Waranga Dreaming
As noted in the previous story, perhaps the most prized possessions of local Aboriginal people were their possum skin cloaks. Over time, a person’s possum skin cloak would grow in size, and as well as being a practical item, was an important cultural object. The decoration on the leather
Waranga Dreaming
Squatter Edward Curr’s description of a corroboree on his run in the 1840s, near present-day Tongala, makes two references to the use of possum skin cloaks. In one, he talks about the women rolling up their cloaks, leather-side out, and bashing on them to make a bass
Waranga Dreaming
The corroboree witnessed by squatter Edward Curr in the early 1840s, that was mentioned in the previous story, occurred at a meeting between clans of the Ngurai-illum Wurrung people and the Bangerang people. One of the main reasons for the gathering “was the delivery of the betrothed girls to
Waranga Dreaming
Aboriginal spirituality could be expressed in many ways, including musically and through ceremony. Corroborees were one very obvious way of doing this. There are tantalising snippets of information about corroborees being held in the area that is now the south end of High Street, Rushworth, close to Moora Road. The
Waranga Dreaming
In one of our earlier stories, Harry Parris, an old Nagambie resident writing in the 1950s had surmised that the Ngurai-illum Wurrung people wintered at Reedy Lake. He proposed that with the onset of spring, they would be on the move, heading through the ancient red gum forest that
Waranga Dreaming
The incidents described in recent stories in this series were not isolated: they happened all around Australia. Although they are part of Australian history, they were not something that was ever taught in schools, until perhaps recently. No serious study of incidents involving the violent deaths of Aboriginal people in
Waranga Dreaming
In 1839, more violent incidents occurred along the Campaspe River, this time in the country of the Ngurai-illum Wurrung people. The squatter Charles Hutton, a former officer in the British army in India, had a run on Wild Duck Creek, south of present-day Heathcote. In dry conditions, he
Waranga Dreaming
In June 1838, a group of Aboriginal people killed two shepherds and took some sheep from a station to the south, moving them north to a bend on the river, where they secured them with a brush fence. A group of around eight European men on horses followed the clearly
Waranga Dreaming
We tend to have a romantic vision of hard-working European colonists coming in to the “unpopulated” arable parts of Australia to establish productive rural properties. At the time there was genuine belief in the concept of “terra nullius” or “nobody’s land”. That is, the land was deemed to
Waranga Dreaming
Like the yam daisy (or murnong) which was mentioned in the previous story, kangaroo meat was a staple food for the local Aboriginal people in the millennia prior to the 1840s. While the women were principally engaged in the collection of murnong, the men took responsibility for hunting kangaroos. There
Waranga Dreaming
One of the staple foods collected by Aboriginal women of the Ngurai-illum Wurrung was the roots or tubers of murnong (Microseris lanceolata), commonly known as the yam daisy. Prior to colonisation, murnong was widespread on the northern plains between the Goulburn and Campaspe Rivers. Within a short space of
Waranga Dreaming
Logically, you would expect that Aboriginal people would have retreated to the vicinity of the Campaspe and Goulburn Rivers during the summer. Access to a reliable supply of water and food resources would have been vital. This was the conclusion reached by Harry Parris when he was thinking about seasonal