During the 19th century, many Kurnai people resisted the incursions by early European squatters and subsequent settlers, resulting in a number of deadly confrontations, and massacres of the indigenous inhabitants.
He crossed the Tribal River (where Sale now stands) and walked on into the west to Tarra Warackel (Port Albert).
In Cloggs Cave, artifacts (sticks of Casuarina wood smeared with animal fat) of the type associated in the 19th century with GunaiKurnai death-magic rituals were found.
[3] The name of this Aboriginal nation has been alternatively written in such forms as Gunai, Kurnai, Gunnai, and Ganai.
Thus Aboriginal words and tribal names can have many alternative spellings, as the oral transmission from the Indigenous people may have been heard or recorded differently by various early European sources.
Various closely related dialects were spoken among the people of the region in pre-European times, although these have now been largely lost.
To the north, in the Australian Alps and around the upper Murray River, were a number of clans, including the Jaitmathang whose lands bordered the Brabawooloong south of Omeo.
Men, women and children are shot whenever they can be met with … I have protested against it at every station I have been in Gippsland, in the strongest language, but these things are kept very secret as the penalty would certainly be hanging … For myself, if I caught a black actually killing my sheep, I would shoot him with as little remorse as I would a wild dog, but no consideration on earth would induce me to ride into a camp and fire on them indiscriminately, as is the custom whenever the smoke is seen.
[citation needed]In 1863, Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer established Rahahyuck Mission on the banks of the Avon River, near Lake Wellington, to house the Gunaikurnai survivors from west and central Gippsland.
The Court recognised the Gunaikurnai as traditional owners, and found that they held native title over much of Gippsland.