In September 2021 a thesis by one Laurence Paul Allen is submitted to the University of Newcastle in NSW, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Modern History. Titled A History of the Aboriginal People of the Central Coast of New South Wales to 1874, this academic work deftly acknowledges the “GuriNgai” issue from an academic perspective, and adds some additional insight to our existing understanding on the GuriNgai situation.
Early on Mr Allen gives an account for of the initial confusion over the name Kuring-gai:
There has been much controversy on the Central Coast over the correct name for the Aboriginal people of the area, and for their country and language. One popular contender for all three has been ‘Kuring-gai’, first attested in an undated Aboriginal word list compiled by the surveyor and ethnographer John Frederick Mann (as ‘Kuringa, Gai’). 13 Although Mann did not specify where ‘Kuringa, Gai’ was, he himself was closely associated with the Central Coast. Then in 1892 linguist and ethnographer Rev. John Fraser published missionary Lancelot Threlkeld’s work on the Lake Macquarie language and included a reference to the ‘Kurringai tribe’ whose hunting grounds, he claimed, stretched from the Macleay River south to the Hawkesbury.14 He also wrote that Kuringai was an established name at that time whose basic meaning was ‘men’ – perhaps drawing on Mann’s reference from several decades earlier. Here matters rested for many years until a map drawn by Norman Tindale in 1940 showing ‘the distribution of the Aboriginal tribes of Australia’ designated the people living between Gosford and Wyong as the ‘Darkinung’ or ‘Darkinjang’, and this has been perpetuated in the widely known coloured version of this map first published in 1974.15
Mr Allen even specifies the work that convinced Mr Whitfield to tattoo his arm(see below).
However in 1970 linguist Arthur Capell considered that ‘a language which it is convenient to call Kuringgai (Guringgai) was spoken on the north side of Port Jackson, and extended at least to Tuggerah Lakes, merging then into Awaba [i.e. the language recorded by Missionary Threlkeld at Lake Macquarie]’. Capell claimed that a different language, which he called Darginyung, was spoken in the Upper McDonald Valley, Wollombi and the western part of the Central Coast. 16
Mr Allen pre-emptively sidesteps a common complaint from GuriNgai devotees, one experienced by this author on this week.
It is important to note that Capell was simply seeking to find an appropriate name for a language and was not asserting that this was the name by which Aboriginal people identified themselves.
Mr Allen goes on to identify that the uncertainty linked to these discrepancies came to a head when the local Land Council was given the name Darkinjung, raising the ire of those Central Coast people identifying as ‘Guringai’, or another alternative, ‘Wanangine’. 17
And what is the source given by Mr Allen? Holy smokes its only ‘Guringai Aboriginal Tribal Link: About Us,’ accessed 21 Feb. 2017, http://www.guringai.com.au!
I can very much relate to what Mr Allen describes as “(t)he confusion continued in 2010 when veterinarian Geoffrey Ford’s M.A. thesis ‘Darkiñung Recognition’ asserted that the coastal plain forming the eastern strip of the Central Coast was home to the ‘Wannungine’.
In 2013 Geoffrey Ford added that the language was almost certainly called Darkiñung, while in 2015 the Aboriginal Heritage Office (AHO) published an exhaustive study of the name ‘Guringai’, which concluded that ‘the use of the term Guringai or any of its various spellings such as Kuringgai is not warranted [anywhere] given its origin and previous use’.
Mr Allen identifies the blanket list from which the name ‘Walkeloa’ was appropriated:
In addition, the 1837 census or ‘Native Return’ compiled by missionary Lancelot Threlkeld lists the Aboriginal people of Brisbane Water as the ‘Walkeloa’ but this name does not seem to have received support in the twenty-first century.
Clearly, this ongoing debate is relevant when writing about the Central Coast if Aboriginal people are to be named without causing unnecessary offence. Although various options have been considered, the name used in this thesis to identify the Aboriginal people of the Central Coast is ‘Darkinjung’, in conformity with the name and spelling adopted by the local Land Council. The terms ‘coastal Darkinjung’ or ‘Central Coast Darkinjung’ are occasionally used to distinguish them from the ‘inland Darkinjung’, that is, the people living around Wollombi and the MacDonald River. This should not be considered as a claim that Aboriginal people on the Central Coast referred to themselves by these names in the nineteenth century, as no documentary evidence has been found for such an assertion. Historian Michael Powell and private researcher Rex Hesline have pointed out that almost all current names for Aboriginal languages and clan groupings are late constructs, and there is little evidence that they were known to Indigenous people in 1788.
It is the present writer’s view that the names of the small family clans on the Central Coast (since lost) would have been the only collective names used, and in all probability, there would have been no name in their language for the people as a whole, the Central Coast region or, in fact, the language itself.
On page 14 we see how the GuriNgai were able to have their stories referred to in an academic paper; I am sorry for your loss Mr Allen.
Mr Allen correctly identifies the sources of claimed connection between a Sophy of the Central Coast area and Bungaree. Yet another biography has appeared recently, entitled Bungaree’s Mob, published by a local history group at Pearl Beach as part of a wider education campaign. 72 A biography of Sophy, Bungaree’s daughter, and Charlotte Ashby, his granddaughter, has appeared on several websites and has been attributed to Warren Whitfield, a descendant. 73
You should be able to trust people hey.
Whitfield’s fictional narrative that Charlotte Webb is somehow the grand-daughter of Bungaree appears again:
Less is known about the way Darkinjung people interacted with other Brisbane Water settlers. James Webb, the earliest settler, whose property was spread between present day Orange Grove and Woy Woy, 55 is believed to have had sexual relations with Sophy/Booratora, reputed to be the daughter of Bungaree and his wife Matora, and this liaison resulted in the birth of a child, Charlotte, in about 1824.56
Page 188 gifts us with the following:
Webb does not appear to have lived long with Sophy/Booratora, since their daughter Charlotte was brought up by Sophy and a de facto stepfather, John Smith.64
Page 312 provides us documentary evidence in the form of a photograph of Charlotte Ashby, sourced from none other than Mr Warren Whitfield.
This photgraph of Charlotte Ashby is at the time of writing still displayed on the website of one of Mr Whitfield’s relatives.
It’s only when you scroll down to the comments that you find yet another family member of Warren Whitfield attempting to correct the record.
To which Warren Whitfield admits his mistake, before proceeding to do nothing about correcting it, for as of now just over 13 years.
The photo mislabeled by Warren Whitfield as being of Charlotte Ashby, a mistake Warren Whitfield was made aware of, publicly acknowledged, then left to sit there misleading others, has now made it into the Academy.
The same Charlotte Ashby that Warren Whitfield claims inspiried him the have the word ‘Guringai’ tattooed on his forearm.
Yet he mislabels her picture?
And lets it remain mislabeled in perpetuity?
Poor Hannah Ashby to be disrespected so by a supposed descendant no less!
Warren has demonstrated in the comment section of website Bungaree.org an unusual preoccupation with academia. To now have his ‘work’ cited in an academic work most likely has real significance for him, regardless of context/legitimacy/accuracy of his output.
I’m confident the GuriNgai would have been thrilled to see this fiction slip past the keeper:
Vampires have less hunger for blood than some Ashby descendants for Bungaree’s: they just can’t prove what isn’t there to prove, that Sophy was not a daughter of Bungaree.
I do not know, nor have I met Laurence Paul Allen, but I applaud his thesis, and the fine line he had to walk around some of the people and subsequent misinformation surrounding claims for the Central Coast and beyond.
My only hope is that future acknowledgments of Warren Whitfield’s work appears in Criminology textbooks, or even more overtly recognised as the carnival oddity they are.
Anthropological Connection Report: Family history & contemporary connection evidence.
Addendum. Using threats of court action to stifle critique
Addendum. A new perspective on Laurence Paul Allen’s thesis…
Truth-telling from a neurodiverse perspective. 
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