Below are four different accounts of contact between Aborigines and early settlers in the Goulburn District, each with it's own perspective and assumptions about the way history 'unfolded'.

From Lilac City, The Story of Goulburn, NSW, by W Bayley, 1954

The settlement was strangely free from trouble with the Aborigines, of whom few records remain. There appear to have been several tribes in the district, including the Wollondilly, Mulwaree, Tarlo and Burra Burra tribes, but their numbers were small. Governor Macquarie's party saw some blacks the night he camped near the Mulwaree, noting that they slept by a fire through a violent rain storm. It appears that, during the cooler seasons, they migrated to warmer climates on the Lachlan or on the coast. Aborigines were known to move about rapidly. They had their chiefs, who in the early days wore brass plates customarily presented by white men. They fell to white men's diseases and gradually died out until today no local aborigines remain.

Editor's Note:

This extract is interesting in comparison with current accounts of Aboriginal settlement, especially in regard to the way it clears the ground, so to speak, before undertaking the civic history, in spite of the fact that phrases like "white man's diseases" and the references to "brass plates" indicate some kind of ongoing contact -viral, agricultural (ie. land seizure), etc.]

From Goulburn Heritage Study, 1981:

Little evidence survives of Aboriginal presence in the Goulburn area and no specific work or research has been undertaken on Aboriginal sites. There were indications of limited numbers of Aborigines in area. Early explorers made few recordings of contact although several 'native fires' were sighted. Number of reasons for lack of contact including limited occupation of area, shyness, safety and mobility. The limited Aboriginal community was rapidly displaced and reduced by the arrival of the Europeans and the subsequent impacts in terms of land alienated and transmitted diseases. By the 1840's the earlier nomadic lifestyle had changed and Aborigines were generally camped near settler's homes. The influenza epidemic of 1846/47 was particularly severe and further accelerated the disappearance of the remaining Aborigines. In 1848, the Goulburn Bench of Magistrates estimated the number of Aborigines in Goulburn to be 25 and others claimed a maximum.

By the mid 1860's the Aboriginal population had virtually disappeared from the region. This followed a smallpox epidemic in 1830, as well as 'flu and a measles outbreak in the '60's. In 1856 the 'Canberra Tribe (Ngunwal) numbered about 70, but by 1873 there was only one surviving Ngunwal 'Queen' Nellie Hamilton, who died in Queanbeyan about 1897.

Some 25 surface sites close to the city have been recorded by the National Parks and Wildlife service mainly as the result of systematic archaeological survey.

Editor's Note:

The NPWS advises that a lot more work has been done on the area.

Contact: Bill Elwood.

From Grand Goulburn, 1991

Doubtful whether district area was ever numerously populated by Aborigines. Tool quarries exist where axes were shaped and made. The hard basalt stone found in the district constituted one of the highlights of barter with the tribes in other territories, who were not possessed of such an essential commodity.

Around Goulburn are a number of undocumented sites of Aboriginal occupation chiefly from the observations of a few of the more observant settlers. This in no way denotes that they were permanent sites for the gathering of ritual corroborees or inter-tribal meets. [Editor's note: Tazewell seems very insistent on the question of Aboriginal nomadism. Is there a contemporary sensitivity to the issue of a possible native title claim?]

Recorded gatherings in the city area denote at different times a large corroboree on the Wollondilly about the site of the old railway quarry, on the site of Rocky Hill about the site of the East Goulburn Church of England, and on Mulwaree Flats near the present bridge at the brewery. In regard to the local though variable Aborigine population, Chas MacAlister states that the blacks outnumber the white spectators at least ten to one at the first Goulburn Races in 1839.

The natives in the immediate area appear to have been rather friendly and came into close proximity with the whites. This proved to be detrimental to them, since in 1846/47 there occurred the great influenza epidemic against which the Aborigine was most susceptible. So drastic was their plight that they were practically eradicated. The bench of Magistrates in 1848 estimated the local population as only 25, so one can see that even this early , the aborigines were almost wiped out. Little is known of the names of the local aborigines. The local chief of that time is known due to his fine physique, resulting in his measurements and particulars attracting the attention of Dr Waugh who recorded that the chief Yarriginny was such a perfect man that he doubted a more perfect speciman (sic) could be found in all the British Army. Two trackers, Jimmy Hamilton and Burra Burra Jimmy, of our Gandangara tribe, assisted in the tracking of Jacky Jacky (Westwood, the Bushranger) in Tasmania in 1844.

From the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia

"People of the Southeast region from the Nepean River to about Lake George, neighbours of the Dharug, Tharawal, Yuin, Ngunawal and Wiradjuri peoples. Surveyor-General and later explorer T.L. Mitchell met the Gandangara near Mittagong, NSW, in 1828 while he was supervising road construction. Unusually for him, Mitchell seems to have liked them, perhaps because by this time there were so few remaining that even Mitchell could not see them as a threat. They had composed a cheeky song about the building of the road (no doubt with appropriate mimicry): 'Road goes creaking long shoes, Road goes uncle and brother white man see.' Building a road just to visit kin seemed unnecessary effort.

Mitchell thought the same of the circuitous route he was taken by another Gandarangara man which, far from taking him to base camp as expected, returned him to the fire he had left nearly three hours before. Mitchell's anger was defused by his guide jumping and capering, crying out , "Me got him! Me got him!" "Got what?" "Budgery pipe, or murry bugerie pope!", and shewing at the same time a little black filthy pipe about three inches long - for which, when the black found he had left it behind, he brought Mitchell and his men all the way back by a different route. "Now", said the black, "Me make map and you go tent directly".

From The Darug and their Neighbours, James Kohen

The Gandangara believed in animal-people who lived in the dreaming and were known as the burringilling . They lived in clouds, mountains, dense scrub, trees or water holes. Some could change the shape of their body, disappear underground, or change the landscape. Sometimes they had magical weapons or were helped by magical dogs.

Most important of the burringilling was Dharamulan. The mythological basis for the initiation is that when the novices were brought to the place where the initiation ceremony was carried out, they had rugs placed over their heads so that they could see nothing. Dharamulan caught a boy and hit him on the back of the head, which caused one of his front upper incisors to fall out. The tooth became gunnabillang, or rock crystal, a stone used in the initiation ceremonies.

Eventually, dharamulan went into different kinds of trees, where he lived except during the times when the initiation ceremonies occur. The piece of wood which is cut from a tree to make a bullroarer is sometimes called a dharamulan, because the noise it makes represents his voice.

In response to some attacks by Aborigines between 1814 and 1816, Governor Macquarie ordered out three punitive expeditions to capture and kill the Aborigines who had been involved. Although the military detachments had Darug guides, they failed to find any trace of the Gandangara people who were involved in the attacks. Eventually a party without Aboriginal guides surprised a camp near Appin early one morning while the Gandangara Aborigines were sleeping, and fourteen men, women and children were killed. The bodies of two Aborigines, Durelle and Kanabygal, were hung in the trees in order to terrify the survivors.

The important people of the Gandarangara and the Dharawal were wrapped in bark and placed in trees, often surrounded by carved trees. Other people were buried in the upright position.