First Peoples of the Ngurai Illum Wurrung

We are the first People of the Ngurai Illum Wurrung of the Kulin Nations

Our people have existed since the beginning time. Our peoples are the oldest living culture on this planet. We were created through the celestial beings who appointed the spirit creator ‘Bunjil’ the Eaglehawk Wedge tailed eagle 🦅 to govern over our lands and care for our people. For thousands of years our people kept the traditions of lore, language, ceremony, knowledge of plant use for bush tucker and medicine, Spiritual healing and Ceremonial practice, land management of land, animals and water, and the practice of astronomical navigation, ‘way finding’ we believe this knowledge was given to us by our spirit creator from the time of creation and this knowledge had been passed down through the generations of ancestors for 100s of 1000s of years.

Today we are survived by our Clans, the unique clans of the Ngurai Illum Wurrung, with our own unique language and our own geographical landscape. Our language and land forms part of the Kulin Nations, a Victorian First Nations Language groups.

Today we come together as the families Clans of our ancestors to rebuild and restore the effects of colonisation, to restore our land, our language and our genealogical footprint. Over the years and countless working hours sorting through historical documents found in the collections at the National library, the State library, the National museum, the ‘Bunjilaka museum’ the First Nations museum location at the Melbourne museum , the Murchison historic society at Murchison and the many book written of the records and recollections of the protectorates and historians both of the time and of our modern day. These valuable resources along with our own people photographs, historic accounts and oral stories through the generations, pathed the way to find family, and to map family connection to our ancestors, and to our ancestors clans and tribal lands. This work along side the likes of Sandra Smith and the late Mick Woiwood and to the countless Elders of Victorian family clans have brought the many families and descendants of the Ngurai Illum Wurrung together.

We come together to explore and showcase our culture though the creative and preforming arts, the art of dance and ceremony, painting, artefacts and the use of natural materials. The recreation of the Eastern Australian possum skin cloaks, the cloaks that tell our life stories. To rebuild and restore our connections to our lands, water and animals through a historic and contemporary modern day cultural lense.
The presentation of our Welcomes to Country, our presentations of our accounts and stories woven in with the colonial records and stories of colonial Victoria.

We are the holder and the experts of our living culture, our oral histories, the story tellers of our dreaming past and present and yet to come. We are the clans people of our continuous living culture, we are the descendants of the Ngurai Illum Wurrung.