Background History of the Bunurong/Boonerwrung People in Frankston as at June 2011
Background History of the Bunurong/Boon wurrung People in Frankston
The traditional owners of land in and around Frankston are the Bunurong/ Boon wurrung people. The extent of Bunurong / Boon wurrung land varies between maps constructed by non-indigenous historians. Ian Clarke (1990) describes the Bunurong / Boon wurrung country as extending from the Werribee River to the Tarwin River and probably Wilson’s
Promontory.
The Bunurong / Boon wurrung are one of 30 tribes which occupied Victoria. The Bunurong /
Boon wurrung territory stretched from Werribee
Creek in Werribee, expanding north, as well as continuing east and south along the Mornington
Peninsula. It is estimated that the
Bunurong / Boon wurrung lived in the area from as far back as 40,000 years ago.
The Bunurong / Boon wurrung were hunter-gatherers, living on the natural produce existing in the area. Men hunted while women gathered plants. People ate local animals, plants, fish and shellfish. The Bunurong / Boon wurrung did not use boats, but fished from shallow waters using nets.
Life was seasonal, with the availability of different plants and animals varying throughout the year. Frankston foreshore and the Kananook Creek area provided ideal places to fish and hunt for seafood and salt water plants as well as fresh water fish and eels. The Kananook Creek also provided drinking water, encouraged animals to the area and nourished other plants and trees. Ingredients for medicine and painting, materials for clothing and implements for activities such as hunting and aids for carrying babies were found locally or traded with neighbouring tribes.
The specific Bunurong / Boon wurrung clan who lived in the area now known as Frankston

was the Yallacut Willem clan. Males were the head of the households. The tribes were divided into two main clans or moieties. Each moiety was linked to an ancestral spirit. The ancestral spirit of the Bunurong / Boon wurrung was, and still is, Bunjil (the eaglehawk).
Marriages were not permitted between people of the same moiety. As people married, the men accepted the responsibility of assisting the tribe of the women they married as part of the custom of reciprocity.
Family kinship is still a vital part of the social structure of many indigenous communities and one of the major reasons why indigenous culture has survived the European occupation of
Australia.
Occupation of the Port Phillip region in the early 19th century had a profound effect on
Aboriginal people in the area. By then, the population of the Bunurong / Boon wurrung in this location had fallen from 500 people to 83 people. Diseases brought in by Europeans accounted for 65% of the demise the Bunurong / Boon wurrung. Frontier violence (the conflict between the Aboriginal owners and the new settlers) was another major cause of death. Disruption of food sources by people and stock and the destruction of camping and meeting places all severely disrupted Aboriginal lifestyles and caused a disastrous decline in birth-rate. Many Bunurong / Boon wurrung women were kidnapped by European sealers and taken to Tasmania because of their ability to ‘call in’ seals — singing out to them, clapping their hands and diving in to attract them to the shore. The women usually stayed in Tasmania where they had children and continued to live in the Bunurong / Boon wurrung way.
Eventually, some managed to return. Children and grandchildren of these stolen women have also returned to the mainland, seeking recognition as Bunurong / Boon wurrung.
By 1863, there were only eleven known Bunurong / Boon wurrung people surviving. Jimmy
Dunbar, who died in 1877, is thought to have been the last full blood Bunurong / Boon wurrung.