When Joseph Townsend from England visited the Ulladulla District during 1842 - 1846, he wrote of his travels. Joseph stayed at the Settlement (now Milton) describing the clearing and burning of land, farming methods with the problems of bush fires, snakes and locusts (cicada) and the life styles and customs of the Aboriginal of both Ulladulla and Lake Burrill. He imagined the numbers of aborigines on the coastline between Jervis Bay and the River Moruya, to be about four hundred. (1)

Dhurga (Aboriginal) is the Aboriginal language spoken from Jervis Bay area to Wallaga Lake. Whilst Yuin is the name referred to for the Aboriginal Tribal group occupying the coastal area between Jervis Bay and Twofold Bay.

When a child was born among the Yuin, its father pointed out some hills, lakes, or rivers to the men and women there present as being the bounds of his child's country, being that where his father lived, or where he himself was born and had lived. It was just the same with a girl, who had her mother's country, and also that in which she was born. Besides this the father took the country where his child was born, if away from his own locality, and the mother took that where her daughter was born under similar circumstances. (2)

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The Budawang tribe were the first indigenous Australians to be sighted by Captain Cook in 1770, on Koorbrua beach at Murramarang. The tribal area of Budawang is from Conjola in the north, Lake George in the West and the Moruya (Deua) River in the south. The defining of exact tribal grounds can be quite complex. The Walbanga clan are part of the Yuin Tribal Group: Their territory on the coast extending from about Narooma in the south, to Lake Burrill in the north. Their hinterland included the valley of Turross, Moruya and Clyde rivers, and the source and upper valley of the Shoalhaven river. (3)

References:
1. There is a whole chapter on the local Aboriginal lifestyles and customs in Joseph Townsend, Rambles and Observations in NSW, Chapman and Hall, London, 1849, pp. 87 - 121.
2. A. W Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, Macmillan and Co., 1904, p. 83
3. Netta Ellis, Braidwood Dear Braidwood: A History of the Braidwood District, N.N Ellis and N.M Ellis, Braidwood, 1989, pp. 11- 12.

Budawang Aboriginal

© Cathy Dunn 2000