by John Wells
A short while ago I started a list of words that might have been responsible for place names in Gippsland. The list was taken from a book by Daniel Bunce, written in 1851.
It was not easy to find a complete copy but my trusty laptop led me to a digital copy in the library of New York's Columbia University – and I didn't even have to leave the room. I still find today's technology amazing at times. I had also forgotten Trove, which showed a near-perfect copy in Canberra…
The book is titled "Language of the Aborigines of the Colony of Victoria and other Australian Districts with parallel translations and familiar specimens in dialogue as a guide to aboriginal protectors and others engaged in ameliorating their condition.
Now, Bunce was a more significant character than I had realised. First, though, here are the remaining words from his list that might have something to do with the naming of places in Gippsland.
Poowong means carrion, and I've never found an alternative meaning anywhere. This is a shame, because it is a particularly nice place. It has also led to many tasteless and primitive jokes.
Tonimbuk has two meanings. It can be to char or burn, and it could also mean search. I am guessing when I suggest that the word might have been used in two different tribal languages and thus had two meanings.
Tooronga means modern, in the sense of being new, not old. It is hard to see any connection and perhaps there isn't one.
The next relevant word is Warragul, spelt exactly as we spell it now, as distinct from warrigal. It means, wild, ferocious, an opponent or an enemy. Bunce also gives Warragul cooleenth, meaning foe, enemy. Adding the extra word might have made it a stronger description but, again, I am guessing.
Wonthaggi has a host of meanings all to do with hauling, pulling or dragging. This would have been relevant from 1910 when the state coal mine there began operating and coal was hauled out by rail – but the name was in use before the mine. There are at least two local stories. One is that it means "pull my toe" and the other claims it is of a Welsh origin and means "choke the bee". Hmmm.
Yannathan's various meanings again form a tight group. Jaunt, walkabout, motion, the act of moving, promenade, walking or route are clearly connected.
Finally, Yarragon must be a word in its own right but all I could find was that Yarragon dockatha meant whiskers. We may never know the truth, and that applies to all the names I've given in these two stories, I'm afraid.
Born in 1812 in Hertfordshire, UK, he became a gardener, with a keen interest in botany. This was a time when, to a botanist, whole new worlds were opening. He came out to Hobart in 1833 but moved to Launceston, where he opened a nursery. He had been a seed-collector for the Royal Botanic Garden.
In 1839 he came to Port Phillip in 1839 and somehow managed to join a group of aborigines walking down to Western Port and began studying their language. 1846 saw him joining Leichardt's first effort to cross the continent from the east, The experience was nearly fatal, but Bunce had planted vegetable seeds bat each camp on the way west, and these provided some food for the starving explorers on the way back.
That must not have turned Bunce away from exploration because he followed the course of the Murray downstream, still studying both flora and the languages of the natives.
In 1849 he applied for the position of director of the new Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, and for the same position in Adelaide. He got neither, and went to Bendigo to manage a mining company. His book on aboriginal languages was published 1851. It was based largely on his experiences with Aborigines in Victoria and that does give some likely relevance to Gippsland. It includes smaller listings for specific areas such as "Omio".
He published a number of books on his explorations, and on the plants of the colony. He was accused of plagiarism in his book on Victoria's flora, and even of making up plants that had never existed. That was Hortus Victoriensis and the accusations seem to have little basis, but he later published Hortus Tasmaniensis and the publisher withdrew it from sale. Only one copy is known to have survived.
Despite the scandals, probably the work of people out to 'get' him he was, in 1858, appointed director of the Geelong Botanic Gardens, where he established a huge variety of plants. There can be no denying that he recorded much that need to be recorded.
He published 10 books despite the accusations made in Melbourne, and while working at Bendigo contributed a weekly column to the Melbourne Argus.
He used the letters C.M.S.H. after his name and I have been unable to find the meaning despite long and very boring research. Probably the SH refers to a horticultural society but that is not something I know.
He personally and almost single-handedly designed the Geelong gardens and began the plantings with very little financial help, but one of his contemporaries described the Geelong collection as almost equal to that of the "Melbourne Botanic Garden". Many of the first plantings came from his own collection of plants and seeds. Two Directors appointed before him had failed to get much to grow on the sandy spit set aside for the garden.
His disappointments were as nothing to the disasters in his personal life. He was married three times. I know nothing about his first wife, but the second was Pelonamena, daughter of John Batman. She is buried at Geelong. His grief can only be imagined when a diphtheria epidemic took the lives of four of his five children, within three days.
The records differ here, but the result is heart wrenching whichever is accurate.
"Daniel married on three separate occasions, his second wife passing away along with two of his infants. During his third marriage, four of his other children died in a diphtheria epidemic. Daniel died on 4th July 1872 and was buried at Geelong Eastern Cemetery with his four children and his third wife, Julia."
Bunce died on July 4, 1872 and was buried in the Geelong cemetery with his third wife, Julia.
It is easy now to see Bunce as paternalistic and racist. The introduction to his book was mentioned in part one of this pair. That was then and this is now. He was genuinely trying to improve communication between the races, hoping this would help the aborigines to a better condition. There were many like him, who now seem misguided but who were, in their time men of good intentions toward the indigenous people.