Heywood. Lake Condah. Ancient Aboriginal stone weirs and traps for catching eels on the lava flows besides Darlots Creek. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Heywood. Lake Condah. Ancient Aboriginal stone weirs and traps for catching eels on the lava flows besides Darlots Creek. / denisbin
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-改変禁止 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | Gunditjmara Aboriginal people.When Robertson the Protector of Aborigines visit Edward Henty at Portland in 1841 he also visited the people around Lake Condah and made notes in his journal of their ingenious eel fishing traps. Like other areas of the Western Districts the Gunditjmara people were sophisticated engineers making woven eel traps from water reeds, building permanent stone shelters and digging canals, stone channels and stone traps to catch the annual spring eel migration downstream to the ocean for breeding. This distinguished them from most other Aboriginal groups in Australia. The richness of wildlife meant they could live semi permanently in one spot. The Gunditjmara lived in a relatively small area between Lake Condah, Mount Eccles and Mount Napier on a volcanic plain riddled with lava flows and lava stones comprising about 100 square kms. The landscape itself was formed about 27,000 years ago after volcanic eruptions by Eccles and Napier. The fish and short finned eel traps here on Darlot Creek are dated to around 8,000 years ago and along with their dams, weirs and channels their engineering works stretched 40 kms. The eels travel to New Caledonia for breeding and return to live in the lakes of Mt Eccles after that. They grow to a metre long and as thick as a man’s arm. Some stonewalls constructed by the Gunditjmara were about 50 metres long. They were built to block particular water channels. Channels were also built at different heights to capture the eels no matter how much water was coming down Darlots Creek. The Gunditjmara supplemented their diet of eels with water birds, ducks, plains turkeys, kangaroos and vegetable foods such as daisy yam and rhizomes of bracken fern. They had not great need to be nomadic here. This was Australia Felix for them too. This ability to harvest eels and other fish annually meant that they modified the landscape, built engineering works, lived here throughout the year and altered their social systems. Although disputed by some, others claim that Gunditjmara people even “owned” particular spots along the creeks and channels giving them a totally different land system to any other Aboriginal groups in Australia. They had hereditary chiefs and a fairly stratified society. And they had permanent stone shelters covered with reeds like thatch and sods of earth to make them rainproof. The shelter walls were only about one metre high and the houses were semi-circular. The dome roof had a wooden structure beneath it to support the weight of sods. The remains of more than 175 houses have been recorded by archaeologists including 145 in one paddock indicating that the Gunditjmara lived in a village like community. But once white pastoralists came in 1840 the end was nigh for the Gunditjmara. They were driven off the land and eventually into Lake Condah Mission. More archaeological surveys now are being conducted on their lands. But before the Gunditjmara went on to Lake Condah Mission they resisted the white pastoralists. The so-called Eumeralla Wars erupted and lasted for around twenty years. Eumeralla was a location just south of Macarthur. Thomas Browne squatted on 50,000 acres here in 1844 on a property which he called Squattelsea Mere but the leasehold was held by Benjamin Boyd. At 17 years of age Browne was just one of the workers or managers on site. Browne began by admiring the Aboriginals but once the sheep flocks were raided he retaliated. With other squatters a number of raids were made and many of the family of Jupiter and Cocknose the local warriors were slaughtered in 1845. But the warriors attacked again and this time it was the homestead where Thomas Browne and others lived and this time the Aboriginals stole flour, tea and even silver spoons. Concerned about his safety Browne then asked for police assistance and they in turn mounted another attack on the followers of Jupiter and Cocknose. The warriors were never seen again and more Aboriginal people were killed. This ended the Eumeralla Wars but surprisingly, especially given that police became involved, there is no official record of this event occurring. Contemporary newspaper reports mention the theft of cattle in 1845 but there was no reference to reprisals or murders. In fact the newspaper went on to lament the lack of police assistance for settlers under threat of Aboriginal attack. Was the story just part of Browne’s vivid literary imagination? Browne left this run in 1856. Thomas Browne went on to write about these times (but not these events) under the pseudonym of Rolf Boldrewood. His most famous book was Robbery Under Arms but he also wrote The Squatter’s Dream and The Home Run. Regardless of the veracity of this particular incident there were plenty of other incidents of resistance and massacre in the Western Districts. |
| 撮影日 | 2015-04-29 19:30:39 |
| 撮影者 | denisbin |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | |
| 露出 | 0.003 sec (1/297) |
| 開放F値 | f/2.4 |
| 焦点距離 | 2 mm |