William Barak drawing a corroboree

Born in 1824, William Barak was an Aboriginal leader whose skills as a diplomat were legendary. Renowned as the ngurungaeta or headman of the Wurundjeri clan of the Woiworung people (Kulin nation), whose land encompasses the present-day city of Melbourne, he was reputedly among those to witness the arrival of John Batman and his party at Port Phillip as a twelve-year-old child. Barak's paintings depict important features of Aboriginal society. He left a distinctive and valuable record of his culture in the fifty or so surviving drawings that are held in private and public collections today.