Gnough-a-Gnough

Gnung-a Gnung-a Murremurgan (d. 1809), also called Anganangan and known to white settlers as Collins, was a man from the Broken Bay area who in 1793 sailed aboard HMS Daedalus on a voyage to reprovision the ships engaged in George Vancouver’s survey of North America’s Pacific coast. Gnung-a Gnung-a consequently travelled to Nootka Sound, along the coast of present-day California, and to Hawaii. After his return to Sydney, the newspapers reported on his skirmishes with other warriors, notably Pemulwuy, who speared Gnung-a Gnung-a amidst a ritual fight near Botany Bay in late 1795. Though the British expected him to die from his injury, Gnung-a Gnung-a is said to have walked around the settlement with the spear still lodged in his back for several weeks, ‘after which he recovered and was able to go again into the field’. Gnung-a Gnung-a is often-mentioned in judge-advocate David Collins’s Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, his namesake describing the warrior and voyager as ‘much esteemed by every white man who knew him, as well on account of his personal bravery, of which we had witnessed many distinguishing proofs, as on account of a gentleness of manners which strongly marked his disposition’.