History

Aboriginal history

Like most of greater Melbourne, Moonee Valley has a rich history of Indigenous life before the arrival of settlers, convicts and the establishment of government.

The Wurundjeri people are the traditional owners of the land. They relied on the Maribyrnong River, Moonee Ponds Creek and Steele Creek for fishing, transport and food. Other places of historical significance include Queens Park, which was the first stopover in Burke and Wills’ 1860 expedition.

The Indigenous Australians who lived in the area from Healesville to Kilmore and from Dandenong to Werribee belonged to the Woi-wurrung language and belief group.

Within this was a clan called Wurundjeri-baluk, which was divided into two sub-clans, one of which was the Wurundjeri-willam, meaning 'white gum tree dwellers' and which was further divided into three patrilines.

One patriline claimed the area between the Maribyrnong River and Darebin Creek, stretching up to the Dividing Ranges and including the area now known as Moonee Valley. At the time of European settlement the clan-head of this group was Billebellary.

By 1860, just 25 years after settlement commenced, Victorian settlers numbered half a million. By contrast, the Victorian Indigenous population had declined dramatically from approximately 40,000 to 2,000, and some people believed they were becoming extinct. Those who remained of the Kulin Nation were gathered at Mohican Station near Alexandra.

Billebellary's son Wonga was the clan-head of the Wurundjeri. In 1863, Wonga and his cousin Barak led his people in a walk out of the settlement and back to their country at a place near Healesville named Coranderrk (after a tree that blossoms on the river). Wonga and Barak began working with Scottish preacher John Green and they built a thriving economically viable community, turning Coranderrk into a major Kulin settlement.

Wurundjeri Willam: The Original Inhabitants of Moonee Valley (pdf, 1.5MB) provides a history of the earliest inhabitants, the Woi-wurrung people. It lists and describes important Aboriginal sites, places and landscapes as well as their traditional way of life.