Aboriginals
The Aboriginals of East Gippsland belonged to the Kurnai Tribe. They occupied the whole of East Gippsland extending from the coast to the sources of the Mitta amd Murray Rivers. Habitation was concentrated along the major lake and river systems and the coastal fringe where animal and plant food was more readily obtained. Charles Daley ( The Story of Gippsland 1960) quotes an estimate of the population of the tribe at the time of white settlement at well over 2000.The Kurani Tribe comprised five clans and each clan composed of kindred units. The clans were Kranutungulung, Ngariga, Kurnai, Murrung and Bidiwilli. According to Daley the Kranutungulung clan occupied the coast and the forest around Ewing's Marsh, the Snowy mouth and flats and the coastal strip east of the Snowy River. The County name Croajingalong (pronounced..Crow..jing..along) preserves the clan's name with slighty modified spelling. (Some authors claim it translates to be 'men of the east' but D. O'Bryan doubt the aborigines had a word for east, and, besides, what in their eyes would they have been east of!) The Murrung clan seems to occupied the eastern strip near Mallacoota. (Their name appears to be preserved in the name Murrungulung.) The Kurani and Ngariga were somewhere between Kranutungulung and the Murrung. The Bidiwilli, the scrub or jungle people dwelt on a poor strip of land along the coast between the Snowy and Point Hicks and the high ranges to the North. They were few in number, refugees or outcasts from other clans.
Several Tribes adjoining the Kurnai were the Sale, Omeo, Monaro, Tambo and Mitchell tribes.
(From the book ' Pioneering East Gippsland' by D. O'Bryan)