Woiwurrung

The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, and Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance.

The Woiwurrung people's territory in Central Victoria extended from north of the Great Dividing Range, east to Mount Baw Baw, south to Mordialloc Creek and to Mount Macedon, Sunbury and Gisborne in the west. Their lands bordered the Gunai/Kurnai people to the east in Gippsland, the Boon wurrung people to the south on the Mornington Peninsula, and the Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung to the north.

Before colonisation, they lived predominantly as aquaculturists, swidden agriculturists (growing grasslands by fire-stick farming to create fenceless herbivore grazing,^[1] garden-farming murnong yam roots and various tuber lilies as major forms of starch and carbohydrates^[2]), and hunters and gatherers. Seasonal changes in the weather, availability of foods and other factors would determine where campsites were located, many near the Birrarung and its tributaries.

Each of the various Woiwurrung tribes had its own distinct territory and the boundaries were usually determined by waterways. The clans included:

• The Wurrundjeri-Willam, who occupied the Yarra River and its tributaries and inhabited the area now covered by the city of Melbourne. Initially referred to as the Yarra tribe by Europeans.
• The Marin-Bulluk
• The Kurung Jang Balluk
• The Wurundjeri Balluk
• The Balluk Willam
• The Gunung Willam Balluk
• The Talling Willam

The term Wurundjeri has become one of the common terms used today for descendants of all the Woiwurrung tribes, as they were forced together for the survival of their ethnic group. Their totems are Bundjil the eagle, and Waang the crow.