Wominjeka fellow travellers, last weekend some friends of my partner, very kindly offered us a weekend at their holiday home in Foster. We hadn’t been to Gippsland in quite a long time and were delighted to get away from the bright lights and hustle of Hurstbridge, I’m joking of course, it was more a Busmans holiday but we very much appreciated the opportunity to get away. Thank you, B&A.
When traveling about the state we always make a habit of discovering whose country we are traveling through and in doing so, make a simple acknowledgement to the custodians of that country, even if it is just between ourselves in the car. It’s a habit I got into some years ago and an easy one to follow with the help of Captain Google and indeed, some travel apps such as Apple Maps that features First Nation boundaries and traditional place names. Our trips usually involve not just recognising native clan and country borders, but also checking out the number of towns and villages that have maintained their Indigenous language names. After leaving the city suburbs we drove through Koo Wee Rup (Black Fish Swimming), Korumburra (The Place where Country Speaks), Leongatha (Teeth). This is an easy and educational way to discover more of the history of our first peoples. Leaving Hurstbridge in Wurundjeri country, we passed through Boonwurrung before finally reaching Foster in Gunaikurnai country.
Sam Furphy, a research fellow in the school of history at the Australian National University in 2002 pointed out that “On the 23 June 1828, the Colonial Secretary forwarded instructions to Mitchell [Surveyor General of New South Wales] that included the following directive: ‘That the names of parishes, towns and geographic features should, as far as practicable, be determined by local circumstances, and that the Native Names should be continued or adopted, when it can be conveniently done'” (Furphy 2002, p3).
Unfortunately, the Colonial Secretary’s instructions as to the naming of new settlements were not always adopted. Foster, a town in point, is named after William Henry Foster, a 19th century Police magistrate who refused to conduct his court hearings in the Gippsland town of Stockyard Creek. “Her Majesties Court will not take session in a creek.” The humble subjects of Stockyard Creek obliged by changing the town’s name to FOSTER. The early Victorians loved having places named after themselves or their patrons.
The Indigenous people of Gunaikurnai Country are made up of five distinct clan groups. At the time of European colonisation in the early 1840s, their population numbered in excess of two thousand people. By the 1850s, their number was a little more than one hundred. The history of Gippsland and the Gunaikurnai is one of the darkest chapters in not only Victorian history but in the colonial history of Australia. Few people anywhere on the continent were subjected to worse systematic treatment than the Gunaikurnai people.
In 2025, a landmark Aboriginal-led truth-telling inquiry, the Yoorrook Justice Commission, formally concluded that genocide and crimes against humanity were committed against Indigenous people in Victoria, validating the generational trauma of these events.
Our shared history of this great land is often dark, confronting and challenging. We at Allwood House and writers of First Nation Fridays seek not to apportion blame to generations passed, but rather to assist with truth telling and reconciliation. Our First Nations Library is open to all and discussion, examination and dissection of our shared history is encouraged in a safe and non-confrontational space.
Till next week Triganin – see you soon.
_________________