dja Wurrung...

and Edward Stone Parker
Edward Stone Parker
Edward Stone Parker was a Methodist preacher and assistant Protector of Aborigines in the Aboriginal Protectorate established in the Port Philip District of colonial New South Wales under George Augustus Robinson in 1838...

Edward Stone Parker

Edward Stone Parker was a Methodist preacher and assistant Protector of Aborigines in the Aboriginal Protectorate established in the Port Philip District of colonial New South Wales under George Augustus Robinson in 1838...

was appointed in England by the Colonial Office as an Assistant Protector of Aborigines

Protector of Aborigines

The role of Protectors of Aborigines resulted from a recommendation of the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines . On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report.The report recommended that Protectors of...

in the Aboriginal Protectorate established in the Port Philip district under George Robinson

George Augustus Robinson

George Augustus Robinson was a builder and untrained preacher. He was the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Port Phillip District from 1839 to 1849...

. He arrived in Melbourne in January 1839 with Robinson appointing Parker to the northwest or Loddon District in March. He did not start his protectorate until September 1839. The Protector's duties included to safeguard aborigines from "encroachments on their property, and from acts of cruelty, of oppression or injustice" and a longer term goal of "civilising" the natives.

Parker initially established his base at Jackson's Creek near Sunbury, which was not close enough to the aboriginal nations of his protectorate. Parker suggested to Robinson and to Governor Gipps that protectorate stations be established within each district to concentrate aboriginals in one area and provide for their needs and so reduce frontier conflict. The Governor of NSW, Sir George Gipps

George Gipps

Sir George Gipps was Governor of the colony of New South Wales, Australia, for eight years, between 1838 and 1846. His governorship was during a period of great change for New South Wales and Australia, as well as for New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales for much of this...

, agreed and stations or reserves for each protector were approved in 1840. Parker's original choice for a reserve in September 1840 was a site, known as Neereman by the Dja Dja Wurrung, on Bet Bet Creek a tributary of the Loddon River. However, the site proved unsuitable for agriculture and in January 1841 Parker selected a site on the northern side of Mount Franklin on Jim Crow Creek with permanent spring water. The site was chosen with the support of The Dja Dja Wurrung as well as Crown Lands Commissioner Frederick Powlett. Approval for the site was given in March, and a large number of Dja Dja Wurrung accompanied Parker there in June 1841 when the station was established on William Mollison's Coliban run, where an outstation hut already existed. This became known as the Loddon Aboriginal Protectorate Station at Franklinford, and the area was known to the Dja Dja Wurrung as Larne-ne-barramul or the habitat of the emu. Nearby Mount Franklin was known as Lalgambook.

Franklinford provided a very important focus for the Dja Dja Wurrung during the 1840s where they received a measure of protection and rations, but they continued with their traditional cultural practices and semi-nomadic lifestyle as much as they could. Parker employed a medical officer, Dr W. Baylie, to treat the high incidence of disease.

Parker also attempted to prosecute those European settlers who had killed aborigines including Henry Monro and his employees for killings in January 1840 and William Jenkins, William Martin, John Remington, Edward Collins, Robert Morrison for the murder of Gondiurmin in February 1841. Both cases were thrown out of court due to the inadmissibility of aboriginal witness statements and evidence in Courts of Law. Aboriginals were regarded as heathens, unable to swear on the bible, and therefore unable to give evidence. This made prosecution of settlers for crimes against aborigines exceedingly difficult, while also making it very difficult for aborigines to offer legal defences when they were prosecuted for such crimes as sheep stealing.

The colonial Government severely curtailed funding to the protectorate from 1843. The protectorate ended on 31 December 1848, with about 20 or 30 Dja Dja Wurrung living at the station at that time. Parker and his family remained living at Franklinford. Six Dja Dja Wurrung men and their families settled at Franklinford, but all but one died from misadventure or respiratory disease. Tommy Farmer was the last survivor of this group who walked off the land in 1864 and joined the 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...

reserve.

Impact of Disease

While frontier conflict, murder and massacre took their toll, the impact of disease had a far greater impact. Epidemics of smallpox had already decimated the tribe even before first contact with Europeans. From the late 1830s European contact introduced consumption, venereal disease, the common cold, bronchitis, influenza, chicken pox, measles and scarlet fever. Venereal diseases of syphilis and gonorrhea reached epidemic proportions with estimates of 90% of Dja Dja Wurrung women thought to be suffering from syphilis by late 1841. This also had the effect of rendering aboriginal women infertile, and infecting any infants born causing high infant mortality and a plummeting birthrate. A Medical doctor appointed for a time confirmed the prevalence of venereal disease.

Those most dramatically affected were the groups who had most contact with European settlers. Spending longer times in the same camping places also made them susceptible to respiratory diseases and gastric illnesses. When several Dja Dja Wurrung died on the reserve at Franklinford in 1841, many of them temporarily abandoned the place. A number of deaths and illnesses among the whites working at Franklinford in 1847-48 also caused many Dja Dja Wurrung to leave on the belief that the ground at Franklinford was "malignant". By December 1852 the population of Dja Dja Wurrung was estimated at 142 people, whereas they had numbered between one and two thousand just 15 years previously at time of first contact.

Victorian Gold Rush

The onset of the Victorian Gold Rush

Victorian gold rush

The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...

in 1851 placed further pressure on the Dja Dja Wurrung with 10,000 diggers occupying Barkers Creek, Mount Alexander and many streams turned into alluvial gold diggings with many sacred sites violated. The gold rush also caused a crisis in agricultural labour, so many of the squatters employed Dja Dja Wurrung people as shepherds, stockriders, station hands and domestic servants on a seasonal or semi-permanent basis. Many of those that could not find work with the squatters survived on the margins of white society through begging and prostitution for food, clothes and alcohol. The availability of alcohol increased with the number of bush inns and grog shanties associated with the diggings, and drunkenness became a serious problem. Mortality rates worsened during the gold rushes.

Anecdotal accounts reveal that many Dja Dja Wurrung chose to move north away from the diggings to avoid the problems of alcoholism, prostitution and begging associated with living on the margin of white society.

A small number of Dja Dja Wurrung remained at Franklinford with Parker, farming the land, erecting dwellings and selling their produce to the nearest diggings about 2 miles away.

Resettlement

An investigation into the conditions at Franklinford in February 1864 by Coranderrk superintendent John Green and Guardian of the Aborigines William Thomas

William Thomas (Australian settler)

William Thomas represented Aboriginal people in various roles in the Port Phillip district during his lifetime.-Various official roles:...

found the protectorate school unfit for instruction and that the farms had all been abandoned. Green recommended closure of the school and removal of the children to Coranderrk, with Thomas agreeing to the move but opposing the breaking up of the Protectorate Station. Thomas was supported by Parker in this.

Dja Dja Wurrung people at Franklinford were forced to re-settle at Coranderrk

Coranderrk

station on the land of 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...

. There were 31 adults and 7 children reported belonging to the Dja Dja Wurrung at this time.

Thomas Dunolly

Thomas Dunolly

Thomas Dunolly was an early Indigenous Australian rights activist. He was a member of the Dja Dja Wurrung people.Dunolly attended the Aboriginal school at Franklinford before being forcibly resettled at Coranderrk Reserve in 1864....

, a Dja Dja Wurrung child when he was forcibly resettled at Coranderrk Reserve, went on to play an important part in the first organised protest by aborigines to save Coranderrk in the 1880s. Caleb and Anna Morgan, descendants of Caroline Malcolm who resettled at Coranderrk, were active members of the Australian Aborigines League founded by William Cooper in 1933-34.

On 26 May 2004 Aunty Susan Rankin

Susan Charles Rankin

Susan Charles Rankin , also known as Aunty Sue Rankin, is an Australian indigenous rights and human rights activist and elder of the Dja Dja Wurrung people of the Kulin nation from Central Victoria, Australia...

, a Dja Dja Wurrung elder peacefully reoccupied crown land at Franklinford in central Victoria, calling her campsite the Going Home Camp. Rankin asked the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment to produce documents proving that the Crown has the right to occupy these lands. According to the 2 June 2004 Daylesford Advocate, local DSE officers admitted they "cannot produce these documents and doubt that such documents exist".

The Jaara baby

Main article - Jaara baby
Jaara baby
The Jaara baby was an Aboriginal Australian child who died at some stage during the 1840s to 1860s. The child's remains were discovered in 1904, and kept in storage by Museum Victoria for ninety-nine years, until in 2003 they were repatriated to the Dja Dja Wurrung community...

The Jaara baby

Jaara baby

The Jaara baby was an Aboriginal Australian child who died at some stage during the 1840s to 1860s. The child's remains were discovered in 1904, and kept in storage by Museum Victoria for ninety-nine years, until in 2003 they were repatriated to the Dja Dja Wurrung community...

was an Aboriginal Australian child who died at some stage during the 1840s to 1860s. The child's remains were discovered in 1904, and kept in storage by Museum Victoria

Museum Victoria

Museum Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; these are: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facility in Melbourne's City of Moreland.Museum...

for ninety-nine years, until in 2003 they were repatriated to the Dja Dja Wurrung community. The remains were of particular significance because they were found traditionally wrapped in possum skins along with about 130 other artifacts of both European and Aboriginal origin.

Structure, Borders and Land Use

Communities consisted of 16 land-owning groups called clans that spoke a related language and were connected through cultural and mutual interests, totems, trading initiatives and marriage ties. Access to land and resources by other clans, 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 tresspassers. Today, traditional clan locations, language groups and borders are no longer in use and descendants of Dja Dja Wurrung people live within modern day society, although still preserving much of their culture.

Clans

Prior to European settlement, 16 separate clans existed, each with a clan headman.

No	Clan Name	Approximate Location
1	Bial balug	Bealiba
2	Burung balug	Natte Yallock
3	Bulangurd gundidj	Mount Bolangum
4	Cattos run clan	Bridgewater
5	Galgal balug	Burnbank and Mount Mitchell
6	Djadja wurrung balug	unknown
7	Galgal gundidj	northwest of Kyneton
8	Gunangara gundidj	Larrnebarramul, near Mount Franklin
9	Larnin gundidj	Richardson River
10	Liarga balug	Mount Tarrengower and Maldon
11	Munal gundidj	Daylesford
12	Dirag balug	Avoca
13	Durid balug	Mount Moorokyle and Smeaton
14	Wurn balug	between Carisbrook and Daisy Hill
15	Wungaragira gundidj	upper Avoca River and near St Arnaud
16	Yung balug	Mount Buckrabanyule

Territory

The Dja Dja Wurrung territory extended from Mount Franklin and the towns of Creswick and Daylesford in the southeast to Castlemaine, Maldon and Bendigo in the east, Boort in the north, Donald in the northwest, to Navarre Hill and Mount Avoca marking the south west boundary. Their territory encompassed the Bendigo and Clunes goldfields. They were called by white settlers the Loddon River Tribe as the Loddon and Avoca river watersheds were most of their territory.

Diplomacy

When foreign people passed through or were invited onto Dja Dja Wurrung lands, the ceremony of Tanderrum

Tanderrum

A tanderrum is a ceremony enacted by the nations of the Kulin people and other Victorian aboriginal nations allowing safe passage and temporary access and use of land and resources by foreign people...

- 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.

External links

The Loddon Aboriginals - A brief history researched and written by Norm Darwin, 1999.
Australian Aboriginal Online Maps - A collection of community contributed & researched locations, plants, sites.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Munangabum

Rape and Frontier Sexual Interaction

Massacres

Loddon Aboriginal Protectorate Station at Franklinford

Impact of Disease

Victorian Gold Rush

Resettlement

The Jaara baby

Structure, Borders and Land Use

Clans

Territory

Diplomacy

See also

External links