Bangerang, the tribal Country/Culture of the Murray/Goulburn Aboriginals
The Bangerang people who lived in the Murray Goulburn area where known as the Bangerang people.. Their country covered from near Shepparton across to Echuca, up to Deniliquin (N.S.W.)
back across to Finley, down to Katandra and finished back near Shepparton.
The Bangerang Nation consisted of the Moirathban, Toolinyagan, Wolithiga, Kailthban, Ngarrimowro, Angootheraban and the Pikkolatpan tribes.
The Bangerangs were river people as the Murray, Goulburn, Campaspe, Edwards and Broken Rivers, and Broken Creek flowed through their country.
Each tribe of the Bangerangs looked after and cared for the country within their tribal boundaries, but become one nation when war threatened from other Koorie Nations.
When the settlers started taking land around the Goulburn Murray area about 1840 the Bangerang people went through a rough time. They were living around townships in bad conditions. A man by the name of Daniel Matthews bought land on the Murray sand hills near Echuca around 1875 and encouraged the Bangerang people to leave the townships and live with him and his wife at Mologa.
Here he educated the Bangerangs and other tribes, and Mrs. Matthews taught the women household skills. When Mologa was closed because of government policies another mission was established called "Cummeragunja" which means "our home".
Around 1909 the New South Wales Aboriginal act was introduced giving the Aboriginal Board control over the lives and movments of the Koori people living on and off the missions and reserves.
The new policies and power included the forced removal of part Koories. Around 1939 the people of Cummeragunja went on strike over bad living conditions and inadequate rations. Many people moved to the Victoria side near Barmah then eventually to the flats at Mooroopna to work in the factories or fruit picking.
In 1964 , for the Aboriginal Pastor Doug, was the return of Cummeragunja to his people - to be worked as a farming co-operative, a type of business which was specially suited to people which, even detribalized, had never lost the communal characteristic - to be developed by the descendants of the Bangerang, whose tribal country it once had been.
There were conditions to the return of the land. Five thousand pounds had to be found immediatly by the Aborigines Advancement Leage (State Victoria) and a clear workable proposal had to be presented to the board.
But the first goal was through the post. For the rest the challenge was to the Aboriginal People, a challenge to prove they could make a succes of such a project when given the opportunity.
This was not the destroying charity of paternalism,
'By Gum !' cried the Aboriginal Pastor Doug, "those ones who' ve stuck there - never left the place- they'll weep for joy when they hear this.
The Victorian Government established the Welfare Board about 1957and in 1958 the Welfare Board started to house Koorie people at Rumbalara. Today the Goulburn Murray Aboriginal Community has many projects and support organisations in the area for education, culture, health, welfare, sport. Koorie legal service and the Koorie Court.
In Victoria, the largest number of Aboriginal people (aprox 7000 ) live in the Goulburn Murray region.
