The dreamtime stories of local Aboriginal groups record their understanding of the formation of Port Phillip Bay during the time of their ancestors. They also provide an insight to what the area would have been like in the times of lower sea level, and the events that led up to the flooding of the Bay area.
This story is attributed to Billi-billeri, a headman of the Woiwurong Kulin, and is published by Aldo Massola (1968: 58)
Once the water of the Yarra was locked in the mountains. This great expanse of water was called Moorool, or Great Water. It was so large that the Woiwurong had little hunting ground. This was in contrast with the Wothowurongs and the Bunurongs, whose hunting ground was the lovely flat which is now Port Phillip Bay.
Mo-yarra, Slow-and-fast-running, was the headman of the Woiwurong. He decided to free the country of the water. He, therefore, cut a channel through the hills, in a southerly direction, and reached Western Port. However, only a little water followed him, and the path cut for it gradually closed up, and the water again covered the land of the Woiwurong.
At a later time, the headman of the tribe was Bar-wool. He remembered Mo-yarra’s attempt to free the land. He knew that Mo-yarra still lived on the swamps beside Western Port (koo-wee-rup). Each winter he saw the hill-tops covered with the feather down which Mo-yarra plucked from the water birds sheltering on the swamps.
Bar-wool resolved to free the land. He cut a channel up the valley with his stone axe. But he was stopped by Baw-Baw, the mountain. He decided to go northwards, but was stopped by Donna Buang and his brothers. Then he went westwards, and cut through the hills to Warr-an-dyte. There he met Yan-yan, another Woiwurong, who was busily engaged in cutting a channel for the Plenty River in order to drain Morang, the place where he lived. They joined forces, and the waters of Moorool and Morang became Moo-rool-bark, the Place-where-the-wide-waters-were. They continued their work, and reached the Heidelberg-Templestowe Flats, or Warringal, Dingo-jump-up, and there they rested while the waters formed another Moorool.
Bar-wool and Yan-yan again set to work, but this time they had to go much slower, because the ground was much harder, and they were using up too many stone-axes. Between the Darebin and the Merri Creeks they cut a narrow, twisting track, looking for softer ground. At last they reached Port Phillip. The waters of Moorool and Morang rushed out. The country of the Woiwurong was freed from water, but Port Phillip was inundated.”
A second version of this story was recalled by Wurundjeri Elder, Ian Hunter, in 2004-5 (http://www.freshwater.net.au/wurundjeri/melbourne_aboriginal_dreamtime.htm)
A long while ago there was a great lake and this great lake was up around about where the Upper Yarra Dam is now. And there was great, great water. Down where the Boonerwrung People lived was open plains country, out where Port Phillip Bay is now. And an old man up there in the high country, up around Warburton and where that area is.
He says to his wife and his kids and his grandkids that he was sick and tired of eating fish, because all the lake being there they didn't eat kangaroo and possum and all that sort of stuff and the emu, like the fellas in the lowlands. So he says to the young fellas,
"Dig us a trench, go there to different parts of the lake and start digging trenches. I want you to dig trenches and let all the water go out so that we can have flat country up here [with] other animals to eat rather than [just] the fish and eels and yabbies and things."
So the young fellas start digging, but they don't realise that as soon as they do the water inundates and fills the hole up. So they can't keep digging. And the old fella sits back there and sort of moans and groans [that he is] sick and tired of eating fish and wants to eat kangaroo and emu and possum. So one of the young fellas comes up with a bright idea,
"Hang on, what we'll do is we'll go down in the Boonerwrung country and we'll all spread out down there and we'll all start digging from different areas ...digging and digging and digging...and we'll all meet up, right up to where the mountain is, up where the big lake is."
So they did that and they dug and they dug and they dug and then as they got up to where the big lake was, all that lake finally came down those big rules that they'd dug, forming the Merri Creek, Edgars Creek, Maribyrnong River, the Yarra River and all those other tributaries today.
As they spilled out, they spilled out and come further down and filled up Port Phillip Bay, where it was Boonerwrung country. So Boonerwrung country had to be a little bit different.
So that's also one of the reasons why [from that time on] that little bit of a strip [of land] around South Melbourne, we then allowed the Boonerwrung country people, tha,t instead of going straight across to Werribee mob. They could come a ground and spend a bit of time in our country, because all their land was inundated [...] we give them that access line there, after all that water rose from all that lake coming down and filling the oceans up and making them bigger and deeper.
A different story recalls the flooding of Port Phillip Bay as a more accidental occurrence:
Port Phillip was once dry land and the Kulin were in the habit of hunting kangaroos and emus there. One day the men were away hunting and the women had gone off collecting roots and yams, while some little boys, who had been left behind, were playing in the camp. They were hurling little toy spears at each other, just like their fathers did. In the camp there were some wooden toughs full of water, and one of the spears upset one of these.
However, this was no ordinary bucket, but a magic one, and it held a tremendous amount of water, which came rolling down engulfing all the land, and threatening to drown all the people. Bunjil felt sorry for them, and placed a rock where Mornington now is, and told the water not to go any further. Then with two other rocks he made the heads, and told the water to run out between them and meet the ocean. This is how Port Phillip was made. (Massola 1968:47)