Eora

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Portrait of Bennelong, senior man of the Eora / Dharawal tribe
Portrait of Bennelong, senior man of the Eora / Dharawal tribe

The traditional owners of the inner Sydney City region are the Cadigal people. Their land south of Port Jackson stretches from South Head to Petersham. The word Eora simply means "here" or "from this place". Local people used this word to describe to the British where they came from. The word "Eora" was then used by the British to refer to those Aboriginal people. The central Sydney region is still often referred to as "Eora Country".

The people described by British settlers as the Eora (sometimes spelt Iora or Iyora) people were probably Cadigal people, the Aboriginal tribe of the inner Sydney region in 1788 before the first European settlers arrived. The Gadegal clan lived to the south and west of the Balmain peninsula, the Wanegal to the north and west, and the Cammeraygal on the present-day lower north-shore (e.g. Cammeray).

Some claim that Eora, sometimes spelt Iyora, means "from here", others that "yura", meaning "man", gave the word Iyura or Eora. Some of the words of Aboriginal language still in use today are from the "Eora" (possibly Dharawal) language: dingo, woomera, wallaby, wombat, waratah, and boobook (owl).

The Eora / Dharawal / Darug (Coastal) people lived largely from the produce of the sea, and were expert in close-to-shore navigation, fishing, cooking and eating in the bays and harbours in their bark canoes.

When the First Fleet of 1300 convicts, guards and administrators arrived in January 1788, the Eora numbered about 1500. A smallpox-like disease and other germs and viruses, along with the destruction of their natural food sources, saw the Eora practically die out during the nineteenth century.

The Eora / Dharawal / Darug (Coastal) language has been reconstructed from the many notes made of it by the original colonists, although there has possibly not been a continual oral tradition for over one hundred years.

Bennelong of the Eora / Dharawal / Darug (Coastal) tribe served as a link between the British colony at Sydney and the Eora / Dharawal / Darug (Coastal) people in the early days of the colony. He was given a brick hut on what became known as Bennelong Point where the Sydney Opera House now stands. He travelled to England in 1792 along with Yemmerrawanie, and was presented to King George III on 24 May 1793. Bennelong returned to Sydney in 1795.

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