Tuggerah
In 1940 the anthropologist Norman Tindale gave the name ‘Kamaraigal’ as the name of the tribe (not the language) in the Sydney area. In the 1960s the linguist Arthur Capell believed, partly through studying a language list provided by Bungaree’s son Long Dick, that there was a separate northside language which he said, was convenient to call Kuringgai. Kuringgai (Guringai) was spoken ‘on the north side of Port Jackson, east of the Lane Cove River to the coast, and as far north as Wyong and Tuggerah Lake, merging into ‘Awaba’.
In 1828 The first Census of the native population is taken in the Brisbane Water by Magistrate Bean. He reported five family groups of Koori people (he refers to them as tribes). These family groups were centred at Broken Bay (15 people), Erina (10), Narara (10), Tuggerah Beach (15) and Wyong (15). The clans were: The Mial or Broken Bay; Narara; Erina; Tuggerah Beach; Wyong. He estimated a total of 65 persons. He noted evidence of recent Koori settlement at Kincumber, Patonga, Somersby, Ourimbah, Wyong River, Jilliby Creek valleys, Tuggerah Beach, Munmorah-Norah Head, Mangrove, Kulnurra. (Brisbane Water Historical Society 1968)
John F Mann an early settler on the Central coast, recorded that ‘Tuggerah’ in ‘Aboriginal language’ means ‘cold, bleak, exposed’. (Mann 1884)