Report of the Larrakia Aborigines and their seasonal habitation of the Mindil Beach site, compiled by Hugh Bannister, year 11, Darwin High School, 1999

The site of Bullocky Point and Mindil Beach was used by the Aboriginal people for at least as long as the people were living in Australia. The Darwin site would have been one of the very first areas reached by the people moving from Asia and would have been quite a desirable place to live in. The high density of mangroves and protected coastal areas would have appealed to the people as familiar foraging grounds for food on the strange, new, resource-poor country. The Larrakia were broken into numerous tribes who inhabited the land stretched down as far as Bachelor and the Finiss River and up to the Daly River mouth. The Mindil Beach and Bullocky Point area was primarily for a burial ground but also as a recreational and camping ground at different times of the year. The site was also an important point of contact for the Larrakia right up until European times. Macassans, from what is now Sulawesi, who had a more commercial interest in the site and came to the small reef off Vesteys Beach for Trepang.or Sea Cucumbers, to trade on the greater Asian market. Finally the European exploration ships would have had to sail by the site on their way to Stokes Hill where they made landfall. After European colonisation of the Darwin area the Larrakia were pushed away from the Mindil site and now mainly live a few kilometres to the north in the Kulaluk reserve and in the other suburbs of the city of Darwin.
The Larrakia themselves were only observed and studied by a handful of reporters, the main recorder being Paul Foelsche the police Constable for the then small Darwin community. He recorded many diverse aspects of the general lifestyle and culture of the people but his interest was only as a hobby. English born John Morris was the first ethnologist to study the Larrakia and, unfortunately most of his work was devoted to the Tiwi Islanders.
The Larrakia were very sensitive about their origins and weren't particularly open to discussing the subject with other non-Larrakia Aborigines. Folsche managed to interview one man of importance about the origins of the Larrakia.The aaccount was unfortunately taken down in broken English and occurred quite s ome time after European habitation of the area. The Christian religion undoubtedly influenced the tale of the man as he refers to books, writing and Hell and seems to be an attempt to combione the new Christian ideas with local beliefs and the Dreaming. The tale dores state that a supernatural being or man called Mangarrah, who lived in the sky, created all things on the earth except Aborigines. Another man or being named Nang'anburrah, who lived under the earth, created one Aboriginal man whose children went forth and multiplied across the land. The nan in the interview deemed both of these beings to be "good". This is something simillar yet contrasting to the more typical Rainbow Serpent dreaming told by other Australian Aborigines.
The Larrakia called themselves Gulumbirigin and ythe name 'Larrakia' was derived from the Macassan Language of Indo-Malay which most of the Larrakia could speak. They are referred to as salt-water people by the central Aboriginal tribes because of their links with the water. The people had a complex social system and ritual life. Of particular interest to early observers was a system of long distance communication using hand and arm signals, which was useful around Darwin's flat areas and particularly along the beachfront of Bullocky Point and Mindil Beach.
The Larrakia were estimated to rely heavily on marine resources (most reports say 75%) far more than those of the land (approximately 25%). Despite the strong links to the sea the Larrakia didn't build particularly seaworth craft. Although influenced by the Macassan vessels their bark canoes were not well suited for long voyages or use in rough weather but they did give the Larrakia marginal access to inshore fishing grounds. The tool kit of the Aborigines around the Darwin area consisted mainly of fishing gear, some digging tools and other implements for carving and cutting.

They also constructed humpies and water craft: the spears were constructed of wood from the Beach Hibiscus or Bamboo which are abundant in the area of Bullocky Point. The war gear of the Larrakia was rather primitive in comparison with the shields, woomeras and boomerangs of other groups; it mainly consisted of clubs, spears and stone knives.
The act of cutting the skin to produce ornamental scars is known as scarification. The skin was cut with a flint knife and then the chewed leaves of a native plum tree were placed in the wound and it was left to heal. The scar would heal at a higher level than the undamaged skin leaving an impressive scar. There were no limits or rules as to how many scars an individual could have but this was rather left up to them. However, the initial scarring on a youth was almost certainly linked to initiation ceremonies. Of all the rituals and customs of the Larrakia the most striking was the piercing of the septrum of the noses of infant children of both sexes. This was for the purpose of inserting a stick or bone through the nose as an ornament. The people would continue wearing this until middle age when it was removed. Other ornaments consisted of bones worn in the hair and armbands, however most of this jewellery was worn only by the men.
Mindil Beach was also a burial ground for both the Larrakia and Tiwi peoples. There were several different styles of funerals depending upon the age of the individual who died.Foelsche reports that young children under the age of two with no apparent diseases did not actually receive a proper ceremony but rather were eaten by the whole tribe within a day of their death. This observation was almost certainly false and was probably collected by talking with other tribes of the area. Young children up to the age of about ten years were buried immediately and the people would rub their bodies with charcoal and eat a collection of yams then, if the child was considered to be good, they would have a corroboree until sunset. In the morning a small wooden pole painted yellow, red and white would appear over the grave and the camp would move a short distance away. A similar process would be carried out for a young adult except that the body would not be buried but wrapped in bark and pierced to let the body fluids flow out. It would then be placed in the branches of a tree. The corpses of old people were left to decompose where they lay and corroborees would be held during the period of decomposition, it was then buried and corroborees continued for several days after.
The beach area around Bullocky Point was the site of many battles between the Larrakia and Tiwi Islander peoples. Although some experts challenge this, there is substantial evidence including eyewitness reports from Europeans that describe several battles late in the 19th century. The evidence is still rather sketchy and it will probably never be completely or satisfactorily discovered how or why the feuds began but speculation supported by evidence and accounts of people can be used to clarify the most violent period oremembered in Larrakia history. The Tiwi people and the Larrakia were seemingly on friendly terms , according to the elders of the Larrakia tribes, up until the beginning of the 1800's. The Larrakia accounts of how the war began tell of a time when the Tiwi landed to the north of the Darwin area and moved inland to the region of what is now called Holmes Jungle. They then raided the community's food supply in the jungle, which consisted mainly of yams, before retreating to the coast where they were attacked by the local Larrakia tribe before escaping back to the sea. In the following years there were many more raids that mainly took off women from the Larrakia and sometimes food. That the Tiwi would suddenly attack the Larrakia is a mystery in itself, possible gradual population increase put pressure on their food resources and so necessitated the raids. This account probably is just one story in a chain of 'pay-backs' undertaken by both the Larrakia and the Tiwi over the years as more often than not women were also taken in the raids or specific persons were targeted.
The Larrakia in possession of superior, but ultimately unreliable, watercraft retaliated. There are also numerous accounts of Larrakia attacks on the Tiwi Islands in retaliation to the raids. As the feuds escalated the Tiwi would sail even further down the coast into Darwin Harbour where Bullocky Point and the two beaches would have provided a perfect point to attack.
Not only were they located in a sheltered bay, but a camp full of unsuspecting people could usually be found there. However, before the Tiwi could actually get to the mainland they had to traverse some fifty kilometres of water that separates Melville Island from the northern tip of the Northern Territory mainland. This posed a major problem for the Tiwi, as their craft could not hope to navigate that distance even in the best weather of the dry season. The sea in this area is, however dotted with islands which break up the Clarence Strait. These are named the Vernon Islands and remnants of Tiwi campgrounds and water bores have been found on some of them.

This was possibly the passage of invasion the Tiwi men took when they undertook their raids on the Larrakia and possibly vice versa. The period of Aboriginal dominance of the Darwin area ended in the late 19th century when European and Chinese settlers established the town of Darwin, then known as Palmerston. The Larrakia didn't put up any form of armed resistance to the invasion of their land. "Never in seventy years have the peaceful Larrakia committed a serious crime against white people in Darwin". There are several reasons for this, primarily, the Larrakia's heavy reliance on marine resources saw that the loss of large areas of land to the new settlers was not such a problem as with other peoples affected by European settlement. The Small Pox brought by the Europeans devastated the population of the Darwin area, leaving few people to fight back against the invaders. Finally the relatively small numbers of settlers that moved north left areas of land such as Mindil Beach more or less vacant for the people to continue to camp well into the 20th century.
The site of Mindil Beach has contributed to the wealth and power of the former Macassan trading enterprise which was once centred in the modern city of Ujung Pandang in Sulawesi and traded with many parts of Asia. Larrakia Aborigines helped the Macassans during their visits to harvest the Trepang crop found just off Vesteys Beach on the reef. In return they learned to construct canoes, probably with the wood from the woodlandbehind Mindil Beach, in the image of the prahu vessels employed by the Macassans. Bullocky Points elevation offered a good lookout point to spot raiding parties of Tiwi warriors, looking to make war on the campsite of Mindil Beach, full of people who were there to collect the mussels and stingray that were abundant off thye beach. The European settlers would have seen the Larrakia men on their way to Stokes Hill where they made landfall. The Larrakia too were watching, standing at ease in the position where the right foot rested on the left knee while leaning on a spear, wondering what the new people would bring to them in their large sailing ships.

Finally the dead rested and still rest beneath the sands of the beach area where they lived and died in an attack, or by the diseases imported from Europe or from natural causes and old age.
The only immediately visible remnants of the Larrakia ever having been at the site are the ornamental burial poles that were placed over the graves of the dead.