First People

Colonists struggled to grasp the dynamics of Aboriginal societies. They expected – and sometimes imposed – categories from their own traditions: mutually exclusive clans, tribes and nations. In reality, Aboriginal people made and sustained connections with several places and many people through their mothers and fathers, spouses, cousins, and life-changing events. Family groups were therefore able to move freely in response to seasons or circumstances.

“The Gadigal people of the Eora Nation” is the formal acknowledgement of First People clans in the Sydney region.  This formula over-simplifies a more complex situation in Pirrama (today’s Pyrmont).  People living around Go-mo-ra (today’s Darling Harbour) may have been distinct from the Gadigal. Scholars have proposed the term Gommerigal for the people living around Go-mo-ra and across Pirrama to Blackwattle Bay. This term was used by Arthur Philip in 1790 when he mentioned the “Gomerrigal” among “other Tribes that live near us”. The distinction (if not the term itself) was used in 1830 when Absalom West mentioned a “Darling Harbour tribe”.  

It is likely that Gommerigal, like Gadigal, spoke Dharug (or Eora), as did their Wangal neighbours to the south-west. Distinctions between clans and families were not so sharp as to inhibit the exchange of goods produced in diverse environments.

Life in 1787

We believe that the people called this area Pirrama, but particular sites are elusive. Tinker’s Well disappeared as quarries and factories reshaped the land. The name of Tumbalong Park celebrates an abundance of fish and seafood, but there is no certain connection to the site of the park. 

We infer from the research of Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe that the land was carefully managed, while John Broadbent’s ecological research lists fauna worth hunting and flora worth harvesting.  People were surely skilled in managing and hunting game, but the waters of the harbour were more obviously productive. We are indebted to Anna Clark for accounts of Eora fisher-women and -men, for whom today’s Darling Harbour, Johnstons Bay and Blackwattle Bay were rich resources, and middens demonstrate the abundance of harvested shellfish. These waters provided abundant fish and seafood until they were polluted by the activities of the new arrivals.

Pirrama was not closely settled before the 1840s: and even as late as the 1870s Aboriginal people could live distinctive lives. During these decades people could also adopt new skills and styles of livings among the colonists. Wage labour increased as hunting declined, along with fishing.  As Western clothes replaced pelts, Gomerrigal no longer stood out among other poor residents.

The Great Disruption

Visits by Cook, la Perouse and others intrigued the people, but the implications of these visits were unclear. Even the First Fleet seemed – at first – an event of limited significance, but the impact of the Colony on indigenous society was diffuse and irreversible. The eruption of smallpox in 1789 was devastating, especially in and around Sydney. Many died, and survivors had to reorganise their communities. So severe was this disruption that it is impossible to reconstruct the lives of these communities with any confidence.  

Traditional fishing and hunting were sustainable. However, when the First Fleet starved, hungry men with seine-nets devastated the harbour’s fish stocks and killed the game carelessly.  Land grants to colonists did not immediately dispossess people, but Harris’s deer, Macarthur’s windmill traffic, then colonists’ cattle and pigs compacted the soil and turned the Blackwattle stream into a swamp. 

Unaware that the environment was managed, the colonists who appropriated the land destroyed its capacity to sustain Gomerrigal in the manner to which they were long accustomed.

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