Wergaia

The Wergaia or Werrigia people are an Aboriginal Australian group in the Mallee and Wimmera regions of north-Western Victoria, made up of a number of clans.

[4] Thomas Mitchell, exploring the territory over which the Wergaia dwelt, wrote in 1836: Every day we passed over land which for natural fertility and beauty could scarcely be surpassed; over streams of unfailing abundance and plains covered with the richest pasturage.

For the natives, it was rich in kumpung, the bulrush whose rhizomes formed the staple of their diet, as well as in lahoor, the yellow water lily, the dandelion yam and trefoil.

[13] According to information given by the Wudjubalug clan, the dreamtime creator, Bunjil the eaglehawk man, was assisted in fashioning the world by the BramBram Ngul brothers, dwellers in the Naracoorte caves,[14] who moulded men from a tree.

[21][22] It is likely that first contact with Europeans was through smallpox epidemics which arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 and rapidly spread through the trading networks of Indigenous Australians and killed many people in two waves before the 1830s.

It killed large numbers of people, and disfigured many more with pock-marked faces, and tribal elders said it came down the Murray River sent by malevolent sorcerers to the north.

His reports of the well-watered mallee country provided encouragement for the subsequent rush of settlers with their cattle and sheep eager to establish pastoral stations.

Ellerman lost track of the boy while he consigned his wool to Melbourne in 1850, and Willie, who was picked up and befriended by schoolboys, was adopted by the Reverend Lloyd Chase and later taken to Britain to be educated as a missionary to his people.

[28] Dick-a-Dick was a Wudjubalug tracker responsible for finding the three Duff children lost in the Australian bush for 9 days in 1864 which garnered national and even international attention.

Spieseke, who had been active at lake Boga for several years, established the Ebenezer Mission in 1859 in Wergaia country at a site called Banji bunag (variously spelled Bungo budnutt/Punyo Bunnutt),[29] close to where Willie's mother was killed, and a traditional meeting place and corroboree ground.

It was the first successful native title claim in south-eastern Australia and in Victoria, determined by Justice Ron Merkel involving Wudjubalug, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Wergaia and Jupagalk people.

[31] In his reasons for judgement Justice Merkel made special mention of Wudjubalug elder Uncle Jack Kennedy and explained the significance of his orders: The orders I propose to make are of special significance as they constitute the first recognition and protection of native title resulting in the ongoing enjoyment of native title in the State of Victoria and, it would appear, on the South-Eastern seaboard of Australia.

These are areas in which the Aboriginal peoples suffered severe and extensive dispossession, degradation and devastation as a consequence of the establishment of British sovereignty over their lands and waters during the 19th century.