Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Trail Pamphlet
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ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER HERITAGE TRAIL WELCOME Welcome to Welcome to This self-guided walking trail will take Ngunnawal Country Ngarigu Country you across the ANU Acton Campus, highlighting the cultural significance On behalf of the King Brown Tribal Group Through this Heritage Trail, we hope you take of this place, the way in which representatives, we welcome you to Canberra away a new understanding of the diversity Aboriginal people have used this and the ANU. We hope through this Heritage and richness of the Aboriginal history and families area for thousands of years and the Trail you will enjoy learning about our Country of the Canberra region. Let’s journey together! continuing culture and connection and our peoples. James Mundy, Ngarigu Currawong Clan, Elder to Country. The trail also covers Carl Brown, Ngunnawal Elder the different units and centres at ANU that research Aboriginal and Torres Welcome to ANU, welcome Strait Islander culture, history, health, Welcome to to our Acton Campus economics and education as well as Ngambri Country areas that support Aboriginal and Torres & welcome to the ANU Strait Islander staff and students. On behalf of my family and the Ngambri peoples Aboriginal & Torres Strait 2 of the Canberra region, both past and present, Islander Heritage Trail. On this trail you can learn about the 3 we welcome you and invite you to journey with importance of Sullivans Creek and Black us along the Heritage Trail. We acknowledge and celebrate the First Mountain, navigation across Country, Matilda House, Ngambri Elder Australians on whose land we are fortunate to have bush foods and medicines, ceremony built our campus and our history as Australia’s National University. We pay respect to the elders and tradition and the way in which of the Ngunnawal/Ngunawal, Ngambri and Ngarigu the local Aboriginal people managed Welcome to people, past and present and extend this respect their landscape. All four Representative to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, Aboriginal Organisations (RAOs) in Ngunawal Country students and visitors to ANU. ANU is committed to reconciliation and to recognising and respecting the ACT have been involved in the On behalf of the Buru Ngunawal Traditional the culture and contribution of Aboriginal development of the content for the trail. Custodians of the Canberra Region we welcome and Torres Strait Islander people to our University. you and hope that the Heritage Trail will raise This is a dynamic and ongoing project. an awareness of how rich and enduring our Professor Brian P. Schmidt AC, Vice-Chancellor Ngunawal cultural heritage is. So, in keeping with New stops and information will be our Ngunawal tradition, and in the true spirit of added to the trail as it is discovered. friendship & reconciliation treat everyone and We hope you will see your ANU campus everything on Ngunawal Country with dignity and from a different perspective. respect, and by doing so it is our belief that our ancestors spirits will harmonise with your stay on Ngunawal Country. May the spirit of this land remain with you today, tomorrow and always. Wally Bell, Ngunawal Elder Follow the creek downstream to the first stop. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TRAIL STOPS ANU would like to acknowledge ANU would like to acknowledge contributions Aboriginal and Torres the ACT Government for funding this from the following: Welcome 2 22 Strait Islander Art project through the ACT Heritage Wally Bell, Ngunawal Elder, Buru Ngunawal Grants program and for supporting Aboriginal Corporation the trail through the Canberra Tracks National Centre for network. ANU would like to particularly 6 Archaeology at ANU: Tyronne Bell, Director, Dharwa Tours Indigenous Studies acknowledge the assistance of Mary An Indigenous 24 Gleeson, Linda Roberts and Euroka Carl Brown, Ngunnawal Elder, King Brown Perspective Gilbert from ACT Heritage for their Tribal Group assistance with this project. South Oval: Tina Brown, King Brown Tribal Group 8 A Managed Landscape Aboriginal James Mundy, Elder, Ngarigu Currawong Clan Scarred Trees 26 Matilda House, Ngambri Elder National Centre Robert Williams, Archaeologist for Indigenous 10 Genomics Chancelry: David Johnston, Archaeologist Towards Reconciliation 29 Amy Jarvis, ANU Heritage Officer 4 Jack Dunstan, ANU Collections Officer Sullivans Creek: 5 Waterways and 12 The Tjabal Ted Johnston, Project Intern Pathways Indigenous Higher 30 Facilities and Services Division, in particular Education˛Centre Christine Allard, John Sullivan and Joanne Fitzpatrick Submerged History: 14 Before the Lake Union Court: Tjabal Indigenous Higher Education Centre, in 32 particular Anne Martin and Fiona Petersen Student Activism National Centre for Indigenous Studies, in Black Mountain 16 particular Ben Wilson 34 - Fold out map 37 National Centre for Indigenous Genomics, in particular Professor Simon Easteal and Jackie Stenhouse Acton Grassy Woodlands: Notes 38 18 School of Archaeology and Anthropology, in Aboriginal Land particular Dr Duncan Wright Management Stuart Hay, ANU Photographer ANU Archives Indigenous Alumni 20 Nadia Ingrid Network Illustator & Designer @nadia_ingrid nadiaingrid.com NATIONAL CENTRE FOR INDIGENOUS STUDIES The National Centre for Indigenous In addition to a research arm, NCIS Studies (NCIS) is an academic research has an active Higher Degree Research centre which aims to produce high program, which supports students quality, high impact research that with a variety of interests to move enriches public understanding of to the highest levels of scholarship. Indigenous Australian cultures and In this way, NCIS is committed to helping histories. It is a stand-alone centre develop and nurture the next generation within the ANU organisational structure. of researchers in fields which are of relevance to Indigenous Australians. NCIS’ team of researchers have a diverse array of academic interests Through commitment to scholarly and expertise including education, law, research, public policy, and community repatriation, governance, and social engagement, NCIS’ ultimate goal justice. The research produced is to ensure that Indigenous knowledge, by the Centre in each of these areas perspectives and experiences NCIS Director Mick Dodson with students at the National 6 has helped to influence debate between are respected, valued, accessed, Centre for Indigenous Studies. 77 Indigenous and non-Indigenous and incorporated into all learning (Stuart Hay) peoples, policy-makers and researchers environments at ANU and beyond. about Australia’s shared past, present and future at the local, national and global level. NCIS is committed to working with Indigenous communities in honourable and sustainable ways, and has strong relationships with local community groups across Australia. Cross the bridge ahead, and continue along the creek to South Oval. SOUTH OVAL: A MANAGED LANDSCAPE European settlers arrived kilometres away, and red kangaroos in the Canberra region to a landscape from up to 30 kilometres, depending on that was not as wild and untamed the wind. On the east side of the clearing as they thought. Aboriginal people (behind the R.G Menzies Building) the had carefully managed and cultivated stand of trees was denser than it is the land. The local Aboriginal now and surrounded the oval on both people were self-sufficient hunters sides. With the creek on the other side, and gatherers with handcrafted this belt of trees would slow kangaroos tools; knowledge of bush foods escaping from the clearing as they were and medicines; and sustainable ambushed by hunters. This may be practices for cultivating plants and one of many ‘hunting plains’ created by managing the population of wildlife. Aboriginal people in the region. This area, now the South Oval, may James Mundy, elder of the Ngarigu have been intentionally cleared Currawong Clan suggested that the area 8 by Aboriginal people. Early survey maps may have been cleared for camping 9 demonstrate that a semicircular area or ceremony by Aboriginal people, encompassing the current location as it would have been an ideal area Kangaroo in the Dickson Road of South Oval was deforested prior for residing - nearby water and sheltered Wetlands, near Laurus Wing. (Jack Dunstan) to the European settlement of the area by the belt of dense forest. Tina Brown in the 1820s. The area was an open of King Brown’s Tribal Group further Here you’ve got the butchery, grassland, maintained to be free of trees proposed that the area may have and shrubs. been a type of ‘waiting room’, where “ and over here you’ve got the tribal groups would await invitation vegetable foods. And you know, There are differing theories as to why (by smoke signal) to ceremonial this area may have been cleared or meeting sites nearby, such as those you don’t have to travel as far by Aboriginal people. Professor Bill on Black Mountain. as we do to go to a supermarket Gammage, eminent ANU historian, to get everything you want studied Robert Hoddle’s original survey maps of the Canberra region to identify ‘unnatural’ features in the landscape. – Professor Bill Gammage, Gammage asserts that the area was Historian and Author” cleared for harvesting of kangaroos. He suggests that a couple of weeks after a burn, the smell of freshly sprouted green grass would attract kangaroos to this area. Grey kangaroos can Walk around the Oval, to the John smell fresh regrowth from up to five Curtin School of Medical Research. NATIONAL CENTRE FOR INDIGENOUS GENOMICS Over the past three decades, enables Indigenous