First inhabitants

First inhabitants: The Ngurai-illam-wurrung people

Corop is situated on the land of the Ngurai-illam-wurrung people. Due to the absence of any known traditional owner group, responsibility for ‘caring for country’ is shared between present aboriginal communities: Yorta Yorta, Rumbalara and Bendigo’s Dja Dja Wurrung.

During settlement of the area by the early pastoralists, the Ngurai-illam-wurrung were swiftly dispossessed of their fertile lands. Extensive grazing seriously depleted the local flora and fauna and wiped out traditional food supplies.

The name Corop is believed to be a derivative of the aboriginal word corgarong, which means ‘call of the brolga’. Lake Cooper was named paboinboolok meaning ‘a shallow sheet of water’, burrumboot means ‘a high hill’.