Ngurraiillam

The Ngurraiillam, also recorded as Ngurelban or Ngurai-illamwurrung, are a Kulin people of central Victoria whose country followed the Goulburn River valley from the Campaspe district down to within forty miles of its junction with the Murray, with their heartland at Noorilim, which they called Waaring.

They comprised several subgroups, including the Ngooraialum, and spoke a dialect of Taungurung, a Kulinic language of the Pama-Nyungan family; their clans were headed by ngurungaeta, and they were often at odds with the Bangerang across the river plains.

Their economy rested on river fishing, hunting and the yam grounds dug by the women. By the late 1830s squatters had pushed sheep and cattle into these valleys, and Ngurraiillam elders complained that the livestock were eating the game pastures and destroying the yam and mirr-n'yong grounds on which their people depended.