Category: First Peoples in Australia

Reflecting this ANZAC Day on wars and conflicts: frontiers abroad … and at home

Today is ANZAC Day. It is an annual commemoration that has been held since 1916, which was the first anniversary of the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula during the early stages of World War I. These troops were the first of approximately 70,000 Allied soldiers whose service included time at Gallipoli; more than 20,000 of these troops were Australian and New Zealand soldiers.

The website of the Australian War Memorial states: “The Australian and New Zealand forces landed on Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Ottoman Turkish defenders. What had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months.

“At the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated from the peninsula, with both sides having suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. More than 8,000 Australian soldiers had died in the campaign. Gallipoli had a profound impact on Australians at home, and 25 April soon became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who died in the war.” See

https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac-day/traditions

The first ANZAC Day was observed in 1916 in Australia, New Zealand and England and by troops in Egypt. That year, 25 April was officially named ‘Anzac Day’ by the Acting Australian Prime Minister, George Pearce. It has been held every year since then on the same date, 25 April. It has become, in Australia, a day that commemorates the roles played by Australian servicemen and servicewomen in many arenas of conflict beyond World War I.

So we rightly pause, today, to remember all that is involved warfare: the contributions of these service people, but also the many victims of war, those who lost their lives, those who lost their health and livelihood, those who lost their loved ones, those who lost all hope.

War has many consequences. It damages individuals, communities, societies, and nations. It has many more innocent victims than the casualty lists of enrolled personnel indicate. And there is abundant evidence that one war might resolve one issue, but often will cause other complications which will lead to another war. Look at the outcome of the Armistice at the end of World War One: we can trace a direct sequence of events that led from World War One to World War Two.

In recent years, in ANZAC Day ceremonies, there has at last been due recognition given to Indigenous men who enlisted in our armed services. The War Memorial has an educational programme on this topic for schoolchildren; see

https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/schools/programs/indigenous-service

For many years, the Australian War Memorial insisted that its concern is solely with “Australians serving overseas in peacekeeping operations or in war”. A decade ago, a previous Director, Dr Brendan Nelson, infamously asserted that “the Australian War Memorial is concerned with the story of Australians deployed in war overseas on behalf of Australia, not with a war within Australia between colonial militia, British forces, and Indigenous Australians.” See

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/12/australian-war-memorial-ignores-frontier-war

This means that the War Memorial does not include any memory of the thousands of indigenous people who were killed on Australian soil over many decades, in The Frontier Wars (nor, indeed, those white colonials who also died in these encounters). You can read more about this at https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2013/12/17/response-question-about-frontier-conflicts/

More recently, in 2023, the recently-appointed chair of the War Memorial, Kim Beazley, says he supports “proper recognition of the frontier conflict” as part of the institution’s $500m expansion, questioning how the institution can “have a history of Australian wars without that”. See https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/australian-war-memorial

Studies have indicated that, over those decades, more indigenous people died here, in Australia, at the hands of the colonisers, than the 60,000+ Australians who died in 1915—1919 on foreign soil, fighting a European war at the behest of our imperial overlords.

[Raymond Evans and Robert Ørsted-Jensen used statistical modelling to hypothesize that total fatalities suffered during Queensland’s frontier wars were no less than 66,680. See http://treatyrepublic.net/content/researcher-calls-recognition-frontier-wars]

The Australian War Memorial blog cited above states, “The ‘Frontier Wars’ were a series of actions that were carried out by British colonial forces stationed in Australia, by the police, and by local settlers. It is important to note that the state police forces used Indigenous Australians to hunt down and kill other Indigenous Australians; but the Memorial has found no substantial evidence that home-grown military units, whether state colonial forces or post-Federation Australian military units, ever fought against the Indigenous population of this country.”

The myth that there was no official, state-sponsored military force which was charged with the task of dealing with “the troublesome natives” (or however else they were described in derogatory terms), is, however, punctured by this Wikipedia note: that on 3 October 1831, Governor Stirling appointed Edward Barrett Lennard as Commanding Officer of the Yeomanry of the Middle Swan, a citizens militia to pursue and capture Aboriginal offenders, with Henry Bull appointed as Commander of the Upper Swan.

The orders were that on being called out, the Yeomanry were “to cause the offending tribe to be instantly pursued, and if practicable captured and brought in at all hazard, and take such further decisive steps for bringing them to Punishment as the Circumstances of the Case may admit.” [Wikipedia here quotes from Michael J. Bourke (1987). On the Swan: a History of the Swan District of Western Australia. Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press.]

The evidence is clear: Australian servicemen have been party to an officially-organised programme to attack First Nations people. And the evidence is also clear, that across the continent over many decades, thousands upon thousands of Indigenous people have been massacred by the invading British settlers and troopers. See the careful historical work of Prof. Lyndall Ryan and her team in the Centre for 21st Century Humanities in the Newcastle University, at

https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php

So today, as we remember those who served in war and the many victims of war, let us remember also the victims of The Frontier Wars, indigenous and white alike … especially the many thousands of First Nations people who died in these wars.

See more at

God calls all Christians to be peacemakers
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer and Oliphant (for 9 August)
Seeking peace amidst the turmoil: the terrible tragedy of warfare
Israel, the West Bank, and Hamas: a prayer for peace, and a yearning for justice
Being Peacemakers
Remembering

Learning from the land (7): the Gringai of the northern Hunter area (part two)

Continuing my explorations of the First Peoples of the area which has been cared for by the Gringai people for millennia. The traditional lands of the Gringai include an area centred on the place where the town of Dungog is situated, next to the Williams River. It is thought that the name Dungog is derived from a word meaning “clear hills” in the Gringai language.

It seems that in Gringai land (as elsewhere), contact with whites led to a decline in the numbers of Indigenous peoples in the area within a relatively short time. It is estimated that around 500 Gringai people would have lived in the area in the late 18th century. However, interactions with the invading settlers soon reduced this number. Syphilis contracted from convicts, and other introduced diseases, contributed to this decline in numbers. By 1847, thirty Gringai children had died of measles.

In 1845, Dr McKinlay, a Dungog-based doctor, had reported that the ‘District of Dungog’ (which he described as ‘from Clarence Town to Underbank’), had 63 Aboriginal inhabitants, made up of 46 ‘men and boys’, 14 women, and three children.

Dr Ellar McKellar McKinlay (1816–1889),
the first white medical practitioner in Dungog

There is a short article about Dr McKinlay at https://www.dungogchronicle.com.au/story/7378123/history-dungogs-first-doctor/

McKinlay also estimated that this was only half the number of Aboriginal people living there ten years earlier, which he attributed to “diseases which affected the women and children in particular”. Although typical of its time, this explanation offered an easy way for the invading settlers to excuse their dominating colonising activities, which included poisoning and shooting “the natives”.

The well-to-do British settlers had high status within the developing society of the Colony. Many deployed their assigned convicts to the work of clearing land and building houses around the district. By the early 1830s the centre of the district was a small settlement first known as Upper William. A Court of Petty Sessions was established in 1833; in 1836, John M’Gibbons was appointed to be the Watch-house Keeper, and Thomas Brown, holding a Ticket-of-Leave, to be Constable at Dungog.

There is a most informative website, History in the Williams Valley, which provides further details. It notes that “Tenders were called in 1837 for the erection of a Mounted Police Barracks and the Police Magistrate was transferred from Port Stephens to Dungog. The first courthouse and lockup was on land now occupied by Dungog Public School and St Andrews Presbyterian Church. The barracks were placed on another hill dominating the town which, after the withdrawal of the troopers, was converted into a new courthouse that continues to operate today.”

See https://williamsvalleyhistory.org/law-order/

It is courtesy of the records of this local court house that two individuals of the Gringai are known by name, because of their arrests and trials. Wong-ko-bi-kan (Jackey) and Charley were both arrested within a year or so of each other in the 1830s.

Dungog early in the period of white settlement

On 3 April 1834, Jackey (Wong-ko-bi-Kan) was judged guilty and sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land for manslaughter, after he had speared and killed the settler John Flynn. Flynn had been a member of an armed troop of nine settlers who went to the Gringai camp at the Williams River at dawn to arrest some of them for culling sheep on their land.

From another perspective, of course, Wong-ko-bi-kan could be said to have been defending the native camp from armed intruders. True justice would have been to uphold his rights to his ancestral land—but in this instance, as with thousands of similar cases, the justice that was meted out favoured the recent invading colonisers, not the longterm inhabitants of the land.

It was said that Wong-ko-bi-kan’s case elicited some sympathy from the presiding judge and several observers, because of the way the settlers had approached the native camp with aggression. Wong-ko-bi-kan did not spend much time in Van Diemen’s Land; he died there in prison in October 1834. A sad end to a sorry tale.

The current Court House in Dungog
(built some decades after the original building)

Another Gringai man, known only as Charley, was arrested in May 1835, soon after the incident with Wong-ko-bi-kan. In August of that year, he was deemed responsible for the death of five convict shepherds who were working for Robert Mackenzie (who would later become Premier of Queensland). Mackenzie had a property at Rawden Vale, 26 miles west of Gloucester.

Charley’s interpreter in the course case was Lancelot Threlkeld, a missionary who had been appointed by the London Missionary Society (LMS) to teach Aboriginal people European agricultural and carpentry skills, and to establish a school for children. The LMS also required Threlkeld to learn the local language, for this was seen to be a precursor which would open the way for successful Christian conversions amongst the Aboriginal people.

Threlkeld reported Charley’s defence, that he had acted after an Englishman had stolen a sacred object, a talisman called a muramai. The man showed the muramai to a native woman with whom he was cohabitating. Charley’s actions were thus in accord with his tribal law, consistent with a decision had been made by the elders.

Charley was sentenced to be hung in public as a warning to other Gringai; this took place in Dungog. Local historian Michael Williams comments that “Charley … was both an enforcer of one law and the victim of the enforcement of another set of laws.” One later story, recounted in 1922 in the Wingham Chronicle, suggests that a raiding party set out to enforce the verdict by hunting other Gringai, managing to round some up and push them all over a cliff at Barrington.

An impression of a government convict gang in the 1830s

A report in the Sydney Gazette for 27 June 1835 that relates to the Dungog area refers to “the insolence and outrage of Convicts who in the service of gentleman squatters … and out of the reach almost of a magistrate, offend and ill-treat the poor blacks with impunity.” The next year, settler Lawrence Myles, J.P., requested assistance from mounted police because of intelligence he had received “that the Blacks are becoming more troublesome” (from the Dungog Magistrates’ Letterbook of 15 May 1836).

Nevertheless, in 1838 the Police Magistrate, Mr Cook, wrote to the Colonial Secretary that “the conduct of all the Blacks in this neighbourhood has been quiet and praiseworthy during the last two years”. Cook noted this in his Return on Natives taken at blanket distribution for 1838. In this region, as elsewhere in the Colony, the annual report of blankets distributed gives an idea of the numbers of Aboriginal people who were in contact with the British colony.

From the records of blanket distribution, names of some Gringai people are known today: Mereding, known as King Bobby, who had two wives; Dangoon, or Old Bungarry; Tondot, known as Jackey; as well as some men from the Wangat group. The report for 1837 lists 144 “natives”; undoubtedly there were more living in the area not identified in the report. Men named Fulham Derby and Pirrson are identified in a legal process of the same year, for instance, as noted in the Dungog Magistrates’ Letterbook for 14 December 1837.

In the Maitland Mercury for 18 July 1846 (p.2), a visitor to Dungog reported, “On the skirts of the brushwood, we came upon some tribes of blacks, encamped. They are a very fine race here, being chiefly natives of Port Stephens and its neighbourhood. A princely-looking savage, almost hid in glossy curls of dark rich hair, calling himself “Boomerang Jackey,” smiled and bowed most gracefully, saying, “bacco, massa? any bacco?” Some chiefs, with shields, and badges of honour on their breasts, sat silently by the fire with some very young natives, who were going to a “wombat,” or “grand corrobbaree,” when the moon got up.”

Later that same year, the Maitland Mercury (2 Dec 1848, p.2) reported that some farmers in the Paterson area were employing local natives—the price demanded by white labourers was considered too high. “They have certainly exhibited an industry, perseverance, and skill in the execution of their task which cannot be surpassed by Celt or Saxon”, said one farmer. Another noted, “they have done their work very creditably; but unfortunately their habits of industry are not of long duration, and they could not be kept long enough at work to make themselves really valuable.”

The Williams Valley Historical site then notes that “In the last quarter for the 19th century there was an increasing consciousness of severe Aboriginal population decline, the attitude to which was mixed. Many were indifferent; some welcomed it as removing a problem, while a few looked on with pity and made efforts to assist the survivors.”

This site also notes that a number of the settlers exhibited “an interest in tribal habits and customs … of a scientific and anthropological nature … thus James Boydell compiled lists of Aboriginal words, and Dr McKinlay and others made various observations, many of which were used by Howitt. Howitt [also] compiled a study based upon information elicited from many locations, including the Dungog area.” (Howitt, Alfred William, The native tribes of south-east Australia.)

A photograph of a group of Aboriginal children
(date and place unknown) under the care
of the Aborigines Protection Board

By the 1880s, across the Colony, a paternalistic approach to dealing with Aboriginal people had gained hold. A “Protector of Aborigines” was appointed, then replaced with the “Aborigines Protection Board”. The Board disapproved of “the system of issuing Government rations to able bodied aboriginals, as it tends to encourage idleness in a large degree”, and maintained that “a supply of flour, suet, and raisins sufficient to make a pudding can be issued to the aged, young and helpless, and those unable to earn a living through bodily infirmity, for Christmas Day”. (Maitland Mercury, 23 July 1887, p.13)

Numbers reported in ensuing years varied, but those noted in various locations were inevitably small. A man named “Brandy” was tagged as “The Last of the Gringai” by writers in the area—but, as is always the case (witness the famous case of Triganini, in Tasmania), this claim ignores the reality of the forced movement and relocation, as we as the continued intermarriage of Gringai with nearby Worimi and Wonnarua peoples. People of Gringai heritage are found today across many parts of The Hunter region, and in Sydney.

After the passing of the Native Title Act in 1993, a group of local Indigenous people worked to make a claim for an area of roughly 9,500 square kilometres (3,700 sq mi). The claim included the towns of Singleton, Muswellbrook, Dungog, Maitland, and the shire council lands of the Upper Hunter.

The claim was made on behalf of the Plains Clans of the Wonnarua People by Scott Franks and Anor, on 19 August 2013. The claim was registered in January 2015 and referred to the Federal Court to deliberate over the claim and to make a determination. However, it was ultimately discontinued and removed from the register of native title claims on 2 March 2020.

The discontinuance appears to have been the result of disputes with other Aboriginal people who claimed native title in the area. These disputes led to an independent anthropologist, Dr Lee Sackett, being appointed by the Court to prepare a report to resolve the different views of native title in the area. Dr Sackett’s conclusions were to the effect that key details of the claim’s structure were not supported by the evidence.

See

Aboriginal People – the Gringai
Dungog
Learning of the land (1): Eora, Biripi, Whadjuk Noongar
Learning of the land (2): Ngunnawal, Namadgi and Ngarigo
Learning of the land (3): Tuggeranong, Queanbeyan, and other Canberra place names
Learning from the land (4): Naiame’s Nghunnhu—fishtraps at Brewarrina
Learning of the land (5): Namadgi, Tharwa, and Tidbinbilla
Learning from the land (6): the Gringai of the northern Hunter area

Learning from the land (6): the Gringai of the northern Hunter area

Late last year, Elizabeth and I moved to Dungog, a rural town with a population of a little over 2,000, nestled amidst the rolling hills beside the Williams River, one of the tributaries that flows into the Hunter River. (The other major tributaries include Moonan Brook, Stewarts Brook, Pages Creek, Pages River, Paterson River, Goulburn River, and Wollombi Brook.)

The town has one picture theatre, one high school, two primary schools, three pubs, five active churches, five sports clubs, and six tennis courts. It is the place where Test cricketer Douglas Walters was born (in 1945) and later married, and where indigenous boxer Dave Sands died, aged 26, in a road accident in 1952.

The First Peoples of this area are the Gringai. The traditional lands of the Gringai include an area centred on the place where the town of Dungog is situated, next to the Williams River. It is thought that the name Dungog is derived from a word meaning “clear hills” in the Gringai language.

As I have done with each move of recent times, I have taken some time to investigate a little of what is known about the First Peoples of the area to which we have moved. I have been exploring the stories about contact between the invading British colonisers and the First Peoples who have cared for the land from time immemorial.

In years past, I have found stories about people in the places where Elizabeth and I have lived: the Eora peoples of Sydney, where I grew up and lived for decades; the Biripi peoples, on the mid north coast of NSW; and the Noongyar peoples, of Perth, WA. More recently, I have read and learnt about the Ngunnawal, Ngarigo, and Ngambri peoples, whose lands overlapped in the southern of Canberra, where we were living. It is always an enriching process. You can find the link to my blogs about these peoples and their lands at the end of this blog.

This time, the task of investigating and reporting has been somewhat more difficult. The land council for the area where the Gringai lived is based in Karuah, where the Karuah River flows into Port Stephens. As far as I can tell, there are very few people who claim Gringai heritage today in the area. The invading British colonisers, in their insatiable search for land to settle in the early 19th century, were quite thorough, it would seem, in removing from that land those Indigenous people who had lived on it for millennia.

There are scattered references to the Gringai people in the writings of the settlers from the late 19th century. (I am indebted to Noel Downs, who provided me with links to this material.) And it seems that there has been some debate about the precise scope of the lands of the Gringai, and their relationship to the neighbouring nations of the Wonnarua and the Biripi.

A local history site refers to “two major tribal groups of the broader Hunter River Valley and coastal region; the Wonnarua of the Hunter Valley and the Worimi of the Port Stephens coast area” and claims that “the Gringai were not a separate tribe but a sub-group of one of the two region’s tribes, though which one is in some doubt, with perhaps the Wonnarua being the more likely.” See

Aboriginal People – the Gringai

Working from “land borders” is a very western way of operating; we want to identify and demarcate the lands of one people from another by drawing a clear, precise border. We erect fences around houses, draw lines to mark off states and set up different time zones according to those lines, and have stern staff at the borders of the country to ensure that “undesireables” don’t enter the country. It’s all very precise.

However, Indigenous life was not so squared-off and precise. I remember an Aunty in Wauchope telling us about land not far from where we lived, that was in Biripi country but was considered Dunghutti land, as that was where the two groups of people would meet and yarn and trade—and also where marriages were arranged. This is something that jars to western ears—how can both sets of people “own” the same land?

A better way to go is to be guided by the markers which linguists make from their study of what we know of the languages of the peoples of the First Nations. Linguist Amanda Lissarrague has researched and published A grammar and dictionary of Gathang, in which she explores the links between “the languages of the Birrbay, Guringay and Warrimay peoples”.

These languages, spoken on the northern side of the Hunter River, she identifies as the Lower North Coast (LNC) language also known as Katang, or Guthang. This is distinguished from the Darkinjung and Wanaruah, on the south of the Hunter River, who speak the Lake Macquarie (HRLM) language. 

[Lissarrague’s argument for linking the three groups into the LNC language is technical: “The evidence for linking Wonnarua (M, F), Awabakal (T), Kuringgai (L) and ‘Cammeray’ (M2) is found when one compares verbal inflections and pronoun forms, including bound pronouns, from different sources.” ]

In 1788, Britain established a penal colony at a place that was named Sydney Cove, after Thomas Townshend, the 1st Viscount Sydney. Early in the colonial era, the invading settlers began moving into the region north of Sydney, building on land and claiming the use of that land, citing the grant of land from the British Governor in support of that activity. That inevitably brought them into conflict with the local pIndigenous peoples, who had cared for this land from time immemorial. We now know that this relationship with the land has stretched back at least 60,000 years—perhaps even longer.

The first exploration of the Hunter, Williams and Paterson Rivers by those invading British colonisers had already commenced just 13 years after that initial settlement in Sydney. Convict timber cutters were sent into the area from 1804 onwards, and small land grants at Paterson were made from 1812, and at Clarence Town from 1825.

The Williams River near Dungog

By 1825 most of the prime alluvial land along the lower reaches of the Paterson River had been granted to the settlers amongst the British colonists who prosecuted the increasing invasion of Aboriginal land. This scale of settlement drastically reduced the hunting areas of the Indigenous people, restricted their supply of game and materials, and further exposed them to diseases brought by the British, against which they had little or no immunity.

In 1825, Robert Dawson named the Barrington area after the British Lord Barrington (who had never travelled downunder, of course, to this area). Two young Welshmen, George Townshend (1798–1872) and Charles Boydell (1808–1869), arrived in Australia on 22 March 1826 to take up land grants in the region. They named the Allyn River, the locality of Gresford, and their homesteads, Trevallyn and Camyr Allyn, after places near their homes in Wales.

In 1827, surveyor Thomas Florance named the Chichester River after the city of that name in England. Then, in 1829, George Boyle White explored the sources of the Allyn and Williams rivers. (The origins of the name for the Williams River is uncertain; see the excellent discussion at https://williamsvalleyhistory.org/williams-river-origin/)

Land grants along the Williams River were made to a number of men, including Duncan Mackay, John Verge, and James Dowling (after whom the main street of Dungog is named). Dowling was later to become the second Chief Justice of NSW, serving from 29 August 1837 to 27 September 1844, the day of his death.

The practice of obliterating the Indigenous names by imposing English names is evident in a number of names in the region. The river known as Coqun, meaning “fresh water”, was renamed the Hunter River, after Vice-Admiral John Hunter, the second Governor of NSW (1795–1800). The river known as Yimmang is now known as the Paterson River, named after Colonel William Paterson, who surveyed the area beside the river in 1801. Erringi, meaning “black duck”, was renamed Clarence Town in 1832, after the Duke of Clarence, who had been crowned King William IV in 1830—who, of course, never came to the colonies!

Some Gringai words are retained in the names of the Wangat River and the rural locations of Wallarobba (“rainy gully”), Dingadee (“place for playing games”), Wirragulla (“place of little sticks”), Mindarabbah (“hunter”), and Bolwarra (“high place”).

See https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/134093649

See also

Aboriginal People – the Gringai
Dungog

https://www.patersonhistory.org.au/museumaboriginal.pdf

Learning of the land (1): Eora, Biripi, Whadjuk Noongar
Learning of the land (2): Ngunnawal, Namadgi and Ngarigo
Learning of the land (3): Tuggeranong, Queanbeyan, and other Canberra place names
Learning from the land (4): Naiame’s Nghunnhu—fishtraps at Brewarrina
Learning of the land (5): Namadgi, Tharwa, and Tidbinbilla

To mourn? To celebrate? To move ahead with maturity and thoughtfulness? For 26 January.

This year, on 26 January, no doubt many people around Australia will gather to cook at the BBQ and swim in the surf. Families and friends will enjoy a relaxing time on a public holiday. Somewhere in the background, perhaps, there will hover a sense of satisfaction that we are “the lucky country” full of “mates and cobbers”, where there is “a fair go” for everyone, a country in which we can wave our flags, have our BBQs, kick back and relax.

Indeed, around the world, people who call Australia home will most likely be gathering, perhaps with fellow-Aussies, to celebrate the day. I know that when I was living in a foreign country, 40 years ago, I did just that—finding some other Australians in the university’s Graduate Student Housing to share in a meal as we celebrated “being Australian” in a foreign land.

That was all almost half-a-lifetime ago, now; and my perspective on this has changed somewhat, I confess. I am still, as I was then, a fervent republican, believing that Australia needs to be a completely independent nation with no role at all for the inbred imperialist family whose forbears colonised this continent and who still have a formal, legal role in the affairs of this country, from many thousands of kilometres away.

And I am still resolutely opposed to the primitive tribal tendencies inherent in nationalism, and its ugly cousin jingoism, because of the emotional damage that this does to impressionable minds, and the consequent savagery that it has unleashed in warfare across the years.

The cost of war is immense and long-enduring; the “victory” won by a nation in prosecuting war is fleeting by comparison. War means injury and death, to our own troops, and to the troops of those we are fighting against. Every death means a family and a local community that is grieving. There is great emotional cost just in one death, let alone the thousands and thousands that wars incur. To say nothing of the damage done to civilians, particularly women and children, as “collateral damage” in these nationalistic enterprises. Jingoistic nationalism fuels the appetite for warfare.

So it is with some small degree of satisfaction that I note that the many congregations of the Uniting Church of have held a Day of Mourning to reflect on the dispossession of Australia’s First Peoples and the ongoing injustices faced by First Nations people in this land. This resets and reorients the focus of the time around the “national day” of Australia.

For those of us who are Second Peoples from many lands, this focus offers an opportunity to lament that we were and remain complicit in the ongoing consequences of this dispossession. It also invites us to consider what we might do to move away from that negative trajectory.

The observance of a Day of Mourning on the Sunday before 26 January arises from a request from the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) which was endorsed by the 15th Assembly in 2018. Since then, many Congregations have held worship services that reflect on the effects of invasion, colonisation and racism on First Peoples. (This year it took place on Sunday 21 January.)

The first Day of Mourning took place in 1938, after years of work by the Australian Aborigines League (AAL) and the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA). In a pamphlet published for the occasion, it was stated that “the 26th of January, 1938, is not a day of rejoicing for Australia’s Aborigines; it is a day of mourning. This festival of 150 years’ so-called “progress” in Australia commemorates also 150 years of misery and degradation imposed upon the original native inhabitants by the white invaders of this country.”

The Uniting Church has acknowledged that our predecessors in the denominations which joined in 1977 to form the Uniting Church have been “complicit in the injustice that resulted in many of the First Peoples being dispossessed from their land, their language, their culture and spirituality, becoming strangers in their own land”. That itself is a cause for lament and mourning.

The Uniting Church has also recognised that people in these churches “were largely silent as the dominant culture of Australia constructed and propagated a distorted version of history that denied this land was occupied, utilised, cultivated and harvested by these First Peoples who also had complex systems of trade and inter-relationships”.

[The quotations above come from the Revised Preamble to the Constitution of the Uniting Church in Australia, adopted in 2009]

See https://ucaassembly.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/442

In worship resources prepared in relation to this Revised Preamble, people are invited to affirm the general belief that “the Spirit has been alive and active in every race and culture, getting hearts and minds ready for the good news: the good news of God’s love and grace that Jesus Christ revealed”, as well as the specific statement four our context, that “from the beginning the Spirit was alive and active, revealing God through the law, custom and ceremony of the First Peoples of this ancient land”.

People are also invited to confess “with sorrow the way in which their land was taken from them and their language, culture and spirituality despised and suppressed”, as well as the reality that “in our own time the injustice and abuse has continued; we have been indifferent when we should have been outraged, we have been apathetic when we should have been active, we have been silent when we should have spoken out.”

See https://unitingchurchwa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Liturgical_Resources_revised_preamble04062016.pdf

So on 26 January this year, as a nation of multicultural complexity, with diverse narratives of origins and developments over the years, we would do well to follow this lead, and ensure that what happens on this day might include realistic mourning for what has been done in past years, and for what this means in our own time for First Peoples of this country; and perhaps some indications as to how we are planning and working to rectify injustice and overturn oppression.

Alongside the celebration of the ways that Australia has become a vibrant, strengthened “modern nation”, we would do well to include this note of reality and expression of hope for those who have, unfairly and in a disproportionate way, shouldered the burden of inequity over the decades.

It would be good for the trite, simplistic, jingoistic approach to our national day to incorporate some maturity in how we think about, reflect upon, and commit to act in relation to First Peoples. The sorry saga of last year’s referendum should at least prod us in this direction, surely?

Voice, then Truth—and Treaties (4) #YestotheVoice

The Voice to Parliament is not a partisan political issue; it is a national matter that draws together a wide range of Australian society in support of the First Nations people of this continent and its surrounding islands.

Over 110 ethnic and cultural community organisations have committed their “steadfast support” for a YES vote in the upcoming Voice referendum. Signatories includes multiple Indian and Chinese community organisations, along with Sri Lankan, Italian, Irish, Iranian, Greek, Vietnamese, Filipino, Sikh, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and Pacific Islander community groups – to name just a few.

The Joint Resolution describes a constitutionally guaranteed Voice as “modest, practical and fair”. In their press release, multicultural community leaders say, “as leaders of diverse multicultural community organisations, we endorse the Uluru Statement and its call for a First Nations voice guaranteed by the Constitution”. They further say, “We commit our steadfast support, and urge all Australians to work together to ensure referendum success. Let us co-operate across differences of politics and diversities of culture and faith, to heal our country and unify the nation.”

*****

Leaders of Australian Muslim communities have expressed their strong support of the YES vote in the coming referendum. Indigenous Australian peoples have a long relationship with Muslims, dating back centuries before British colonisation.

Yolngu and other Indigenous peoples in the north of Australia traded and engaged in cultural exchanges with Makassans from Indonesia. Islamic references identified in Yolngu mythology and ritual include “the ‘Dreaming’ creation figure, Walitha’walitha, also known as Allah.”

Many Indigenous Australian women married Afghan cameleers who were brought to Australia in the 1800s to help traverse the country’s interior arid and desert regions. Others intermarried with early Muslim Australians, particularly Indian ‘hawkers’, also who came to Australia as ‘guest’ workers in the late 1800s.

Many Indigenous Australians are reconnecting with their Muslim heritage. Today, Islam is the only religion that is increasing among Indigenous Australians, while other categories of religion are unchanged or have declined according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census data.

The Islam in Australia survey conducted in 2019 found 94 percent agree or strongly agree that Indigenous Australians should be recognised in Australia’s Constitution.

*****

Australian Jewish community leader Mark Leibler thinks an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is important. Whilst he recognises there will always be a diversity of views within any community, he believes that the Australian Jewish community broadly supports the Voice as a just and reasonable step towards righting past wrongs.

He refers to a famous quote from the prophet Jeremiah that references a voice, and it comes to mind as we contemplate this step: “A voice is heard, crying, weeping. It is a mother, Rachel, crying about her children; inconsolable because her children are gone.” The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice needs to be heard because our Indigenous children are suffering also, says Mark Leibler. And the words of the prophet tell us why: calm your weeping – as there is hope for your future.

He wisely notes that “we are privileged as Australians that our history encompasses the most ancient, enduring culture on earth. Surely, our founding document should recognise and celebrate this richness.”

He also notes that “while Australians of today are not responsible for past wrongs, we are responsible for recognising the impact of intergenerational trauma and for supporting Indigenous fellow citizens to heal from this trauma so that it doesn’t negatively impact generations to come.”

*****

Not all members of the Liberal Party are reluctant to support the YES vote in the proposed referendum. Liberals for Yes is a group of Liberals from around Australia, from branch members to federal politicians, who support a yes vote on the Indigenous voice to parliament.

Kate Carnell is national convener of Liberals for Yes. She is a serving member of the board of BeyondBlue, a former CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a former chief minister of the ACT.

She says, “We want to ensure that Liberals across Australia feel empowered and comfortable to vote yes and even advocate for it in their communities. We acknowledge that our federal parliamentary leadership has chosen to oppose the proposed constitutional amendment. But the Liberal party’s greatest tradition is that it is a broad church that accommodates a diverse range of views.

“An Indigenous voice would be a standing body aimed at practical outcomes, with its existence mandated by the Australian people because they support recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander as the original inhabitants of our continent.

So it is fair, it is practical, it is workable and constitutionally safe; this makes it well aligned with Liberal values.”

Voice, then Truth—and Treaties (I) #YestotheVoice

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have long struggled for constitutional recognition. As far back as Yorta Yorta elder William Cooper’s letter to King George VI (1937), the Yirrkala Bark Petitions (1963), the Larrakia Petition (1972) and the Barunga Statement (1988), First Peoples have sought a fair place in our country.

All Prime Ministers of the modern era were conscious of the original omission of First Peoples from our constitutional arrangements. Prime Minister the Hon Gough Whitlam spoke of the need for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to take “their rightful place in this nation”. Prime Minister the Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser established a Senate inquiry whose report, 200 Years Later: Report by the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs on the Feasibility of a Compact or ‘Makarrata’ between the Commonwealth and Aboriginal People, was delivered after the 1983 election.

Prime Minister the Hon Bob Hawke sought to respond to the Barunga Statement with his commitment for a treaty or compact at the bicentenary of 1988. In his Redfern Speech in 1991, Prime Minister the Hon Paul Keating said, How well we recognise the fact that, complex as our contemporary identity is, it cannot be separated from Aboriginal Australia.

Prime Minister the Hon John Howard committed to a referendum on the eve of the 2007 federal election, saying: I believe we must find room in our national life to formally recognise the special status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the first peoples of our nation.

In 2010 Prime Minister the Hon Julia Gillard established the Expert Panel on the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution, co-chaired by Patrick Dodson and Mark Leibler, which reported in 2012.

Prime Minister the Hon Tony Abbott established a Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, co-chaired by Senator Ken Wyatt and Senator Nova Peris, which reported in June 2015.

Prime Minister the Hon Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader the Hon Bill Shorten then established the Referendum Council in December 2015. The Council worked to build on the work of the Expert Panel and the Joint Select Committee. It reported in 2017, taking into account the political and legal responses to the earlier reports, as well as the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the general public.

This is the first time in Australia’s history that such a process has been undertaken. It is a significant response to the historical exclusion of First Peoples from the original process that led to the adoption of the Australian Constitution. The outcomes of the First Nations Regional Dialogues and the National Constitutional Convention are articulated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The findings of our broader community consultation supported the findings of the First Nations Regional Dialogues. This strengthens our conviction that the Voice to the Parliament proposal and an extra-constitutional Declaration of Recognition will be acceptable to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to the broader Australian community.

In their Final Report, the Co-Chairs of the Referendum Council, Pat Anderson AO and Mark Leibler AC, say, “We propose these reforms because they conform to the weight of views of First Peoples expressed in the First Nations Regional Dialogues as well as those of the wider community. With focussed political leadership and continued multiparty support for meaningful recognition, the Voice to the Parliament proposal can succeed at a referendum.

“The consensus view of the Referendum Council is that these recommendations for constitutional and extra-constitutional recognition are modest, reasonable, unifying and capable of attracting the necessary support of the Australian people.”

This is the work that lies behind the request to Vote YES in the proposed 2023 referendum. It has been a long process, with bipartisan political support, and there is a lot of information that is available.

from the Foreword from the Co-Chairs of the Final Report of the Referendum Council, 2017

https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/final-report.html#toc-anchor-forewordfrom-the-co-chairs

Why I am voting YES

I have been thinking about the upcoming referendum,,now announced for 14 October, for quite some time. I was recently asked why I planned to vote YES, and after giving this some consideration, I decided that there are eight key reasons to Vote YES:

1. There has been a long period of preparation leading to this present moment. Many Prime Ministers, each one since Gough Whitlam, have spoken in support of according a special place for First Peoples (yes—even John Howard!) In the last decade, our federal leadership has acted by setting up an Expert Panel in 2010 (Gillard), and then a Joint Select Committee in 2012 (Abbott), and then the Referendum Council in 2015 (Turnbull). This has been a bi-partisan political trajectory, culminating in the decision to go to a referendum in 2023 (Albanese).

2. As a result, Indigenous consultations have taken place, led by intelligent, compassionate, informed Elders, leading to the 2017 Consultation at Uluṟu. The Uluṟu Statement provides a clear Indigenous voice which speaks clearly about what is required: recognition in the Australian Constitution, a permanent Voice to Parliament, the telling of truth about our national history, and a Makarrata Commission to oversee the formalisation of treaties with the various First Nations. This is what the Elders of the First Nations are now asking of us.

3. Reputable polling shows that a vast majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people support the request of the Statement from the Heart, which forms the basis for the proposed referendum. We all need to listen, acknowledge, and respond to that clear request. Voting YES will not solve everything, but it will be a very important basis for future action in this regard.

4. Many community groups and organisations are supporting a YES vote. This proposal has seized the imagination of people around the country. Sporting organisations, religious organisations, members of all major political parties, leaders of many ethnic and cultural community groups, leaders of many businesses, first ministers of every state and territory as well as our Prime Minister, each have joined their voice to the call for a YES vote. Support cuts across all distinctions and divisions in our society to unify in a strong call to vote YES.

5. Regular advice from the Indigenous-elected Voice will shape future policies of the national government in ways that will provide practical support to First Peoples, and help move us closer towards Closing the Gap in all areas. There is much work to be done. Governments in recent years have said that they want to Close the Gap, but progress has been slow. Regular, informed advice from the people most impacted will surely help us to move forward in this regard.

6. A resounding YES vote, akin to what took place in the 1967 referendum, will give a clear indication of how we have, at last, matured as a nation, moving beyond the xenophobic fear of the white Australia era and its continuation into the “white blindfold” years in the “history wars” of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In recent decades in our society, we have taken a number of important steps in this regard, and this vote invites us to take a very important leap forward.

7. A YES vote will not be a divisive decision. Recognising First Peoples in the Constitution will not drive a wedge between “us” and “them”, nor will it give any privilege to these people. It will simply be a formal, legal recognition of the reality of the fact that when British colonisers invaded and settled on this continent, claiming it is their land, that land had in fact been cared for over millennia by the people already living on that land. In fact, a YES vote will provide good grounds for coming together in a more cohesive way in our society. It will speak truth about our past. Any future progress towards real reconciliation within our society depends on our taking this step, now.

8. A strong YES vote will provide a solid foundation for positive, constructive, hope-giving actions in the coming years, that will ensure we address the situation and redress the disadvantages of Aboriginal and Islander peoples. We recognise them with flags, we acknowledge them when we are on country, we encourage their languages and nurture their community groups; now we need to recognise them within our Constitution and ensure that there is a permanent Voice which can speak clearly on their behalf into the public arena.

I think that for the sake of First Nations peoples and for the health of the country as a whole, it is imperative that we vote YES!!!

Giving a Voice to First Peoples: the precedent within the Uniting Church

Note: this blog post contains images of Indigenous people who have passed away.

Giving a Voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is in the news. Recently we learnt that a referendum about this matter will be held (the talk is that mid-October is the preferred time). The Uniting Church Assembly has already indicated its strong support for a YES vote in this referendum, and our Presbytery decided this earlier this year at the March meeting at Melba.

But did you know that, within the Uniting Church, we have been giving a Voice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for almost four decades? That Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are guaranteed places as members of Synods and Assemblies whenever they meet? That an Aboriginal or Islander person will often sit beside the Moderator of a Synod or President of the Assembly, and serve as co-chair of that meeting? That Aboriginal and Islander voices have a permanent pathway to speak to the whole church, through the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Conference (Congress)?

In 1988—the year that Australia celebrated the Bicentenary of white settlement—the Assembly published a Statement to the Nation, which focussed on Aboriginal people, who had lived on and cared for the country we know as Australia for many thousands of years. You can read the full text of that 1988 Statement at https://www.assembly.uca.org.au/resources/introduction/item/133-statement-to-the-nation-australian-bicentennial-year-1988

That Statement noted that “the movements of history have brought together here in one nation … people of many cultures and races, both  Aboriginal and migrant”, and affirmed that within the Uniting Church, “Aboriginal and newer Australians have determined to stand together”. The Church was committing to a co-operative partnership with First Peoples—in 1988.

Before that Statement, in 1985, the Uniting Church had formed the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Conference (UAICC). The logo of the UAICC is depicted here. The Congress (as it is usually known) gave Aboriginal and Islander people a voice within the structures of the church—they are consulted about decisions and have a guaranteed number of members in the Synods and Assembly meetings of the church. The vision of the UAICC, in their own words, is:

  • We determine our own goals and objectives and decide policies and priorities;
  • We run our own programs and institutions;
  • We aim, in collaboration with other people, to bring to an end the injustices which hold Aboriginal and Islander people at the fringes of Australian society and to help Aboriginal and Islander people achieve spiritual, economic, social and cultural independence.

A decade later, in 1994, the President of the Uniting Church, Dr Jill Tabart, signed a Covenant Agreement with the Chairperson of the UAICC, Pastor Bill Hollingworth (pictured above). The Covenant expressed “our desire to work in solidarity … for the advancement of God’s kingdom of justice and righteousness in this land”. Since then, the church has really worked hard at putting this into practice.

Then, in 2014, people from all over Australia travelled to Canberra to hold a prayer vigil for Our Destiny Together in front of Parliament House. Rev. Rronang Garrawurra, Chairperson of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC) and Assembly President, Rev. Prof. Andrew Dutney, led a service of worship. From remote communities in places like Arnhem Land and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands and from the centres of our big cities, people gathered to pray, pass the peace, and share in Holy Communion.

From left: the Rev. Elenie Poulus (Social Justice Director),
the Rev. Rronang Garrawurra, Chairperson of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC), the Rev. Prof. Andrew Dutney, President of the Assembly, and the Rev. Terence Corkin, General Secretary of the Assembly,
at Parliament House in 2014 for the A Destiny Together pilgrimage.

“It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher”, Jesus says as he instructs his disciples about their mission (Matt 10:25). These developments within the Uniting Church show how we are striving to be like Jesus, sharing together with all people—especially the First Peoples of this continent (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people).

And we know that it is possible—and, indeed, that it brings good value—for First Peoples to have a place in the councils of the church, discussing and deciding policy, and for their Voice, through the Congress, to be heard and responded to in appropriate ways.

That’s another good reason why we need to Vote YES in the referendum, surely. We need to ensure that, as well as recognising First Peoples in the Australian Constitution, we have a permanent Voice to Parliament in our ongoing structures.

Learning of the land (5): Namadgi, Tharwa, and Tidbinbilla

Not far from where we live, to the southwest in what is known as the Brindabella Ranges, there is a large swathe of national park. The Namadgi National Park actually stretches for almost 100 kilometres and it covers just over 100,000 hectares. It is a beautiful “natural” landscape with just a few roads running through it, quite a number of walking trails, and many features of significance.

Because it is so close (the entry point is just a 10km drive from where Elizabeth and I live), we have often ventured into the park for a Sunday afternoon drive; or, as was the case during the pandemic lockdown, for a once-a-week escape from the confines of home and the demands of the ZOOM screen!

In early 2020, the Orroral Valley bushfire burnt over 80% of Namadgi National Park, or about 86,562 hectares. The fire came perilously close to the urban area where we love, at the southern edge of Canberra. Maps were published showing the danger of embers falling on the suburbs of Gordon and Banks. Plans to evacuate were publicised. We had packed our essentials into a couple of boxes, ready to whisk them away at an early opportunity.

One night, we stood with half of the residents of our street, watching the tops of the Brindabella range mountains that could be seen from our street. There were a number of fires, burning bright in the night. The darkness meant there was no real perspective; the flames, actually 5–6km away, looked like they were just across in the next street. The overhead buzz of planes and copters indicated that the Emergency Services were doing their very best to stop the spread of the fire—as they had been doing for weeks prior to this night.

The fire did not run down the mountain, into the urban area, as it had done in 2003, when a number of suburbs in the south-western area of Canberra were devastated. The memories of that event, scarred deep into the memories of people who had lived in the city longer than we had, were brought back to life in striking and vivid ways, for many we knew.

Just past the entry to the national park, the mountain of Tharwa stands high. It was given the name of Mount Tennent early in the colonial period, when British colonisation began. It was named after John Tennant, a bush ranger who lived in a hideout on the mountain behind Tharwa.

Tennant absconded from his assigned landholder in 1826 and with some others formed a gang which raided local homesteads in the years 1827 and 1828. Eventually he was arrested and transported to Norfolk Island. Tennant was 29 years old when he had been sentenced to transportation to Australia for life in 1823. He arrived in Sydney on 12 July 1824 on the ‘Prince Regent’. Old habits died hard, it would seem. He died in 1837, a year after coming back to Sydney.

Soon after the 2020 bushfire, flooding to the fireground caused significant and widespread damage. The road that ran deep into the national park was closed. Added to the risk of burnt trees falling was the damage done to roads and infrastructure in the floods that occurred some months after the fires. Eventually, the road into the park was opened. We were able to venture back into the bush—to see at close quarters the scarred landscape, the swathes of burnt trees, and the bursts of vibrant green leaves now decorating those burnt trunks.

The savage brutality of what had taken place was evident, from a distance, to those of us who paid attention. Now, at close range, we were able to see just how severe the damage was, as well as how resilient the Australian bush is. New life is bursting forth in so many ways—sadly, not everywhere, as some areas will take much longer to recover—but overall, a picture of verdant health is evident.

******

Archaeological excavation and carbon dating of sites in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and Namadgi National Park has confirmed an Aboriginal presence in the ACT region 25,000 years ago. Temperatures in the region would have been several degrees lower 25,000 years ago—similar to the conditions on the summit of Mount Kosciuszko today. In other words, seriously cold!!

Bogong Moths would pass through the area in October on their way from breeding grounds on the plains, up to the mountains to hibernate for the summer. The moths are highly nutritious, easy to collect and were in sufficient numbers to warrant large gatherings. Many Aboriginal people from different clan groups and neighbouring nations gathered here for initiation ceremonies, marriage, corroborees and trade.

In fact Jedbinbilla, which means ‘a place where boys become men’ in Ngunnawal language, is situated adjacent to Tidbinbilla and we are told that it was an important place for young boys to learn the first of three stages of man-hood (gatherer, hunter, warrior).

Archaeological surveys of two of the main access routes to the valley area, the Fishing Gap Trail and the path over Devil’s Gap, have found clear evidence of frequent Aboriginal passage. Gibraltar Rocks is a highly significant spiritual site and a corroboree site has been found near the headwaters of Sheedy’s Creek.

Researchers believe the Tidbinbilla valley floor was the focus of a territorial group that survived on the plentiful supply of possum, ducks, wild turkeys, emus, platypus, kangaroo, fish, yabbies and a range of plants, tubers, seeds and fruit.

When Europeans first arrived in the area in the early 1820s hundreds of Aboriginal people lived here. The population of Aboriginal people increased at various times during the year when people travelled to the region for social gatherings, ceremonies and seasonal food collecting. European settlement had the same impact on Aboriginal communities in the ACT as it did in other parts of Australia. It brought displacement from the land and exposed people to new diseases such as influenza, smallpox and tuberculosis, from which many died. That, to our shame, is an enduring legacy that we forced into the First Peoples.

Aboriginal heritage sites found in this region include burial places, campsites, rock shelters (with or without ochre paintings), stone arrangements, scarred trees, ceremonial grounds, grinding grooves, quarries and sacred places. At times, Aboriginal occupation is also evident at early European sites such as historic homesteads, cemeteries, reserves and old bridle tracks and coach roads. There is lots of information at https://www.tidbinbilla.act.gov.au/learn/tidbinbilla?a=396477

*****

Men’s sites were often found in the higher peaks of the valley. One of the rock shelters is home to ancient rock art found along a pathway to the Gibraltar rock peak, which is a men’s site. While the mountains in Tidbinbilla are also important to Ngunnawal women, women’s sites were found closer to the river system that twisted through the valley. In some women’s places grinding grooves can still be found on the river’s edge.

Often grand geological formations would be significant to the story of place. Many formations can still be seen today which visually reflect the dreaming story of the valley and its important relationship to the people that have survived and thrived within it for thousands of years. An example of this is the shape of a pregnant woman seen through the contours in the western slopes of the valley and found in the centre of the Tidbinbilla valley is a rock that looks like a perched eagle (Maliyan) the creator spirit of the Tidbinbilla dreaming story.

Tidbinbilla was a key place for Ngunnawal ceremonies, with groups from surrounding areas entering through key points such as Gibraltar Peak, where an elder would light a fire to guide people into the valley. Neighbouring language groups travelled to Ngunnawal Country for the purpose of ceremony, lore, marriage arrangements, trade, sharing of seasonal foods and cultural knowledge.

Tidbinbilla was also a place where young men learnt traditional lore/law, and where they were taken into the mountains as they learnt to become men in the traditional way. Similarly, Ngunnawal women carried out their customary ceremonies in the lower areas of the landscape preparing young girls for womanhood. And as we have noted, the mountains surrounding the valley were home in spring to the migrating bogong moths, which were gathered by Ngunnawal people as a source of food. See

https://www.tidbinbilla.act.gov.au/learn/ngunnawal-culture-and-heritage

and

https://www.canberratracks.act.gov.au/heritage-trails/track-1-ngunnawal-country/namadgi-visitor-centre

*****

For earlier posts on learning of country, see

Learning of the land (1): Eora, Biripi, Whadjuk Noongar
Learning of the land (2): Ngunnawal, Namadgi and Ngarigo
Learning of the land (3): Tuggeranong, Queanbeyan, and other Canberra place names
Learning from the land (4): Naiame’s Nghunnhu—fishtraps at Brewarrina

Learning of the land (5): Namadgi, Tharwa, and Tidbinbilla

Not far from where we live, to the southwest in what is known as the Brindabella Ranges, there is a large swathe of national park. The Namadgi National Park actually stretches for almost 100 kilometres and it covers just over 100,000 hectares. It is a beautiful “natural” landscape with just a few roads running through it, quite a number of walking trails, and many features of significance.

Because it is so close (the entry point is just a 10km drive from where Elizabeth and I live), we have often ventured into the park for a Sunday afternoon drive; or, as was the case during the pandemic lockdown, for a once-a-week escape from the confines of home and the demands of the ZOOM screen!

In early 2020, the Orroral Valley bushfire burnt over 80% of Namadgi National Park, or about 86,562 hectares. The fire came perilously close to the urban area where we love, at the southern edge of Canberra. Maps were published showing the danger of embers falling on the suburbs of Gordon and Banks. Plans to evacuate were publicised. We had packed our essentials into a couple of boxes, ready to whisk them away at an early opportunity.

One night, we stood with half of the residents of our street, watching the tops of the Brindabella range mountains that could be seen from our street. There were a number of fires, burning bright in the night. The darkness meant there was no real perspective; the flames, actually 5–6km away, looked like they were just across in the next street. The overhead buzz of planes and copters indicated that the Emergency Services were doing their very best to stop the spread of the fire—as they had been doing for weeks prior to this night.

The fire did not run down the mountain, into the urban area, as it had done in 2003, when a number of suburbs in the south-western area of Canberra were devastated. The memories of that event, scarred deep into the memories of people who had lived in the city longer than we had, were brought back to life in striking and vivid ways, for many we knew.

Just past the entry to the national park, the mountain of Tharwa stands high. It was given the name of Mount Tennent early in the colonial period, when British colonisation began. It was named after John Tennant, a bush ranger who lived in a hideout on the mountain behind Tharwa.

Tharwa (Mount Tennant) some months after the 2020 fires

Tennant absconded from his assigned landholder in 1826 and with some others formed a gang which raided local homesteads in the years 1827 and 1828. Eventually he was arrested and transported to Norfolk Island. Tennant was 29 years old when he had been sentenced to transportation to Australia for life in 1823. He arrived in Sydney on 12 July 1824 on the ‘Prince Regent’. Old habits died hard, it would seem. He died in 1837, a year after coming back to Sydney.

Soon after the 2020 bushfire, flooding to the fireground caused significant and widespread damage. The road that ran deep into the national park was closed. Added to the risk of burnt trees falling was the damage done to roads and infrastructure in the floods that occurred some months after the fires. Eventually, the road into the park was opened. We were able to venture back into the bush—to see at close quarters the scarred landscape, the swathes of burnt trees, and the bursts of vibrant green leaves now decorating those burnt trunks.

The savage brutality of what had taken place was evident, from a distance, to those of us who paid attention. Now, at close range, we were able to see just how severe the damage was, as well as how resilient the Australian bush is. New life is bursting forth in so many ways—sadly, not everywhere, as some areas will take much longer to recover—but overall, a picture of verdant health is evident.

******

Archaeological excavation and carbon dating of sites in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and Namadgi National Park has confirmed an Aboriginal presence in the ACT region 25,000 years ago. Temperatures in the region would have been several degrees lower 25,000 years ago—similar to the conditions on the summit of Mount Kosciuszko today. In other words, seriously cold!!

Bogong Moths would pass through the area in October on their way from breeding grounds on the plains, up to the mountains to hibernate for the summer. The moths are highly nutritious, easy to collect and were in sufficient numbers to warrant large gatherings. Many Aboriginal people from different clan groups and neighbouring nations gathered here for initiation ceremonies, marriage, corroborees and trade.

In fact Jedbinbilla, which means ‘a place where boys become men’ in Ngunnawal language, is situated adjacent to Tidbinbilla and we are told that it was an important place for young boys to learn the first of three stages of man-hood (gatherer, hunter, warrior).

Archaeological surveys of two of the main access routes to the valley area, the Fishing Gap Trail and the path over Devil’s Gap, have found clear evidence of frequent Aboriginal passage. Gibraltar Rocks is a highly significant spiritual site and a corroboree site has been found near the headwaters of Sheedy’s Creek.

Researchers believe the Tidbinbilla valley floor was the focus of a territorial group that survived on the plentiful supply of possum, ducks, wild turkeys, emus, platypus, kangaroo, fish, yabbies and a range of plants, tubers, seeds and fruit.

When Europeans first arrived in the area in the early 1820s hundreds of Aboriginal people lived here. The population of Aboriginal people increased at various times during the year when people travelled to the region for social gatherings, ceremonies and seasonal food collecting. European settlement had the same impact on Aboriginal communities in the ACT as it did in other parts of Australia. It brought displacement from the land and exposed people to new diseases such as influenza, smallpox and tuberculosis, from which many died. That, to our shame, is an enduring legacy that we forced into the First Peoples.

Aboriginal heritage sites found in this region include burial places, campsites, rock shelters (with or without ochre paintings), stone arrangements, scarred trees, ceremonial grounds, grinding grooves, quarries and sacred places. At times, Aboriginal occupation is also evident at early European sites such as historic homesteads, cemeteries, reserves and old bridle tracks and coach roads. There is lots of information at https://www.tidbinbilla.act.gov.au/learn/tidbinbilla?a=396477

*****

Men’s sites were often found in the higher peaks of the valley. One of the rock shelters is home to ancient rock art found along a pathway to the Gibraltar rock peak, which is a men’s site. While the mountains in Tidbinbilla are also important to Ngunnawal women, women’s sites were found closer to the river system that twisted through the valley. In some women’s places grinding grooves can still be found on the river’s edge.

Often grand geological formations would be significant to the story of place. Many formations can still be seen today which visually reflect the dreaming story of the valley and its important relationship to the people that have survived and thrived within it for thousands of years. An example of this is the shape of a pregnant woman seen through the contours in the western slopes of the valley and found in the centre of the Tidbinbilla valley is a rock that looks like a perched eagle (Maliyan) the creator spirit of the Tidbinbilla dreaming story.

Tidbinbilla was a key place for Ngunnawal ceremonies, with groups from surrounding areas entering through key points such as Gibraltar Peak, where an elder would light a fire to guide people into the valley. Neighbouring language groups travelled to Ngunnawal Country for the purpose of ceremony, lore, marriage arrangements, trade, sharing of seasonal foods and cultural knowledge.

Tidbinbilla was also a place where young men learnt traditional lore/law, and where they were taken into the mountains as they learnt to become men in the traditional way. Similarly, Ngunnawal women carried out their customary ceremonies in the lower areas of the landscape preparing young girls for womanhood. And as we have noted, the mountains surrounding the valley were home in spring to the migrating bogong moths, which were gathered by Ngunnawal people as a source of food. See

https://www.tidbinbilla.act.gov.au/learn/ngunnawal-culture-and-heritage

and

https://www.canberratracks.act.gov.au/heritage-trails/track-1-ngunnawal-country/namadgi-visitor-centre

*****

For earlier posts on learning of country, see

Learning of the land (1): Eora, Biripi, Whadjuk Noongar
Learning of the land (2): Ngunnawal, Namadgi and Ngarigo
Learning of the land (3): Tuggeranong, Queanbeyan, and other Canberra place names
Learning from the land (4): Naiame’s Nghunnhu—fishtraps at Brewarrina