The Darug people are a language group (sometimes called a nation) of Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

, who are traditional custodians of much of what is modern day Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

. There is some dispute about the extent of the Darug nation. Some historians believe the coastal Eora

Eora

The Eora are the Aboriginal people of the Sydney area, south to the Georges River, north to the Hawkesbury River, and west to Parramatta. The indigenous people used this word to describe where they came from to the British. "Eora" was then used by the British to refer to those Aboriginal people...

 (also spelt Iyura and Yura) people were a separate tribe to the Darug. Others believe they were part of the same tribe http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/library/localstudies/historical/aborigin.htm. The term eora has been proven to mean 'people of this place'. And many historians and Sydney linguist agree the coastal language is a dialect of the Western language. The territory that was indisputably Darug Boorooberongal-Warmuli (Darug Lore) was the Cumberland Plain

Cumberland Plain

The Cumberland Plain is a region in the Sydney Basin of New South Wales, Australia. The plain extends from 10 kilometres north of Windsor in the north, to Picton in the south; and...

 area in western Sydney and it stretched from Wisemans Ferry

Wisemans Ferry, New South Wales

Wisemans Ferry is a town north of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wisemans Ferry is located 75 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government areas of Hornsby Shire, The Hills Shire, City of Hawkesbury and City of Gosford.The town is a...

 in the north down to around Camden

Camden, New South Wales

-Education:Camden is the location of research facilities for the veterinary and agricultural schools of the University of Sydney. The local government area has two public high schools, Camden High School and Elderslie High School, as well as eight Catholic and three Anglican schools.-Culture:The...

 in the south. They also extended into the foothills of the Blue Mountains in the west and the Hills District to the east.

There was certainly a cultural divide between the western Darug and the coastal Darug. The coastal Darug were katungal or 'sea people'. They built canoes and their diet was primarily seafood including fish and shellfish from Sydney Harbour

Port Jackson

Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...

, Botany Bay

Botany Bay

Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay...

 and their associated rivers. The inland Darug were paiendra or 'tomahawk people'. They hunted kangaroo

Kangaroo

A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae . In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, especially those of the genus Macropus, Red Kangaroo, Antilopine Kangaroo, Eastern Grey Kangaroo and Western Grey Kangaroo. Kangaroos are endemic to the country...

s, emu

Emu

The Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae) is the largest bird native to Australia and the only extant member of the genus Dromaius. It is the second-largest extant bird in the world by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. There are three subspecies of Emus in Australia...

s and other land animals and used stone axes more extensively.http://www.holroyd.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/5340/silentboundary.pdf

Darug clans

The Darug nation was divided up into a number of clan

Clan

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...

s who each tended to live in a certain geographic area. This geographic area would also house descendant clans. Each clan typically included 50 to 100 people. Numbers in a geographic descendant clan area were kept at the lowest levels necessary for the survival of the clan. It was often the case that men and women married between the clans, and thus the members of the clans were interrelated.

Known Darug clans included:

• Wangal
• Kurrajong
• Boorooberongal
• Cattai
• Bidjigal
  Bidjigal
  The Bidjigal people are a group of Indigenous Australians living to the West of Sydney. Their geographical location is confusing, as they seem to have been based in southern Sydney, in the region between the Cooks River and the Georges River and yet also seem to have inhabited land in...
  
  
• Gommerigal
• Mulgoa
• Cannemegal
• Bool-bain-ora
• Cabrigal
• Muringong
• Dural

Smallpox introduced in 1789 by the British

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 colonists destroyed up to 90% of the population in some areas.

Neighbouring people were the Kuringgai

Kuringgai

Kuringgai is a name referring to an Indigenous Australian people of New South Wales....

 to the northeast around Broken Bay, the Darkinjung

Darkinjung people

The Darkinjung are the in the Wyong and area and is a major landowner on the Central Coast, participating in formal joint management of some areas of state forest in the region. It represents over 450 local Aboriginal residents...

 to the north, the Wiradjuri

Wiradjuri

The Wiradjuri are an Indigenous Australian group of central New South Wales.In the 21st century, major Wiradjuri groups live in Condobolin, Peak Hill, Narrandera and Griffith...

 to the west on the other side of the Blue Mountains, the Gandangara to the southwest in the Southern Highlands

Southern Highlands, New South Wales

The Southern Highlands, also locally referred to as the Highlands, is a geographical region and district in New South Wales, Australia and is 110 km south-west of Sydney. The entire region is under the local government area of the Wingecarribee Shire...

 and the Tharawal

Tharawal people

The Tharawal people were the Aboriginal inhabitants of southern Sydney and the Illawarra region in 1788, when the first European colonists arrived. The Tharawal people lived in the areas from south side of Botany Bay, around Port Hacking to north of the Shoalhaven River and inland to Campbelltown...

 to the southeast in the Illawarra

Illawarra

Illawarra is a region in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is a coastal region situated immediately south of Sydney and north of the Shoalhaven or South Coast region. It encompasses the cities of Wollongong, Shellharbour, Shoalhaven and the town of Kiama. The central region contains Lake...

area.