Information on this page was researched by Mavis Clements in 2020. Mavis was a students at MPPS in 1948 and 1949. She would like to
acknowledge and give thanks to the research and material made available by Keith Vincent Smith. See the Bibliography below for more details.
Lifestyle
There is no written material directly from the Wallumedegal people. Their language was spoken, sung, or danced, carved in sandstone, but not written. All information has been written firstly by Europeans who arrived to settle in Sydney Cove in January 1788 under Captain Arthur Phillip who was the first governor. Most of the knowledge gained was through actual contact and relayed in letters back to England from the early colony.
Captain Arthur Phillip met Bennelong very soon in the Sydney Cove area and found that he was very amusing with his mimicry, and clever in that they each gradually exchanged information through gesture and language.
The traditional owners who lived and moved along the northern shore of the Parramatta river, from the Lane Cove river until the area near Parramatta were Wallumedegal and their area called Wallumetta. This word derived from the name of the snapper fish, the wallumai, and the place name metta or matta, usually a place beside water. It is also thought to be their totem. These clans or family groups all spoke the same language we now call “Eora”. The neighbouring people to the west spoke the Darug language.
Territory from Sydney Cove to Parramatta on the north side of the river belonging to the Wallumedegal clans and called Wallumetta, spread from Gladesville, through Ryde, Ermington and Rydalmere. Much of their whole area was forested with tall trees and bush and grasses, and some low-lying, perhaps even swampy land. Some parts of the shore were of rocky sandstone. The land had provided food for the Aboriginal people for thousands of years, especially fish and shellfish from the river caught by the men using spears with forked prongs standing in their bark canoes. The fish were plentiful and included snapper, red bream, flathead, black fish, mullet and garfish. Some were seen to have fires in their canoes so they could cook and eat the fish while very fresh. They also speared kangaroos. The women also fished, found berries, dug for yams, and ground the seeds from grasses. Women fished with hand lines from their canoes. They had young children with them and often sang and laughed. A shell midden was later found near the Ryde Bridge at Shepherds Bay and rock carvings at Glades Bay. The clans moved to follow the natural cycles of seasons to find foods to gather or hunt. This was also the reason for not having permanent dwellings. The aborigines followed a disciplined lifestyle and culture, living in harmony with their environment which supplied all their food.
Mosquitos and sandflies were pests, and their bites were prevented by putting fish oil all over their bodies. They held celebrations, rituals, and ceremonies, and at those special times their numbers were very large.
Friendly Encounters
All this was observed during early exploration up the river to find suitable land to grow crops for the hungry colony at Sydney Cove. Bennelong was with the first boatload of white men on 5th February, 1788, who explored up the river, taking him beyond his own area. Captain John Hunter and Lieutenant John Bradley wrote about this journey in their diaries. A second expedition going further was on February 15, 1788, and they called the river, “the Thames of the Antipodes”.
Very much later names such as Greenwich, Putney, Woolwich and Henley from the Thames in London, were used to name suburbs along the river.
The Beginning of Conflict
Captain Phillip, the Governor- in- Chief, ordered the clearing of forests to be used for wheat farming at Rosehill. Already around Sydney Cove the aborigines were being displaced from their lands. They did not understand the concept of possession of land of these white people who appeared to have come to stay. Again, at Rosehill by November 1788 when a military post was established at Rose Hill, the family of Maugoran, an elder of the Burramattagal people, lost their land and moved to the Wallumedigal territory at Kissing Point, Ryde.
In 1789-1790 many Aboriginal people caught smallpox. Surgeon John White nursed several, including Nanbarry, a young boy who died, but the young girl Boorong was saved, and was placed in the care of Chaplain Richard Johnson and his wife Mary. In 1791 Ballooderry and Nanbarry’s uncle Colebee were guides on an expedition to the Hawkesbury River. Ballooderry lived for some months at the Governor’s house. By the end of 1791 Ballooderry died and Bennelong organised his funeral.
Aboriginal people were again displaced in 1792 when eight former marines were awarded land on January 3 in the area they first called the Eastern Boundary, later the Eastern Farms, also the Field of Mars, Kissing Point and Ryde, on the north shore of the Paramatta River. Not only did this disturb and disrupt the traditional lifestyle of the Wallumegadal people, but also spread the smallpox disease which killed many people. Further west past Meadowbank the area was called “The Flats” on both shores of the river, and especially a large swampy area around the present- day Homebush Bay area on the south shore.
The eight former Marines, with convict assistance, cleared the timber then planted crops of wheat, corn and barley. Unfortunately, this settlement led to conflict and in May 1797 after a raid by aborigines to steal corn, a settler’s house and belongings were burned and the following day soldiers fired on “a large body of natives”. Some of the Aboriginal attacks around Kissing Point were organised and led by a warrior, Pemulwy, named in European records. After he was killed in 1802, some of the resistance lessened. Between 1802 and 1805 there were many episodes of stealing and killings by the soldiers. However, aborigines were still keen to fish from the river at Meadowbank in 1814.
Aborigines associated with the Ryde area
There are three names of “chiefs” or elders. Bidgee Bidgee in 1821, 1822-1825 “King Billy” whose son was “Jacky” and lastly “King Harry”. An official engraved brass or copper plate was given by the Governor to an Aboriginal man (mostly) who had shown leadership qualities. It was worn around the neck with pride. Aboriginal people themselves did not have a king, elders both men and women collectively made the important decisions. There is some question that these three may have been the same person! “Billy” and “Jacky” seemed to be names often used on these plates.
Woollarawarre Bennelong (1764-1821)
Bennelong, born about 1764, was a Wangal man, from the Concord area, and first came to the notice of Governor Phillip when he was captured at Manly Cove on November 25, 1789. He lived as a “guest” with the Governor at his house till May 1790 enjoying European food, liquor and clothing. He left but returned willingly several months later. He had taught the Governor some of his language and had learned English. He was given his own brick house on Bennelong Point. He was known to be personable, a great mimic, intelligent, quick-tempered, and a comedian.
In December 1792 he and his young kinsman Yemmerrawanne were taken with the Governor to England on board the convict transport HMS Atlantic via Cape Horn. They stopped in Rio de Janeiro before sailing on to England. In London he was introduced to King George 111, later living in Kent where Yemmerrawanne died on May 18,1794 aged nineteen. Bennelong arrived back in Sydney Cove on board the Reliance on September 7,1795 but by his return his general health and personality had become greatly affected by alcohol.
Bennelong left the area of the Sydney settlement and lived with his kinsmen, but sometime after 1803 “he re-established his authority as leader of a 100-strong Aboriginal group on the Parramatta River west of Ryde.” There was evidence he was considered a leader of the Wallumetta clan. He and Nanbarry(ee) lived and worked with James Squires at his brewery at Kissing Point where he died on January 2,1813. In his grave also lie the bodies of his third wife Boorong in 1813, and Nanbarry, who died on August 12,1821.
A memorial Plaque commemorating Bennelong’s burial site was erected by the Australian Bicentennial Authority 1988 on a concrete plinth in Cleves Park, Putney.
Nanbarry or Nanbaree (1780-1821)
Nanbarry at the age of nine in 1789 was first noticed in the colony by Captain Watkin Tench when he was suffering from smallpox which had killed both parents. He was a nephew of the Cadigal leader Colebee, and they first met when Colebee and Bennelong returned to Sydney Cove after being captured at Manly Cove. Nanbarry was treated by Surgeon John White and recovered from his smallpox. He was a playmate of Boorong and enjoyed swimming with her. The surgeon adopted him and gave him the name of Andrew Sneap Hamond Douglass White. Along with other young Aboriginal men he was initiated at Farm Cove by having a front tooth knocked out. He also lived for a time in the Governor’s house where he learned English, so was often able to warn others if soldiers were looking for them.
On October 30,1799, Nanbarry and Bundle sailed from Sydney to Norfolk Island on board the Reliance captained by Henry Waterhouse. In 1802 he set sail on board the Investigator with Matthew Flinders and Bungaree but returned from the Great Barrier Reef on board the Lady Nelson.
Nanbarry died at Kissing Point on August 12 1821 and was buried in the same grave as Bennelong on Squire’s property.
Bundle or Bundell (1781-1844)
Bundle was the first young Aboriginal to venture off to sea on board the brig, Supply, on March 22 in 1791 with Captain William Hill to Norfolk Island. He returned the same year in September on the transport Mary Ann. In 1810 he assisted James Squire, who was a district constable in the Kissing Point area to track some armed robbers. In 1816 he went as a tracker with Bidgee Bidgee and Harry on a punitive expedition to the Appin area.
Harry (1789-1840)
Harry was a brother–in-law of Bennelong and the second husband of his sister Carangarang. His contemporary was Bidgee Bidgee. Harry had learned to read and write English by the Reverend Samuel Marsden at Parramatta with whom he had lived. He was courteous, well-mannered and intelligent. He was awarded a breastplate engraved Harry 1816. Harry and Bidgee Bidgee had worked with soldiers to find Aboriginal people in the Appin area who had been hostile to white settlers. By 1828 he was known as the “Chief of Parramatta”. He had outlived Bidgee Bidgee and may have succeeded him as the “King of Kissing Point”.
Image: Bennelong, a senior Wanegal man of the Eora peoples.
Portrait by James Neagle, 1798.
Barangaroo (1770?-1791)
Barangaroo was the second wife of Bennelong and a Cammeraygal woman. She was a determined and persuasive woman, a hunter and provider, and a good fisherwoman. She had knowledge of laws and rituals and inspired many others and refused to dress in white settlers’ clothes. She survived smallpox. Barangaroo died in 1791 shortly after giving birth to Bennelong’s child. After a traditional cremation ceremony with her fishing gear, Bennelong spread his wife’s ashes in Governor Phillip’s garden, the present-day Circular Quay.
Boorong or Arabaroo (1770s - 1813)
Boorong was a daughter of Maugoran, a Burrumattagal elder, born in the 1770’s. She caught smallpox in 1789 but survived and went to live with Rev Richard and Mrs Mary Johnson as a child. She learned to read and was introduced to Christianity, but later preferred to live with her own people. By 1797 Boorong was married to Bennelong. Boorong and Bennelong lived together with perhaps 100 other Aboriginal people on the north side of the Parramatta River. She had been a negotiator in interactions between the new settlers and the aboriginal people. She died around 1813.
Bidgee Bidgee (1786-1837)
Bidgee Bidgee was the son of Maugoran and his second wife Tadyera. When he was five years old he attended the funeral of his step-brother Ballooderry in the grounds of Government House. He was a brother-in-law of Bennelong. He too was a clever mimic and learned to speak good English. In the early 1800’s Bidgee Bidgee, Bundle and several other Aboriginal men forsook their small river canoes to sail on sealing and whaling voyages to Bass Strait.
Bidgee Bidgee was a tracker in 1816 for an expedition to quell attacks on the new settlers. He succeeded Bennelong as clan leader and was regarded as the Chief of the Kissing Point tribe in 1816. Governor Macquarie invested him with a brass breastplate, or gorget, engraved with his name and title, and a fishing boat. He lived in the Ryde area for another twenty years. In 1817 Bidgee Bidgee and his wife Sally, a relative of Bundle, and others from Kissing Point attended a corroboree at Elizabeth Bay.
On January 12, 1836 when the Reverend Samuel Marsden wrote in a letter, “ I am very apprehensive very little can be done for Aborigines from Sydney to Parramatta all along the north side of the river, there is but one original Native; the rest are all dead; tho’ they were very numerous in these districts.” He was probably referring to Bidgee Bidgee. In 1834 a number of Aboriginal people were recorded by name on the Return of Aboriginal Natives taken at Parramatta on June 23, 1834, a kind of Census also showing they had received blankets. On this census those named from Kissing Point were Bidgee Bidgee, Puchamori, Benning and Woromat.
It is known that a family were seeking food rations and blankets in December 1900 from minutes of The Aborigines Protection Board.
There is a Bidgee Road in Ryde and a Bidgee Park named after him.
Bibliography.
“Wallumetta - A history of Ryde and its District 1792-1945” by M.C.I. Levy and printed in 1947.
“Wallumedegal - An Aboriginal History of Ryde” by Keith Vincent Smith, published in 2005.
Aboriginal History – Wallumedegal - abstract-Ryde library- by Keith Vincent Smith
Pictorial History RYDE by Megan Martin, published in 1998
*Dictionary of Sydney: Barangaroo and the Eora Fisherwomen by Grace Karskens 2014
*Dictionary of Sydney: Woollarawarre Bennelong by Keith Vincent Smith 2013
*Dictionary of Sydney: Bungaree by Keith Vincent Smith 2011
*Dictionary of Sydney: Nanbarry by Keith Vincent Smith 2010
*Dictionary of Sydney: Corrangie/Harry by Keith Vincent Smith 2017
*Dictionary of Sydney: Sally Bundil by Keith Vincent Smith 2020
*The Dictionary of Sydney archived in 2021.
Mavis Clements (nee Brackenbury) pictured near the Aboriginal wall which was established in the school in 2020.
