Kulin

The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Indigenous Australian tribes in south central Victoria, Australia. Their collective territory extends around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys.

Prior to European settlement, the tribes spoke five related languages. These languages were spoken in two groups: the Eastern Kulin group of Woiwurrung, Bunurong, Taungurong and Ngurai-illam-wurrung; and the western language group of just Wathaurung. The central Victoria area had been inhabited for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years prior to European settlement. At the time of European settlement in the 1830s, the collective populations of the Wurundjeri, Bunurong and Wathaurong tribes of the Kulin nation was estimated to be under 20,000. The Kulin lived by fishing, hunting and gathering, and made a sustainable living from the rich food sources of Port Phillip and the surrounding grasslands.

Due to the sustainable hunter-gather lifestyle of the Kulin nation tribes, there is limited physical evidence of their past. However, there is a small number of registered sites of cultural and spiritual significance in the Melbourne area.

Kulin, Western Australia

Kulin is a town in the Eastern Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, approximately 280 km from Perth. It is the main town in the Shire of Kulin.

History

The first European known to have visited the Kulin area was Captain John Septimus Roe, Surveyor General of the Swan River Colony on his 1848-49 expedition to examine the south coast. He encountered a group of Aborigines 34 miles east of Nalyaring (near Brookton) who guided the expedition party to several water sources, including the Kulin Rock soak, before leaving the party at Yeerakine (just south and east of Kondinin) as this was the limit of their territory. These guides used the name 'Coolin' to describe the area now known as Kulin Rock.

In the early years, settlers occasionally encountered groups of Aborigines hunting possums. Although artifacts such as grinding stones and stone choppers have been found in the district, no signs of permanent occupation were found by early settlers other than the mia-mias built by "Europeanised" Aboriginal shepherds from Narrogin in the employ of Michael Brown.

Kulin (disambiguation)

Kulin may refer to:

Groups of people

Geography

People

Other uses