The Brataualung are an

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

people, one of the five tribes of

Gippsland Gippsland is a rural region that makes up the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains to the rainward (southern) side of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It cove ...

, in the

state of Victoria Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state i ...

, Australia, and part of a wider regional grouping known as the Kurnai.

Language

Brataualung language is a variety of what is generally classified as Gunai, which itself is classified by Robert M. W. Dixon as ''Muk-thang'' According to Alfred William Howitt, the Brataualung, together with the Braiakaulungl and Tatungalung all spoke dialects of Nulit and Nulit, Muk-thang and the Thangquai spoken by the

Krauatungalung The Krauatungalung are an Indigenous Australian people, of East Gippsland, in the state of Victoria, Australia. They are regarded as a group of the Kurnai, though Tindale states that their inclusion as one of the Gunai is artificial. Name Acc ...

were mutually unintelligible.

Country

The Brataualung's traditional territories embraced some , extending eastwards from Cape Liptrap and Tarwin Meadows east to the maritime outlet of the Merriman Creek. Its northern boundary reached inland to Mirboo. It included what are now Port Albert and

Wilsons Promontory Wilsons Promontory, is a peninsula that forms the southernmost part of the Australian mainland, located in the state of Victoria. South Point at is the southernmost tip of Wilsons Promontory and hence of mainland Australia. Located at nea ...

Social organization

The Brataualung are divided into several subgroupings or hordes. * The ''Yauung'' were centred on

Warrigal Creek Warrigal Creek is the site of an 1843 massacre in of Gunai/Kurnai people in colonial Victoria, during the Australian frontier wars. The creek is on a farm south of Sale, and east of Melbourne, in the South Gippsland area of Victoria, Austral ...

and the Tarra River.

History of colonisation

It is possible that the first contacts may have begun when whaling camps were established in the 1820s, in the vicinity of Wilsons Promontory and

Corner Inlet The Corner Inlet is a bay located south-east of Melbourne in the South Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. Of Victoria's large bays it is both the easternmost and the warmest. It contains intertidal mudflats, mangroves, salt marsh and s ...

. But the first stable encounters are dated to 1841 when Europeans first began colonising inland Brataualung territory. Relations from the start appear to have been quite amicable, with the Brataualung taking up jobs with settlers in exchange for food and merchandize. In July 1843 relations may have soured when several whites, possibly fugitives from

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...

, who had set up shop as traders in grog at Port Albert killed some Brataualung men. The natives retaliated by targeting and killing a prominent local stockholder. The reprisal that followed was severe: local squatters mustered to undertake a vigilante raid that led to substantial loss of life among these tribesmen, and put an end to the apparently amicable relations that had existed to that point in time. Loss of the lands that furnished them with food, and the impact of ravaging diseases introduced by white settlers led, furthermore, to a drastic loss of life. Five years later, in 1848, it was estimated that they had been reduced to some 50 people, camping in stations along Merrimans Creek, Coady Vale, Erin Vale and Port Albert. To survive they took on jobs, stripping bark from trees and harvesting potatoes on land occupied by squatters'. The advent of the

Victorian gold rush The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capit ...

in 1851-2 drained all available white hands from the local economy, and pastoralists designed to offer employment as stockmen, reapers and sheep herders, surprising their employees by the abilities they showed in such tasks. Forging bonds with Braiakaulung men who had also experienced and adapted to the radically changed conditions on their lands, they formed groups that adopted European manners and lifestyles, including playing cards for money, drinking and smoking. Howitt described the passing of the Gippsland tribes in the following terms:

'the tide of settlement' with its 'line of blood', has advanced along an ever-widening line, breaking the native tribes with its first waves overwhelming their wrecks with its flood-. It..will (not) cease until the last tribe has been broken and overwhelmed.'

Alternative names

* ''Bradowooloong'' * ''Brataua'' * ''Brataualung, Bratanolung'' * ''Nulit'' * ''Tarrawarrachal'' * ''Tarrawarracka'' Source:

Some words

* ''lewin''/''paiara'' (tribal messenger).

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * {{Authority control Aboriginal peoples of Victoria (Australia) History of Victoria (Australia)