For Cadigal and Wangal people, life focused on their ability to exist as a community. Aboriginal people identified themselves collectively as a clan and individually as family units.

The Cadigal and Wangal people lived in and around the Sydney and the Marrickville Council area, in community groups which varied in size of somewhere between 25 to 50 members. These community groups consisted of one or more families - men and women (single and married) along with their children.

Attenbrow(2002)states:
“Because men and women of the same clan could not marry each other, these groups which are usually called bands, included people from more than one clan and people who spoke more than one dialect or language. The land or range over which the band regularly fished, hunted and gathered usually extended across one clan’s country. Whilst the relationship of clan to country was principally religious in character, that of band to range was economic. Very much larger groups came together for occasions such as initiations, funerals and ritual combats. The size and activities of the groups that came together in the Sydney region on a daily basis or on other occasions varied widely, up to 300 people being seen on some occasions.”

The territory of a clan was largely governed by their spiritual connection to the land. This meant that any one clan would not covert another clan’s land because it would not have the same religious significance nor hold the same value for them.

The movement of clans throughout a territory was largely governed by economic and social reasons. The daily demand and availability of food was influenced by the seasonal changes.