It has been 200 years since one of the legends of Indigenous Australia passed away. Woollarawarre Bennelong is known for being a mediator between Indigenous people and the white settlers of the First Fleet.
There are calls for him to be memorialised, after his remains are verified. It's believed that Australia's first Indigenous icon's remains lie in Sydney's north-west, in the suburb of Putney.
In March last year, Dr Peter Mitchell of Macquarie University announced he had pin-pointed the burial site of Woollarawarre Bennelong.
Bennelong died at Kissing Point 200 years ago and was buried in the orchard of his friend and brewer James Squire. That land is now part of the garden of a private house in Putney.
Allen Madden is a Gadigal man from inner city Sydney who believes he's likely to be a relative of Bennelong. He says if these remains are Aboriginal, they should be repatriated back to Kissing Point Park with a memorial.
"It would be appropriate for these remains to be moved to a safer environment and to have a monument put up to recognise him," he said.
Ryde Mayor Ivan Petch has pledged $60,000 to commemorate Bennelong during NAIDOC Week this year.
"We are looking at our Indigenous relatives with great respect and they are probably more important than some of the Anglo-Saxon settlers here in the history of Australia".
The Metropolitan Land Council says it's important to first of all verify the Aboriginality of the remains.
In 1789 Bennelong was kidnapped on the orders of Governor Phillip who wanted to learn more about Aboriginal people and their culture. He lived with the governor and learnt to speak English.
In 1790, Bennelong asked the governor to build him a hut on what became known as Bennelong Point, now the site of the Sydney Opera House. Two years later Bennelong travelled with Phillip to England.
"Technically you could put Bennelong as our Aboriginal Australian first foreign affairs minister. He did this overseas trip to take our culture over there and show it around," Mr Madden says.
When he returned from England in 1795, the colony was very different and Bennelong found himself outcast from his own mob.
He took up settlement north of the river around Kissing Point. There he made friends with a brewer and dairy farmer James Squire. It's said Bennelong became an alcoholic.
Poet Spencer Ratcliff wrote a special tribute for Bennelong:
