Dharug

Dharug people
aka Darug, Dharruk, Dharrook, Darrook, Dharung, Broken Bay tribe[1]
Sydney Basin bioregion
Hierarchy
Language family	Pama–Nyungan
Language branch:	Yuin–Kuric
Language group:	Dharug
Group dialects:	Inland Dharug & Coastal Dharug
Area (approx. 6,000 sq. km)
Bioregion:	Cumberland Plain, Sydney basin
Location:	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Coordinates:	33°35′S 150°35′E / 33.583°S 150.583°E / -33.583; 150.583[1]
Mountains:	Blue Mountains
Rivers:	Cooks, Georges, Hawkesbury, Lane Cove, Nepean, Parramatta
Notable individuals
Pemulwuy
Anthony Fernando

The Dharug or Darug people, are an Aboriginal Australian people, who share strong ties of kinship and, in pre-colonial times, lived as skilled hunters in family groups or clans, scattered throughout all of modern-day Sydney. The descendants of the Dharug people continue to revitalise their traditional link to the areas they have had a continuing and ongoing connection to in Sydney. Their lands stand as probably the only area in Australia where the traditional custodians have been excluded from the ongoing management of the land and cultural connections of their place.

The Dharug were the indigenous Australians who first met the full force of the European invasion and as such were ruthlessly attacked and vilified by many, but not all, of the British colonists. They were not entirely eradicated.

Most of the Dharug were either wiped out by the introduction of exotic diseases, such as smallpox, murdered in massacres or forced into integrated marriage with early colonists, where males transported primarily as convicts vastly outnumbered the females transported to Australia. That is primarily why descendants of the Dharug in Australia are fair skinned people who do not adhere to the racist narrative of the dark skinned people being the only genuine aboriginal people in the Sydney region. The greater likelihood is that any dark skinned people claiming to be connected with the Sydney region, are from traditional country well outside of the Sydney area. (See “Eora”).

The Dharug are bounded by the Awabakal to the north of Broken Bay, the Darkinjung to the northwest, the Wiradjuri to the west on the western fringe of the Blue Mountains, the Gandangara to the southwest in the Southern Highlands, and the Tharawal to the southeast in the Illawarra area.