'Long Ago, Here Today'
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Aboriginal Affairs Victoria ‘Long Ago, Here Today’ Developing an Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Management Strategy for Victoria Any representation, statement, opinion or advice expressed or implied in this publication is made in good faith but on the basis that the State of Victoria, its agents and employees are not liable (whether by reason of negligence, lack of care or otherwise) to any person for any damage or loss whatsoever which has occurred or may occur in relation to that person taking or not taking (as the case may be) action in respect of any representation, statement or advice referred above. Published by Aboriginal Affairs Victoria Department for Victorian Communities 1 Spring Street Melbourne Victoria 3000 October 2004 Tel: 03 9208 3333 Cover artwork: “River Spirit” by Brian Firebrace Also published on www.dvc.vic.gov.au 2004 © Copyright State of Victoria 2004 “The famous possum skin rug of the Yorta Yorta People was the inspiration for This publication is copyright. No part may be my painting. My totem, the long neck reproduced by any process except in accordance turtle lays its eggs along the banks of the with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. River Murray.” Authorised by Department for Victorian Communities “River Spirit” won 1st prize in ‘Long Ago, Here Today’: The Victorian Aboriginal Produced by Sista Girl Productions Cultural Heritage Art Competition 2004. 471 Brunswick Street Fitzroy Victoria 3068 The title ‘Long Ago, Here Today’ came www.sistagirl.com.au from students at the East Gippsland TAFE, Bairnsdale. ISBN 0-9756009-1-5 Foreword Gavin Jennings MLC Minister for Aboriginal Affairs The Victorian Government acknowledges Strategy. It outlines the Government’s Aboriginal people as the rightful owners of objectives for the Strategy and sets out their heritage, and as having primary priorities identified by Victoria’s Aboriginal responsibility for its control and communities for managing their cultural management. heritage. The Government is therefore committed to I thank the Regional Aboriginal Cultural encouraging all parties involved in land and Heritage Program for undertaking the initial natural resource management activities to consultation process around the meet their cultural heritage responsibilities development of the Strategy. and work in partnership with Aboriginal communities. I encourage you to consider the issues in this Discussion Paper and to actively The Victorian Aboriginal Cultural Heritage engage in the process of developing this Management Strategy will provide a landmark Strategy. framework for achieving this by establishing Victoria’s first ever ‘whole of GAVIN JENNINGS MLC government’ approach to the management Minister for Aboriginal Affairs of Aboriginal cultural heritage. The release of this Discussion Paper is an important step in the development of the Introduction Victoria has a rich and diverse Aboriginal The development of the Strategy is an cultural heritage. Acknowledging and election commitment, and meets objectives valuing this heritage is an important part of outlined in Growing Victoria Together. The recognising the diversity of factors that Strategy will also have important linkages define and continue to shape Victoria and with existing Government policies and its environment. strategies. The Victorian Government is developing an Responsibility for the implementation of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Management Strategy over a five year period will be in Strategy (‘the Strategy’) to strengthen the hands of Government agencies and processes for protecting and managing others involved in land and natural Aboriginal cultural heritage. resource management, in partnership with Victoria’s Aboriginal communities. Some The Government’s objectives for the recommendations will be capable of being Strategy are to: implemented immediately; others will require further negotiation between • recognise and promote Aboriginal interested parties or access to additional community involvement in managing resources. The Strategy will be reviewed in Aboriginal cultural heritage; 2010. • build partnerships between Aboriginal You are invited to respond to the communities, Government and other Discussion Paper and participate in the organisations and individuals whose further development of the Strategy. activities may have an impact on Aboriginal cultural heritage; and The paper includes a brief description of • promote consideration of Aboriginal Victoria’s Aboriginal cultural heritage and cultural heritage as an integral part of discusses issues relating to its protection land and resource management. and management. The paper also looks at key issues around cultural heritage The development of the Strategy will build management raised by Aboriginal on previous work, and draw upon the communities, and discusses the steps knowledge and expertise within the required to develop the Strategy. Aboriginal and broader community. 1 Victoria’s Unique Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Mt William Greenstone Quarry “The people, the sites and the land are all interconnected.” Denise Lovett – Gunditjmara Victoria’s rich and diverse Aboriginal cultural associated with the Aboriginal rights heritage is the legacy of tens of thousands of movement in the nineteenth and twentieth years of people living in the landscape. centuries. But what is cultural heritage? A people’s At Lake Condah near Heywood, Aboriginal heritage is made up of those things they value people constructed large and complex fish — objects, places, artefacts and abstract and eel traps, positioning them on the concepts such as ideas, beliefs and undulating and stony terrain. The stone behaviours. Some elements of this heritage foundations of dwellings are another feature of are old and relate to a time when the this unique landscape. environment was different from today. Other aspects relate to the more recent past, or Following the 2003 bushfires in the mountain have ongoing uses and associations. forests of Victoria’s High Country, archaeological surveys identified thousands of Cultural heritage is important to Aboriginal stone artefacts that had been used for a people in Victoria as an expression of their range of activities, such as hunting, food relationship to the land and past. Involvement preparation, and wood and skin working. This in its management plays an important part of evidence confirms that Aboriginal people used Aboriginal community life and cultural identity. this area for many years before the arrival of Europeans. Interest in Aboriginal cultural heritage is also important in promoting understanding and At Mount William and Mount Camel, uplifted respect for Victoria’s rich Aboriginal culture bedrock provided ideal sources of green- and complex history to the broader stone for manufacturing axe-heads. These community. artefacts were highly prized and traded for distances over 500 kilometres. Sandstone Examples of Aboriginal cultural heritage outcrops were often used as grind-stones for objects and places in Victoria include rock art, fashioning axe-heads, and other stone stone artefacts, stone arrangements, resources were used to make stone middens, burials, trees with slabs of bark implements. removed to make shelters or canoes, the sites of massacres and other conflicts, places Limestone shelters in East Gippsland provide of spiritual significance, missions, and places evidence of Aboriginal life over 30,000 years. 2 Celebrating restoration work at St. Johns Church, Lake Tyers Lockeah Sabbo inspecting rock art site, Aboriginal Trust Gariwerd National Park “The art sites of Gariwerd show the journey of my people. They are part of our search to reclaim our heritage and to control our destiny. They are the essence and spirit of our journey.” Tim Chatfield – Tjab Whurrong (Foreword to ‘The People of Gariwerd’) The extensive shelter formations in Gariwerd Examples of Aboriginal cultural heritage National Park and in the Beechworth area are places occur on all landforms and land renowned for their spectacular Aboriginal rock tenures across Victoria — on farming land, art. public land, industrial areas and in urban settings. Other heritage places were used and occupied by Aboriginal people in relatively Victoria’s Aboriginal Heritage Register contains recent times and have direct associations for records for over 25,000 heritage places, most individuals and families. Former missions and of which have been discovered in the context reserves, such as Framlingham and Lake of development projects. Only a small portion Tyers, continue to be important community of the State (about 1%) has been formally centres for Aboriginal people in Victoria. surveyed for Aboriginal heritage places. Therefore the actual number of Aboriginal Not all Aboriginal heritage places contain cultural heritage places in Victoria is likely to actual physical or material remains. Such be much higher. places may include, for example, locations of past conflict between European and More information about the types of Aboriginal Aboriginal people, or spiritual places, including cultural heritage places in Victoria can be places where ancestral beings shaped the found at: http://www.dvc.vic.gov.au/aav.htm. land. “Missionaries weren’t silly, they built the [Ebenezer] mission on a significant Aboriginal site. It’s where all the groups in the Wimmera Mallee were able to come together and live in peace and harmony in a white Christian way, not in their cultural way. On the one hand they saved us, on the other hand they destroyed our culture.” Alan Burns