The first people to live in the Williamstown area were the Yaluki-willam clan of the Kulin people, an Indigenous Australian people. They lived and hunted along the coast from Werribee to Williamstown. The Yalukit-willam were part of the Bunurong, a language group of six clans along the coast from the Werribee River, to the Mornington Peninsula, Western Port Bay and Wilsons Promontory. They ate shell fish, birds, fish, eels, eggs, snakes, kangaroos and possums which were found across their lands. They called Williamstown, "koort-boork-boork", ("She-oak, She-oak, many") meaning "many she-oaks", a native tree. The head of the Yalikut-willam tribe at the time of the arrival of the first white settlers was Benbow. He became a guide to John Batman, the first European to settle in Melbourne.
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