In 2015, The Aboriginal Heritiage Office released a report titled Filling a Void: A review of the historical context for the use of the word ‘Guringai.’
The report concludes with the following:
It is unfortunate that the term Guringai has become widely known in northern Sydney and it is understandable that people wish to use it as it is convenient to have a single word to cover the language, tribe/nation, identity and culture of a region.
However, it is based on a nineteenth century fiction and the AHO would argue that the use of the term Guringai or any of its various spellings such as Kuringgai is not warranted given its origin and previous use.
It is not authentic to the area, it was coined by a non-Aboriginal person and it gives a misleading impression of the connectivity of some original clan boundaries (p.40-41).
Then in 2019 the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC) in NSW urged people to cease misapplying the name Guringai.
MLALC chief executive Nathan Moran went further, saying “the Land Council is aware of a number of individuals who identify as Guringai and claim to be traditional owners of Northern Sydney.
“This is a fallacy,”
Mr Moran said, “and totally disrespects the required process to qualify for traditional ownership under the respective NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act and Commonwealth Native Title Act.”
In 2020 Mr Moran was forced again to correct the record, this time with the backing and support of seven different Local Area Land Councils :
In spite of all this, these so-called GuriNgai remain;
– claiming Culture that is not theirs,
– claiming Ancestors that are not theirs,
and wringing money out of a gullible, hapless, even (possibly) well meaning membership, the public and local public service.
Through Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation, Guringai Tribal Link, Awabakal and Guringai Pty Ltd, Guringai Tours, Guringai Tours Pty Ltd, and Wannangini Pty Ltd, and many more entities, corporate and otherwise, these people fill their pockets, taking advantage of real Aboriginal History and Culture through a complicated financial shell game. But where did this all start?
It starts all the way back in 2001, when an interview with Warren Whitfield by Rosemary Block is recorded at the State Library of New South Wales on Friday 7 September of that year.
Rosemary Block was the then National President of the OHAA, (Oral History Australia) retiring in 2007.
In this interview Mr Warren Whitfield makes a number of unsubstantiated, yet testable claims relevant to this exploration of the digital footprint of Guringai Tribal Link leadership, which I list in the order they appear:
That Warren Whitfield is an Aboriginal Person.
To date Mr Warren Whitfield has been unable to confirm this, while his own actions, words, behaviors, Cultural ignorance, genealogy and DNA all confirm his ‘Aboriginality‘ is a fantasy of his own design, as we will soon see.
Mr Whitfield displays less familiarity with Aboriginal Culture and/or Custom than an average Australian Public School Grade 3 student today, and what he does know, he learned recently from a non-Aboriginal source.
Nothing wrong with that, unless you are also claiming to be Aboriginal, to be carrying on traditions and culture passed down authentically through Culture.
There is a significant difference between being a non-Aboriginal history buff and being an Aboriginal man, yet Warren Whitfield does not seem to know or care about this.
That his family did not know what ‘tribe’ they were from initially.
“Initially’ is doing some real heavy lifting. Mr Whitfield learned the label Guringai was applied to the language of the Broken Bay Clan by a non-Aboriginal Man in the 1970’s, and began to pass this off as genuine Culture passed down through his family in the late 1990’s.
That Sophy was part of the Walkaloa Clan.
There is a single historical record of a Sophy in the location and time Mr Whitfield claims there is a record of his supposed Great-Great-Grandmother. The 1831 blanket list mentioned by Mr Whitfield does note an Aboriginal woman, possibly named Sophy, recorded with no surname and no family background.
An unrelated entry mentions a neighboring people with the post-colonisation clan name, ‘Boongaree Nora blacks’ who sometimes visit the area.
This single document is the entire basis for Mr Warren Whitfield and subsequent Guringai affiliates claim of ‘blood line descent’ from Bungaree.
According to Anthropologist Dr Natalie Kwok, there appear to be two extant 1835 Blanket lists, one held at the State Archives that I was not able to access. While the document I accessed contained a name that may be interpreted as Sophy. On the version which is held at State Archives however, the name is unmistakably Sally.
In this document it is additionally recorded that “Sally was the gin of Jack Jones, an Aboriginal man”.
Warren Whitfield claimed that the woman recorded as Sophy a.k.a Bouranger appearing in the Sydney return of 1827, again as a member of the Brisbane Water group, and that on the latter occasion she had two young children in her company, a circumstance which would be fitting with the birth of Charlotte in 1830.
Yet neither Dr Kwok nor I have been able to locate this list, and despite claiming to have seen them, the GuriNgai have failed to present them, even when their future Native Title Claim depended on them producing any evidence they had.
‘Boongary Nora Blacks’ is a post-colonisation clan name only.
The term was not applied to Sally/Sophy in the text of this document, and it does not in many way indicate that Bungaree was ever the parent of Central Coast Aboriginal woman, Sophy, from the Brisbane Water district.
No members of Bungaree’s confirmed family and Mob are listed in the 1831 Brisbane Waters Blanket list.
Bungaree’s genuine family were well accounted for elsewhere in this period.
That this Walkaloa is what ‘they‘ now call the Guring-gai tribe – Ku-ring-gai tribe.
This phrasing is extremely reminiscence of the repeated unsourced and unfounded claims made regarding this same group by Dr Geoff Ford in his 2010 thesis (coming up).
As with many claims in pseudo-science and related endeavors, it is not clear who ‘they‘ are. With certainty I can say the only person leaving a digital mark discussing ‘Guringai, Walkaloa and claiming unfounded descent from my Ancestors was Mr Warren Whitfield.
That Bungaree had a son named Little Dick.
False. Without divulging anything I do not have the Cultural Authority or relevant permissions to divulge, I can say with certainty that there is no Culturally recognised or otherwise record of my Ancestor Bungaree having a son named Little Dick. (despite the avid contributions of suspect ‘data’ in genealogy websites by Sharlene (LeRoy) Leroy-Dyer among other followers.
The reality is that Bunagree had 2 wives, as was the style of the time.
There were confirmed children of Bungaree & Matora, from ample cross-linking historical records.
- Biddy (Salamander)
- Bowen
- Toby
- Ga-ouen-ren aka Dina or Diannah
Boio aka Long Dick is unconfirmed though is thought to be Bungaree’s son with 2nd wife, Karoo.
Bungaree had 2 daughters.
1. Biddy, daughter of Bungaree born circa 1803; &
2. Ga-ouen-ren aka Dinah or Diannah, Biddy’s half-sister, Bungaree’s adopted half European daughter (of Matora) born circa 1808, with no ‘Bungaree’ surname, documented throughout the historical contemporary journals and records as the daughters of Bungaree.
There never was a Sophy, long lost daughter/grand-daughter/niece of Bungaree; only Sally, the Aboriginal Woman still being treated like a fetishized pawn of greedy White People of the Central Coast.
Subsequent ‘data’ available online regarding the alleged “Sophy Bungaree” is planted by Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation directors and affiliates, ALL post 2001, and never, ever presented with any evidence at all to support the false claims.
That Walkaloa clan was/is Brisbane Waters mob.
False. Mr Whitfield is misapplying terms he has sourced from White historians, and applying them to real people, to back-fill his fraudulent narrative.
That the official records are irrelevant, as it’s in our family oral history—we know that James Webb raped Sophy.
Convenient, but not true, particularly when there is considerable evidence from both Aboriginal People and White historians contrasting Mr Whitfield’s baseless claims. It would be more accurate for Warren to say records that contrast his fiction are irrelevant to him.
That Warren Whitfield knew Bungaree was ‘buried somewhere.’
I am 100% certain that at least partial remains of most historic figures are ‘buried somewhere.’
That Keith Vincent Smith was the one who told Mr Warren Whitfield the location of Bungaree’s gravesite.
I am 100% confident Mr Warren Whitfield cobbled together his pseudo-Aboriginal narrative using a variety of non-Aboriginal academic’s work, and am willing to accept Mr Whitfield’s admission that Historian Keith Vincent Smith was one such victim.
That Bungaree was buried in a coffin, which has been dug up.
No evidence that this happened thankfully. What is very evident is how comfortable Mr Whitfield is in describing the disturbing and desecration of the resting place of his supposed revered Ancestor. Personally I felt a deep sense of unease and a chill through me in just hearing about this supposed event. There are very clear Cultural understandings in regard to resting places; Mr Whitfield demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of these vital components of genuine Aboriginal Culture.
That Bungaree is buried at Rose Bay, in Sydney.
I am 100% certain that Mr Warren Whitfield cobbled together his pseudo-Aboriginal narrative using a variety of White Academic’s work, and am willing to accept Mr Whitfield’s admission that Historian Keith Vincent Smith was one such victim.
That Bungaree was one of the first Aborigines to get a grant of land over at Georges Head.
I am now 100% convinced that Mr Warren Whitfield cobbled together his pseudo-Aboriginal narrative using a variety of White Academic’s work, and am willing to accept Mr Whitfield’s admission that Historian Keith Vincent Smith was one such victim.
That all the ‘old people’ are dead now—long dead.
I have no way of knowing the current state of whoever Mr Whitfield claims his ‘old people’ were. I am fascinated to find that in 2001 they were “all are dead now—long dead” in direct contradiction with later claims by Tracey-lee Howie and her compatriots for over two decades.
That Warren Whitfield mother and father taught him ‘how to get bush food.’
This is a common experience for may Australian children fortunate enough to live in rich in Natural beauty, and not indicative of Aboriginality. On the contrary, in ensuring this part of his narrative is expressed, Mr Whitfield appears to be demonstrating a White racialized perception of what it means to be Aboriginal.
That Mr Warren Whitfield in 2001 had already made plans to advertise for anyone who believes that they are descendants of the Walkaloa people and, ‘make some sort of organisation’.
No doubt.
That Mr Warren Whitfield discovered his believed ties to Bungaree only four years prior to recording, so 1997.
No doubt.
That James Ashby was a ‘nice man’, which Warren Whitfield knows: ‘because in some of the records it said that the only conviction he had was for stealing a watermelon and he was let off because he was a nice man’.
This claim is notable as it demonstrates the reliance on the records of non-Aboriginal sources to provide these supposedly handed down ‘family stories.’
That it’s a great honour for all of us to have his (Bungaree’s) blood running through our veins.’
Indeed it is, for genuine confirmed descendants who observe and follow genuine Aboriginal Culture.
For Mr Whitfield it is the spark of an idea that he and subsequent others will fraudulently use to bask in the Cultural equivalent of racist stolen valor. Warren was only interested in my Ancestor Bungaree and our genuine Aboriginal Family in order to make a living for himself pretending to be anything other than another mediocre White Fraud, profiting on the suffering of People he will never understand.
That Warren Whitfield has a tattoo of the Aboriginal flag with ‘Guringai’ on his forearm.
He’s the not first to make this mistake, as Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman Dr Chealsea Watego has pointed out:
Warren Whitfield goes on to claim:
This interview with the founding-father of so-called Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation is the first recorded instance of what would come to be repeated false, unsubstantiated, and transparently self-serving claims by successive Directors, Leaders, and collaborators of these individuals.
This recording is the first ever instance of the entirely false claim the Bungaree was Guringai and/or Walkaloa.
This recording is the first ever instance of the entirely false claim a ‘Sophy’ was relative of Bungaree, let alone a niece, let alone a grand-daughter or daughter.
This recording is the first ever instance of the claim that Walkaloa is what ‘they‘ now call the Guring-gai tribe – Ku-ring-gai tribe.
This recording is the first ever instance of the false claim that Bungaree had a son named Little Dick.
This recording is the first ever instance of the claim that Warren Whitfield and his family are Walkaloa Clan.
Warren Whitfield plainly states he believed his ‘Clan’ was from ‘the area’ and the Bungaree was from the area so they ‘had to be related.’ That’s it! They just had to be!
But at what cost?
From this false conclusion, reached through cherry picking of non-Aboriginal Historians and their books, Mr Whitfield worked backward to construct a narrative with no resemblance to reality; the central core of what would become sometimes known as Guringai Tribal Link.
The interview reveals that Mr Whitfield only discovered his believed connection to Bungaree in 1997, and by Mr Whitfield’s own account, the information was passed on by a non-Aboriginal Historian outside of Mr Whitfield’s family.
Sidenote: In the years following Warren Whitfield’s invention of Sophy, daughter of Bungaree, and subsequent false narrative, many people have claimed Aboriginal descent from the so-called ‘Webb-Ashby’ line of descent.
Aside from the Directors of the organisation, I’m uncertain who (if any) of these people were genuinely taken in, and I regret the pain caused by any believers of this deception only now starting to see the truth.
I regret having to inform that ‘Guringai’ and its multitude of variants is a lie, an illusion, a long con; benefiting only the small few at the top of their Corporate enterprises.
Since 2001 no additional evidence of any value has been presented, and Mr Whitfield’s assertions have been conclusively debunked.
They are not descendants of Bungaree or Matora, those are not the voices of my Ancestors they are hearing in their heads, and they have less Cultural Authority and credibility than Ronald McDonald.
From 1 October 2001 to 13 January 2002 The Matthew Flinders the Ultimate Voyage exhibition was presented at the State Library of New South Wales and then toured nationally. Mr Warren Whitfield managed to involve himself until in the end had a role in the production.
2002
In early 2002, Mosman Mayor Jim Reid appears to have accepted Warren Whitfield’s false narrative enough to invite Mr Whitfield to help children light a bonfire in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II Gold Jubilee.
Warren accepted the offer and apparently used ‘traditional methods’ in the process.
In a Sydney Morning Herald interview dated May 21, 2002, Mr Warren Whitfield (then in his 40’s) again claimed to be a descendant of Bungaree. Mr Whitfield went on to falsly claim Bungaree belonged to the “Guringai clan.” This use of the term Guringai to refer to a clan, rather than a language, or nation state is inconsistent with Mr Whitfield’s previous claims that he, Sopy and Bungaree belonged to the Walkaloa Clan. This is merely one aspect of Warren Whitfield’s creation that will continue to lose any semblance of consistency over the next 2 decades.
Mr Whitfield goes further, now falsely claiming his Ancestor was Bungaree’s grand-daughter, born from the rape of her mother, Sophie, by James Webb, the first white man in the Broken Bay area.
No reason is given for the change in Sophy’s supposed familial connection to my Ancestor Bungaree.
Taking time away from claiming my Ancestors as his own, and selling his pseudo-Aboriginal B/S to whoever is unfortunate enough to find themselves without means of escape, Mr Whitfield became a self published author of the book Terminology for the Field Identification of Plants.
Neither the 1996 edition, nor the 2007 reprint make any mention of Mr Whitfield’s supposed Aboriginality, nor any mention of the word ‘Guringai’ despite the Prologue lamenting the passing of “the hunter-gather lifestyle.”
The Hawkesbury Family History Group Meeting Newsletter features a Members Profile of one Dr Geoff Ford. Here we see for the first time digital evidence of the transmission of Warren Whitfield’s false narrative last seen less than 12 months prior.
Dr Ford asserts without providing any evidence that settler “James Webb had a common law wife at Brisbane Water from whom some of the present Aboriginal Guringai people are descended.”
This is also only the second time there is any reference of their being “present Aboriginal Guringai,” in this region, and we see the repeated unusual phrasing of present Aboriginal Guringai used in both accounts.
In addition to the above, I was struck by the ominous foreshadowing of the following line from Dr Ford’s Profile,
“I would welcome every lead to a story about Webb and Peat on the Hawkesbury which may add to my research.”
2003
Perhaps feeling a rush of entrepreneurial spirit, Warren Whitfield registered for his very first Australian Business Number (ABN) on 23 of January 2003, operating from Queensland, postcode 4810.
Australia Post shows that 4810 covers Townsville and surrounding area.
This remote local is a considerable distance from Mr Whitfield supposed ‘tribal lands’ and closer to say, Queensland’s Magnetic Island.
With this particular business recorded as no longer being registered to trade from 3 July 2013, it really only warrants our attention because of the name it traded under for just over a decade:
Mr Warren Whitfield was an individual/sole trader, with a registered ABN, operating out of Queensland under the Trading Name Guringai Tribal Link.
We know that by this time Mr Warren Whitfield already had the word Guringai tattooed over an Aboriginal Flag (prescient) on his forearm, and had just recently registered his small business Guringai Tribal Link in Queensland, but Mr Whitfield showed no sign of slowing down, teaming with a Mr Ray Barker to create Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation, incorporated 11 August 2003.
Est. 2003, by Warren Whitfield and Ray Baker.
Why have concurrent registered Corporate/Business enterprises with almost indistinguishable names? You’ll have to read
Truth-telling from a neurodiverse perspective. 
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