ABSTRACT
The Indigenous owners of Country encompassing the city of Melbourne and the greater Port Phillip Bay area of the state of Victoria, Australia, comprise the Wurundjeri and the Boonerwrung. Both groups, traditionally autonomous nations in their own right, also belong to the greater Kulin nation. The Kulin’s recording of its history, its understanding of the origins of Country and its reading of land and ecology is recorded through a sophisticated oral narrative, articulating an interdependent relationship between spiritual and scientic knowledge. Early European visitors and occupiers of Indigenous land too often dismissed the orally conveyed knowledge system as little more than myth or legend, with a little regard or understanding of the depth of knowledge spoken but poorly heard.
