Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a derog. term for an Aborigine; thus boongess, a female Aborigine; boong-lover, a white person who is regarded as too friendly towards aborigines.

1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 395: The old bungs are very proud of my cousin.
1936		Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 24 Dec. 5/3: I’ve got twenty quid to say the pure bred boong can beat him any day.
1941		K. Tennant Battlers 100: These boangs are all too matey.
1948		S.L. Elliott Rusty Bugles II v: The boongs reckons that’s the sound of the gods getting wild.
1950		‘Neville Shute’ Town Like Alice 82: These bloody boongs, they’re always going walkabout.
1958		G. Casey Snowball 130: Beridges went on hating all ‘niggers’ and ‘boong-lovers’.
1960		J. Iggulden Storms of Summer 163: That Dago’ll slaughter the young boong!
1968		A. Buzo Norm and Ahmed (1973) 6: That’s where old Captain Cook landed, Botany Bay. Must have given the boongs a fright, eh?
1969		L. Hadow Full Cycle 253: Isn’t there a fancy boongess somewhere around this joint? Classy bit of colour?
1971		F.J. Hardy Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 56: Known as [...] Abos (patronizingly), boongs (contemptuously).
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 35: They intended to beat up this weedy pale youth and root his fat black boong senseless.
1986		R. Fitzgerald Pushed from the Wings (1989) 68: He’s a boong lover if ever I met one.
1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 13: An Abo. I’m being shafted by a rotten fuckin’ boong.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 71: They talked about ‘boongs’ and ‘slopes’ and ‘dagos’.
1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 54: One respondent offered a somewhat disturbing ‘folk etymology’: ‘boong is the sound they make as they bounce off the bull bar of your car’.
2009		P. Temple Truth 318: ‘Who’s this smartarse boong?’ said Hanlon. ‘Can’t get white people to join you cunts now?’.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] What’s it to you, you fucken boong.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1955		D. Niland Shiralee 125: That boong piece at the station — you had your peepers on her yet?
2000		P. Temple Dead Point (2008) [ebook] Really fucken stupid. Fucken boong stupid.

3. (also boonga, bunga) a native of Papua New Guinea.

1943		Sydney Morn. Herald 11 Dec. 7/3: Any colouired individual is a ‘wog,’ as distinct from the New Guinea ‘fuzzy wuzzies’ or ‘boongs’.
1945		‘Wait Till You Get To New Guinea’ in M. Page Kiss Me Goodnight, Sgt.-Major (1973) 178: Yes, they’ve got the boong well beaten.
1963		(con. 1944) L. Glassop Rats in New Guinea 49: I had a heard a New Guinea native — ‘boongs’ or ‘Fuzzy Wuzzies’ we called them — in Moresby say ‘Japon man’.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 18/1: boonga offensive term for Pacific Islander, adapted from equally offensive Australian ‘boong’, applied to an Aboriginal.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 30: boonga/bunga Pacific Islander; an offensive adaptation of boong, name of unknown origin for an Australian Aboriginal. ANZ early C20.

4. any non-white person.

1946		R. Rivett Behind Bamboo 395/1: Boong, any Asiatic or coloured person.
1968		A. Buzo Norm and Ahmed 20: A bloke at work said he didn’t see the point of bringing a whole lot of boongs out here.