Tanderrum: Welcome, Diplomacy, and the Politics of Encounter
The tanderrum (sometimes recorded by colonists as terrederrum or terrdurum) was a ceremonial protocol used by Aboriginal peoples of the Kulin Nations in Victoria to grant visiting groups temporary rights of access to Country, food, and resources. Rooted in kinship law and spiritual obligations, tanderrum affirmed sovereignty and ensured peace between hosts and guests. During colonisation, European settlers often misunderstood or exploited these ceremonies, interpreting them as treaties or transfers of land ownership. This article examines the history of tanderrum in Victoria, with special focus on Wadawurrung Country, its symbolic and practical purposes, its use and misinterpretation in colonial encounters, and parallels with welcoming or permission protocols across Australia and in Indigenous societies internationally.
Tanderrum in the Kulin Nations
In the societies of the Kulin Nations—including the Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri), Bunurong, Taungurung, Dja Dja Wurrung, and Wadawurrung—movement across Country was tightly governed. Visitors who sought to pass through or harvest resources from another group’s land required permission from the Traditional Owners.
The tanderrum was the formal means of granting this right. Ceremonial elements could include:
Welcome speech or ritual by Elders.
Exchange of gifts such as possum skins, weapons, or food.
Use of fire, smoke, or dance to symbolically cleanse and protect visitors.
Spiritual assurance that guests could travel safely and be protected by the host clan’s ancestral beings (Barwick 1984; Clark 1990).
Tanderrum did not imply permanent rights or ownership—it was strictly temporary permission, often for trade, ceremony, or seasonal harvests.
Tanderrum on Wadawurrung Country
The Wadawurrung people, whose Country extends across Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula, Ballarat, and the Surf Coast, practised tanderrum as a way of regulating access to their rich lands and waters. The Barwon River, You Yangs, and coastal fisheries were vital resources, carefully managed through kinship law.
When neighbouring Kulin groups, such as the Woiwurrung or Dja Dja Wurrung, wished to visit Wadawurrung Country for corroborees, trade, or marriage ceremonies, tanderrum provided the ritual framework for safe passage and use of resources. Wadawurrung Elders would host visitors, offering food and symbolically binding them under the protection of their ancestors and spirits.
Colonial encounters in Wadawurrung Country
In the 1830s, tanderrum ceremonies were witnessed and sometimes participated in by European newcomers. Historical records suggest that parts of John Batman’s 1835 agreements involved Wadawurrung men as signatories. From the Wadawurrung perspective, these may have reflected tanderrum protocols of temporary access, while Batman interpreted them as permanent land transfers.
Police Magistrate Foster Fyans, stationed at Geelong in the late 1830s, also recorded interactions where Aboriginal groups engaged settlers through ceremonial forms that resembled tanderrum. However, settlers often ignored the temporary and conditional nature of these welcomes, staying indefinitely and claiming land under Crown law. This misinterpretation contributed directly to violent conflict in the Geelong and Ballarat districts (Clark 1990; Boyce 2011).
Revival of tanderrum in Wadawurrung communities
Today, the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation leads tanderrum ceremonies in the Geelong and Ballarat regions. These modern performances reaffirm cultural sovereignty and offer education about Wadawurrung heritage. At civic events, festivals, and community gatherings, tanderrum continues to assert the unbroken connection of Wadawurrung people to their Country while extending hospitality to visitors.
Colonial encounters and misinterpretation
When Europeans entered Victoria in the 1830s, some were greeted with tanderrum. For Aboriginal hosts, this maintained customary law: strangers could not move through Country without permission.
John Batman’s so-called “treaty” of 1835 with Woiwurrung and Wadawurrung leaders may have been understood by Aboriginal signatories as a tanderrum, granting access to hunting and camping areas. Batman, however, presented it as a permanent land sale. The British government quickly annulled the agreement, declaring all land the property of the Crown (Boyce 2011).
Early settlers often mistook tanderrum as signs of acquiescence to colonisation, when in reality it demonstrated Aboriginal sovereignty—the hosts retained the authority to grant or deny permission.
The failure to respect the terms of tanderrum contributed to frontier conflict. Once Europeans ignored restrictions or overstayed their welcome, Aboriginal groups resisted to defend their Country.
Tanderrum’s symbolic and social role
Beyond practical resource rights, tanderrum served important cultural functions:
Diplomatic peace-making: Ensuring safe passage between neighbouring clans.
Economic exchange: Facilitating trade networks of stone, ochre, food, and artefacts.
Spiritual affirmation: Acknowledging ancestral law and reaffirming custodianship.
Education: Reinforcing to younger generations the responsibilities of respect, reciprocity, and restraint.
Today, tanderrum has been revitalised in public cultural events, such as the opening of the Melbourne Festival, performed by the Wurundjeri and other Kulin groups to welcome diverse communities onto Country.
Comparable protocols across Australia
Tanderrum was specific to the Kulin Nations, but the principle of granting permission for visitors existed across the continent:
Yolŋu (Arnhem Land): Visitors required negotiation with clan leaders through ritual and song cycles, embedding them within kinship ties.
Noongar (Western Australia): Welcoming ceremonies acknowledged spiritual custodians and marked safe travel across Country.
Arrernte (Central Australia): Protocols of exchange and symbolic gestures were required before strangers could access sacred waterholes.
Each region expressed its own cultural form, but the shared logic was the sovereignty of custodians over Country and the temporary nature of visitor rights.
International comparisons during colonisation
Indigenous peoples globally used comparable ceremonies to negotiate contact with colonisers:
Māori pōwhiri (Aotearoa New Zealand): A ritual of challenge and welcome, involving speeches, song, and hongi (pressing of noses). British colonists often misunderstood it as political submission rather than reciprocal diplomacy.
First Nations in North America: Wampum belts, pipe ceremonies, and gift exchanges formalised alliances and agreements. Colonists frequently exploited these traditions, treating them as permanent land cessions rather than temporary or conditional arrangements.
Pacific Islander rituals: In Samoa, Hawai‘i, and Tahiti, rituals of hospitality welcomed voyagers while emphasising the authority of local chiefs. European navigators often misread these as acts of surrender.
These examples demonstrate that colonial powers often imposed European legal frameworks on Indigenous practices of permission and hospitality, erasing their original meanings.
Conclusion
The tanderrum of the Kulin Nations, including the Wadawurrung, was a profound ceremony of diplomacy, welcome, and cultural law. It safeguarded social order by granting visitors temporary rights while reaffirming the sovereignty of custodians. During colonisation, Europeans misinterpreted tanderrum, mistaking temporary permission for land transfer or submission, contributing to dispossession and conflict. Similar misunderstandings occurred worldwide, as Indigenous protocols of welcome were co-opted into imperial systems. Today, the revitalisation of tanderrum in Wadawurrung and other Kulin communities reasserts cultural authority and reminds contemporary Australians of Aboriginal law and continuing sovereignty.
References
Barwick, D. (1984) ‘Mapping the past: An atlas of Victorian clans, 1835–1904’, Aboriginal History, 8(2), pp. 100–131.
Boyce, J. (2011) 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia. Melbourne: Black Inc.
Broome, R. (2005) Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clark, I. (1990) Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Melbourne: Monash Publications in Geography.
Reynolds, H. (1987) Frontier: Aborigines, Settlers and Land. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Salmond, A. (1991) Two Worlds: First Meetings Between Māori and Europeans, 1642–1772. Auckland: Viking.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter 16/09/2025
Magic Lands Alliance
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledge the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of communities.