IT IS no surprise that some readers of The Courier and residents of the new suburb on the edges of Delacombe and Smythes Creek have not heard of, nor seen in early textbooks, the name 'Mullawallah'.
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Nor that there is little knowledge of the range over which his people hunted and gathered.
Since his widely publicised death in September 1896, Mullawallah had been known only as 'King Billy', 'William Wilson', or 'Frank'.
Thanks to decades of research by Professor Ian Clark and Dr Fred Cahir, of Federation University, we now know a lot more generally about the Wathaurung from the Ballarat area.
The particular research of Dr John Morris (formerly a director of the Ballarat and District Aboriginal Co-operative, BADAC), and local elder Ted Lovett into this King Billy led to the Ballarat Aboriginal community applying in the 1980s to have his grave cleaned up and recognised as a heritage site, so that it is now marked on the Koorie Heritage Trail for Ballarat.
Morris and Lovett confirmed that this King Billy resided at the Ercildoune property, but walked regularly to the Learmonth and Burrumbeet lakes, and to Ballarat.
A subsequent closer reading of 1896 newspaper reports and communication with the Comrie family about King Billy's association with their grandfather, John Comrie, the keeper of the Ballarat Commons, revealed that the traditional name of King Billy was 'Mullawallah' or a variation of this like Mullywallach' and that John Comrie referred to him as 'Mr Mulla'.
A description of Ballarat's mourning of King Billy in 1896 was given in my article, Remembering King Billy in the Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol 3:2, 2001, but details of his traditional name were given only in a small pamphlet available at the Ballarat Cemetery and BADAC a few years later.
BADAC then added a sign adjacent to the grave, giving the name Mullawallah.
Thanks to a community grant from Ballarat City Council, Victorian Interpretive Projects (VIP) will produce an illustrated booklet available early in the new year, called Mullawallah: the Last King Billy of Ballarat. This will be available through local outlets and the web sites of VIP and Ballarat Heritage Services.
The small pamphlets should be freely available through the cemetery, BADAC in Market Street and the Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation, 99 Mair Street, East Ballarat.
