Aboriginal Hereditary Chiefs, Permanent Homes and Aquaculture in Victoria, Australia

 

South Western Victoria, Australia has Hereditary Chiefs, Permanent Homes and Aquaculture.

front view of long eel trap

Photograph Source from South Australia Museum

This is at the Tyrendarra Indigenous Protected Area near Portland south west of Victoria.

As part of this project I have been researching into the heritage and practices of the Gunditjmara people.

There is not a lot published on web 2.0 although such a hidden treasure of history and culture in Victoria is gaining ground as more is unearthed by and about the Indigenous Gunditjmarra people.

There is a story published on the ABC Catalyst site that is informative.  There is a small article about the dwellings and a representation of what how the dwellings would have looked like.  The web page has also a transcript of a conversation and includes a narrative.  The narrative puts down facts and references about the area and the aboriginal customs.  The narrative is woven into the comments made by Ken Saunders a local indigenous leader, Professor Peter Kershaw Director, Centre for Palynology and Palaeoecology and Dr Heather Builth, Archaeologist and Anthropologist.

This displaces the theory that all Indigenous Aboriginals where Nomadic.

The houses were in fact made out of stones and trees and were circular and very permanent.

The article posted by the Catalyst program is an informative approach and has a short but good starting point for research into the history and culture of the Gunditjmarra people,

The Gunditjmara people made complex methods of aquaculture that include channeling water flows and the systematically farming of eels.

With a supply of fresh eels to farm, harvest and to eat or smoke, the eels would ensure for a good all year round food supply.  The Gunditjmara people had created with the use of woven baskets placed in the channels, traps to catch and direct different sizes of eels to certain areas of the vast water channels .

The Web Page from The National Native Title Tribunal has information about the land title rights of the Gunditjmara people in 2007.  It says that:

“In a Federal Court hearing on 30 March 2007, 11 years after submitting their claim, the Gunditjmara People’s non-exclusive native title rights and interests were recognized over an area which included vacant Crown land, national parks, reserves, rivers, creeks and sea.”  This has been a long time coming.

I found the web based information published about The Lake Condah Sustainable Development Project to be a good source into Lake Condah.

To quote from the web page, “This involves archeological and paleo-environmental work that has added scientific process to the traditional stories of the Gunditjmara that Lake Condah, and the broader Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape, is home to one of the oldest continuously inhabited and farmed sites in the world’s history of mankind”

There is also further information on The Australian Government web page, about Budj Bim as a national heritage site.