Who are the Wiradjuri?

The Wiradjuri are a group of Aboriginal Australians who are from an area in the center of what is now New South Wales. The term Wiradjuri refers to the larger group of people who share similar language and beliefs. All Wiradjuri people share a spatial area and language and this is what makes them unique “for the Wiradjuri, language served as a spatial/territorial differentiator” (Macdonald 2011: 68).

The social life and organization of the Wiradjuri people is made up of moieties that divide people into social categories however now sections within moieties have also been added as a way to organize people. Where the more totemic moieties had been to regulate marriages, “the sections had been introduced to facilitate the regionalised ceremonial life” (Macdonald 2011: 69).

Spiritual beliefs often also linked Wiradjuri people and brought them together with beliefs in similar spiritual entities and celebrations. There are strong ties and bonds between groups of Wiradjuri people. “Wiradjuri people joined with kin in other language-territories for ceremonies, often involving over a thousand people” giving great bonds between these people leading to closer kinship ties as well as greater cultural and spiritual ties (Macdonald 2011: 70). Kinship ties within the Wiradjuri are complex and strict. There are implications for not sticking to kinship rules or being involved in culture and practices. Even if someone is biologically Wiradjuri but they don’t live with other Wiradjuri people or do Wiradjuri traditions they still might not be accepted into the group with the same rights as some who lives in Wiradjuri country (the land where a group of Aboriginal people live). Because “filiation focuses on the immediacy and intimacy of one’s social and spatial experience of country and kin” not solely on ancestral ties (Macdonald 2011: 75) it is harder for people with Wiradjuri heritage to be accepted into the group.

The resistance to outside intrusion, whether that be from other Wiradjuri people or from aggressive intruders, could be a result of a societal resistance to other, possibly aggressive, Aboriginal groups that stems thousands of years or because of initial encounters with colonizers.

First Encounters With Colonizers

In the early 1800’s European colonizers were expanding out of Sydney Harbor and into inland Australia. Because of the well developed trade routes that helped spread information between Aboriginal groups the Wiradjuri were “forewarned of invasion” and were prepared to meet the colonists when they arrived (Broome 2020: 36).

First encounters were peaceful as the Wiradjuri were cautious but not aggressive as the Wiradjuri and Colonists inspected each other. At first it was travelers and explorers simply passing by and scoping out the land and no harm was done to either side. Eventually as more Europeans arrived in Australia and began to expand “the lands of the western plains were soon invaded by graziers looking for pastures for their sheep” the Wiradjuri became worried (Hannah et.al 2007: 183). The Europeans set up military camps, civilians set up ranches and homes, and farming and hunting began to happen in the area around the 1830’s. This farming of resources and creation of permanent settlements was very strange to the Wiradjuri. Not only was it taking up their land and disturbing their lifestyle the Colonists were hunting away the kangaroo and possum as well as chopping down trees and digging up land. This frustrated the Wiradjuri and made it hard for them to survive off the land that the Colonists were taking. With little food to find out in the wild “the Wiradjuri were forced to kill settler livestock for food.” (Hannah et.al 2007: 183). The colonists were furious with the Wiradjuri that they were killing their livestock and stealing their food that they started to imprison those who would steal.

Of those people one of them was Windradyne, an adult Wiradjuri man. Tensions rose between the settlers and the Wiradjuri with violence rising and killings becoming more and more common. After Windradyne’s release “he witnessed members of his family murdered by whites” and became angry with colonists (Hannah et.al 2007: 183). He, like many Aboriginal people at the time, decided to retaliate against the colonists for killing his family. He took a different approach however and decided to form a group of Wiradjuri fighters that would stage guerilla warfare against the white settlers.