The forgotten Dja Dja Wurrung queen

As a proud Dja Dja Wurrung man and historian, I am fascinated by the history of my Aboriginal ancestors. The result of colonisation is that so much, if not almost all, of our history before the 1830s was lost forever.

The Dja Dja Wurrung

Dja Dja Wurrung Country lies in north-central Victoria, centred on the catchment of the north-flowing Loddon River (polydul). The Djaara (the people of the combined Dja Dja Wurrung country) were likely made up of between 14 and 24 original clans. The Djaara were first inundated and decimated by disease in such a thorough way that no certainty remains about how many lives were lost. The Dja Dja Wurrung is believed to have once totalled several thousand men, women and children, but was reduced by the 1850s to dozens in small multi-clan bands.

Each clan originally moved largely within its own territory between winter and summer camps, while the economy of the Djaara was interdependent, as each clan specialised in the procurement and making of certain items, such as stone axes and fighting boomerangs.

The Dja Dja Wurrung were among the First Nations farmers, as they cultivated and encouraged the edible native grassland and woodland plants (myrnong, cumbungi and nardoo), which grew in abundance throughout the Loddon catchment area, particularly by careful, systematic burning; these plants attracted kangaroo and emu, which were important sources of meat. They were also cultivators, according to ‘An Old Identity’ writing in 1883, not merely hunters and gatherers.