This journal is written out of respect to the original inhabitants of the area, the Boon Wurrung, and those such as Carolyn Briggs and Auntie Faye who are striving to reconstruct the Boon Wurrung language.

Today I was looking online for a parish of Flinders map and as happened several years ago did not find one, (the reason I had to go to the P.R.O.V. to obtain my paper map.) Instead I found several business websites and articles about Flinders, claiming that Flinders was originally called MENDI-MOKE. I turned to Wikipedia as they demand citations for information provided. The article contained the same claim (almost certainly the source for every other one) but no source was named. I tried a Trove search for mendi-moke and found not one result in any category.

There are plenty of creeks near Flinders, as shown by my paper map, but the only one whose name gives any credence to mendi-moke (or a variation) is Manton's Creek which discharges at Melway 262 G 2, about a mile north of Flinders Township, its western tributaries being named by Melway as Cotton Tree and Musk Creeks. On my paper map the tributaries are unnamed and the creek originating at the top of Melway190 E10 and named Mantons Creek south of Shands Rd (255F1) is named Mantons or MERRIMENDIEWOKEWOKE Creek.

All the painstaking work that people such as Auntie Faye and Carolyne are doing to revive the Boon Wurrung language will be for nought if two versions of the language are allowed to develop and nonsense such as YAWA= SWIM and FLINDERS WAS ORIGINALLY CALLED MENDI-MOKE become accepted as fact.

It is possible that the Flinders area was described by the Boon Wurrung as MERRIMENDIEWOKEWOKE. It will be wonderful if we eventually find its meaning.