Coomee Nulliga

Coomee Nulunga was a Murramarang-Yuin Elder whose life spanned a period of profound change for Aboriginal people on the Far South Coast of New South Wales. She is remembered for her resilience, cultural authority and enduring connection to Country. According to the National Museum of  Australia, Coomee, also known as “Old Maria, last of her tribe Murramarang” received a brass gorget in 1909 which carried the inscription “Coomee, Last of her Tribe Murramarang”.

Born around 1825, she spoke of her grandmother witnessing “the first time the white birds came by”, a memory of the sailing ships of Captain Cook’s voyage. As the settler frontier pushed into Murramarang Country, Coomee adapted and held a respected place among Aboriginal and settler communities. She lived around Ulladulla and Burrill Lake, making a living trading fish and handmade brooms, while maintaining her cultural dignity. Coomee attributed the high mortality rate amongst the Aboriginal people with whom she had grown up to the denial of access to healthy ‘native food’ and an active, meaningful lifestyle and its replacement with unhealthy ‘white man tucker’, alcohol and a sedentary, purposeless existence.

Today her name is honoured through the Coomee Nulunga Cultural Trail, where visitors walk through low coastal heath and reflect on the living presence of Yuin culture. Though colonial narratives once sought to label her as “the last” of her people, the truth is that her descendants and the Murramarang community remain, carrying forward her teaching of Country and Culture.