Yarramundi

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This article is about the person. For the place, see Yarramundi, New South Wales. For the species of shrimp, see Leontocaris yarramundi.

Yarramundi
Born	Circa 1760 Richmond, New South Wales
Died	After 1818
Known for	“Chief of the Richmond Tribe(s)”
Children	Maria Lock, Colbee

Yarramundi (circa 1760 – after 1818) was an Indigenous Australian called by Europeans “the chief of the Richmond Tribe” or “Tribes”. He was a member of the Boorooberongal clan of the Darug people, and was a garadyi or “doctor”. ^[1]

Yarramundi and his father Gombeeree met Governor Arthur Phillip on April 14, 1791, and this meeting is described by Watkin Tench (who spells his name Yellomundee) in his A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, published in 1793. Yarramundi's daughter, Maria (born 1805) married convict Robert Lock, which was the first officially sanctioned marriage between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Australia. Yarramundi's son, Colbee (or Colobee), was the first Aboriginal person to receive a land grant. ^[2] Maria was the first Aboriginal child to enter the Native Institute at Parramatta, where she won the state yearly examination ahead of 100 white children. Following Colbee's death she was granted his land at Blacktown and she lived there until her death in 1878.