Wurundjeri & the Batman Treaty
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he following was directly transcribed from a series of interviews with Wurundjeri Elder, Ian Hunter, recorded in 2004-5.
The treaty was declared null and void by Governor Bourke, only probably within six months of John and Henry Batman and the Port Phillip Association organising this treaty. And then there is other historians [who] state that it never happened. But I disagree with them. It did actually happen.
When you look at it, and people have actually stated that the handwriting changes in the treaty. It would change - it's all been written with a quill. So the handwriting would change. And it may not have been written on the same day. It was a promissory note. That's number one.
Number two, they talk about all the traditional signatures being the same. They have to be the same, 'cause they were the same people. So a traditional signature would be somewhat similar to a keloid mark [ceremonial scarification of the body] that an Aboriginal person would receive upon initiation - original keloids, meaning marking of the body.
Then there's also the other thing, which I say gives credence to the treaty is that there's eight Aboriginal signatories there. Two of them; one is Yan Yan and one was Mommarnalar, [these names] in our dialect mean young boy.
So there were eight peoples names supposedly written down there. Two of them were boys. But in the giving of goods and chattels they were given six shirts...so they've given six shirts to adult males. So that again, to me, gives credence that this thing did actually happen.
Oh, it did happen, because the fact is that the Port Phillip Association sued the crown for dealing with the natives [...] and establishing part of the new colony. They received £2,700 from the Colonial Office, after a long and drawn out court action.
[...] But then there was also the controversy that was being disputed by Fawkner, because Fawkner wanted a piece of the cake too. [...] I think the powers that be [...] didn't want that to be seen as an existing document, because they want[ed] John Pascoe Fawkner to be the founder of Melbourne. Who, in actual fact, did not arrive in Melbourne until 1836.
[...] he attempted to cross Bass Straight (from what I've researched) twice prior to him getting to what we today call Melbourne. [...] in actual fact back then Batman and his association had already set up on one of the banks of the Yarra River and also down at Indented Heads.
According to Batman's journal it could've actually happened on Edgars Creek. It could've happened on Moonee Ponds Creek.
It could've also happened on Merri Creek, because there was some debate about that and my older brother was stated [as saying] that our Nan used to take them down behind Rushall Station, where there was a cairn, stating that this was where John Batman had declared the place for a village and met up with our people.
And no one had sighted that cairn since the 1950's, 'cause that was when my Gran used to take our people down there. They may have got it wrong back then, but it was handed down [to] us, through our grandmother, that that's where it occurred.
And in recent times the remnants of that cairn has been found behind the Rushall Station. But there's been some controversy about whether it happened there [...] so we will never know. We can only make our own assumptions.
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