When the Kurnai of Gippsland first met the white colonisers, they said, 'Inna ngutch-bun agey'. (We don't know what you are saying.) The white man resorted to guns to aid communication and the Kurnai were quick to understand what the white man meant. But the white man has been slow to understand the Kurnai, and it is only now, more than 150 years later, that the Kurnai story is being told. Phillip Pepper traces his family's history from his grandfather Nathaniel -- a Wotjoballuk of the Wimmera who moved to Gippsland and married Louise at Ramahyuck mission -- to the present day.