A cultural heritage assessment published in 2000 proves that the Boyne Valley was home to Aboriginal people for thousands of years prior to European discovery. The first recorded meeting of the two cultures was on Curtis Island in 1802. After showering Matthew Flinders and his party with rocks and stones on their arrival, the "Indians" observed them for a fortnight before making contact. Two seamen became lost and spent a night tortured by mosquitoes in the mangrove swamps. They were rescued, fed, examined in a "personal manner" and guided safely back to their ship. Living on a diet of seafood, kangaroo and bird life they were described as, "stout, muscular men who went entirely naked, understood bartering better than most and were curious but not over excitable". The first white settlers in the Boyne Valley referred to a large permanent Aboriginal camp on Raggote Creek. Their lands extended along the river between the Boyne and Many Peaks Ranges, downstream to within a few miles of the coast and upstream to The Bluff. Beyond this point a related tribe of several hundred individuals had camps around the numerous waterholes paralleling the river. One hole was called Euboba. The name remains as Ubobo, the adaptation used in 1899 by W.A.F. McDonald to name his 4,000-acre (16 km2) selection. Little is recorded of the life of these people but in less than thirty years their populations were decimated. McDonald (1988) reports, "The Toolooa, which still numbered about 700 in 1854, had dwindled to forty-three in 1882. The Byelee in the same period were reduced from 300 to thirty-two."
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 08:37:41 +0000
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