Sandy Point Traditional Owners

We acknowledge the Brataualung people of the Gunaikurnai Nation as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of this land, and pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

 

The Brataualung people are one of the five clans that make up the Gunaikurnai, the Traditional Owners of our Country, as determined by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council under the Aboriginal Heritage Act, 2006. The Gunaikurnai people are recognised by the Federal Court and the State of Victoria as the Traditional Owners of a large area of Gippsland spanning from Warragul in the west to the Snowy River in the east, and from the Great Divide in the north to the coast in the south, approx. 10% of the state.

Brataualung people in South Gippsland. From Cape Liptrap and Tarwin Meadows, east to the mouth of Merriman Creek; inland to near Mirboo; at Port Albert and Wilsons Promontory.

This map shows the Traditional areas of the five Gunaikurnai clans as approximated by A.W.Howitt in the 1880’s.

The Sandy Point story

For many thousands of years, the Indigenous peoples of South Gippsland moved across this area, fishing the inlets, hunting on the coastal plains and gathering seasonally abundant food. In the early 19th Century, this traditional way of life was interrupted by the appearance of sealers and whalers along the coastline. Their arrival led to conflict as the First Peoples defended their land and waters from the invaders, resulting in skirmishes that killed a substantial number of Indigenous people.

The resulting dispossession, and the impact of diseases introduced by white colonisers, impacted their lives greatly. By the 1860s, the remaining Indigenous population was forcibly moved from South Gippsland to Ramahyuck Mission Station, near Lake Wellington, where they were forbidden to speak in language or practise their cultural lore. They were later transferred to the Lake Tyers Mission Station, which was closed in 1970.