Eora
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The Eora (sometimes spelt Iora or Iyora) people were the Aboriginal occupants of the Sydney region in 1788 before the first European colonists arrived. The European colonists massacred the Australian Aboriginals, because of their primitive lifestyle (the dreamtime belief and living as gatherer hunters). Before the European colonization, the Australian Aborigines lived for 40,000 years undisturbed in their dreamtime gatherer hunter lifestyle.
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 provenance still in use today are from the Eora language: dingo, woomera, wallaby, wombat, waratah, and boobook (owl).
The Eora 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 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 tribe served as an interlocutor between the British colony at Sydney and the Eora 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.
[edit] References
- Daniel Kurupt (gen. ed.) (1994). The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia. Aboriginal Studies Press. ISBN 0-85575-234-3 (set).
- N. Thieberger, W. McGregor (gen. eds.) Macquarie Aboriginal Words, section "Sydney language".
- http://www.crystalinks.com/aboriginals.htmlta:ஈயோரா பழங்குடி
