Aboriginal cultural land management

For me coming back on Country its exploring and going walking where the old fellas walked before. On our Country, on Ngiyampaa Wongaibon Country, and for me I'm glad to be back on Country and I want everyone else to enjoy that walk with us. Welcome to Country. My Country.

I was told by one of my old bosses once that he'd known about these two rock holes at a certain place and getting out there walking around with an Elder it was just an absolute wonderful place to be we climbed up on top of this big granite boulders it was like a mountain. I knew we were in for something very very important, very significant for us.

My mob lived (here) and made the fires and kept chipping away kept chipping away making fire and forming the boulder sort of shape in there. Light a fire on it and you know if you light a fire on rock and cool it very quickly it will crack so then they'd just use the sticks and stones that they had to chip away and I reckon it must have taken years to get them down to three to four foot.

You could see on top of that hill that this was a special place. I think its a par 3 you know like when you go from Byrock to Bourke and its like that but it has more significance than just passing through obviously there will be a ceremony to the Country or to this particular place being a special place there would be some type of ceremony and that wouldn't just be because there was something that they've done there's something that they want to do to honour what this place really means to them.

We're in Western NSW, this can be very arid country. Just about every creek around these areas are called sandy creek and no matter where you go in Western NSW you're going to find a sandy creek. It's not called that for no reason, they are sandy and there's not much water so that is why to preserve water in most arid parts of Australia you'll find these wells that were dug by Aboriginal people.

They just form part of life and without the water a lot of things would be able to survive. By having these wells dug by our people thousands of years ago will help preserve a lot of Australia's culture birds and animals and people. We can't live without water its like the fish in the water they can't live without it the water is the giver of life, without that we'd all die.

Hence their pathway is from the Mulga creek which would have been their highway and the Yanda creek. They are the highways getting you across Country. And no doubt they would have found the shortest route and in that they would have planned their trip to wherever they were going and mostly it would have been places like the Bogan river which is also been a part of their camp and it would have been down to the Brewarrina fish traps and that would have been the place that they travelled.

This is some of their walking trails where they know where the water is so they can walk and gather food and wash them and also in these rock holes they're walking down from Gundabooka coming through the walking trails when they go down southern to the Lachlan river or Willandra creek for ceremonies or corroborees.

My uncle that took me out there to show me where this hole was he told me he said about 500 metres away heading north there is a rock formation three quarters of a circle and it had a gap in one end and he said I just couldnt work out what that was. And I said I can tell you what that is you stand in the middle of that circle of rocks and look out through that gap it points you straight to this water hole.

See, circles and semi-circles where an identifier for water so I've seen them on cave walls a circle, and if you stand in that cave with the back of your head against the circle and look straight out that's pointing you to a water hole as well.

When we come to talk about our camp there would be a law or a process we'd have to follow in regards to moving across the land. It's not a law to keep us in a boundary, it's a law to keep us safe. So, there would be markers for that type of stuff like scarred trees or carved trees or whatever you want to call it. Or maybe archaeological stuff, they'd have those types of things in place. They would know where the water would be if there wasnt any water.

My father told me they used to mark trees and they marked trees for a lot of things boundaries and things like that but they also marked them for water. You just had to know what the symbol was and you'd find water.

Most of the native wells that are dug by Aboriginal people they always had a cover on them it's just helping preserve the water from evaporating and they're fairly solid the rocks, this round and three to four inches thick, so pretty heavy. I've seen them on quite a few but there is a lot now we are finding that you can see the rock, the plate has been smashed up or been broken from stock if you do see one, let us know and we can put it back where it belongs, that would be great.

After the Currowan fires, there's been a lot of interest in community along the South Coast for native grass in cultural landscaping. So where are these grasses? Why aren't they here? How can we use them to rehydrate soil after bush fire?

The South Coast mob have come together today for a two-day native grass course here at Uncle Bruce's farm at Wallagaraugh. Participants are gathering for a knowledge exchange. It's hoped that people will come together just to talk about and yarn about their aspirations for cultural land management and to discuss opportunities for native grass as Aboriginal enterprise.

You know, everyone rolled in yesterday. We had a bit of a ceremony to get people feeling good in their spirits, in their minds, in their bodies about being here on the farm. Bit of a look down at our yam gardens, our nursery and what we're doing in there with those plants. We've been for a walk up on the hill and over here and talked a little bit about our grass story and what's going on up there and had a bit of a look at some of our threshing operations and into some of the day-to-day stuff that happens on the farm which is always a great. It's always great to share and to talk about.

We are trying to resurrect and showcase traditional agriculture and bring that back into Australia's palate. For thousands and thousands of generations, this was our staple foods, and 250 years ago, that story got stopped. And it's about time we started acknowledging the truth about our food and the benefits of what our traditional foods actually bring to this country and to our humanity. That's what Black Duck Foods is about.

When I saw Terry on the harvester that first day, it was really important day to see Yuin people working on the grass again, first time for a long, long time, a couple of hundred years probably. And that was the whole point of the farm was that we would have our own people working on the farm, making their living off the old traditional foods.

It's important these days happen when mob can come together and share. Good things happen when you get mob out on country talking about country and talking about healthy country. Healthy country, you know, leads to healthy people. And if we put our mob back rightfully on country, caring for country, whether it be native grass or cultural landscaping or cultural fire, good things happen.

I've learned heaps over these couple of days just yarning to people, you know. And that's what this is all about, that sharing of knowledge, of understanding, you know. But it's also about creating a safe place where that can happen. And we do that well here and on the farm.