"It's a birthing area for women, it's a men's area, it's an area where many clans congregated for corroborees, it's an area where ceremonial gatherings have occurred over thousands of years," Abraham explains emphatically.
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"Masked Corroborees of the Northwest" DVD 47 min. Australia: ANU, Ph.D.
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Corroborees and other ceremonies continued under the protection of the Macarthurs of Camden Park, though numbers steadily declined.
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AHIMS Site Card 57-2-65 The available evidence suggests that the gatherings served a much more significant purpose than the acquisition of blankets. The visits of large numbers of Aborigines from distant areas and the holding of corroborees are recorded in connection with the 1859, 1861 and 1862 gatherings.(The Golden Age) Local tradition maintains that corroborees were held on the current showground reserve around this time. Indeed, the reserve was the site of the last Aboriginal corroboree held in the Queanbeyan district in 1862.
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The occupation of their lands and their cultivation began to cause famine among the Wiradjuri, who had a different notion of what constituted property. In the 1850s there were still corroborees around Mudgee but there were fewer clashes.
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XX111 - 1, "Lawn Tennis": 13 In December 1957 Kearney travelled to the Australian Outback and worked on the Alice Springs to Darwin road. During this time, he was invited to corroborees by the Mutitjulu elders of the Anangu people of the regions.
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A ceremony, which included five corroborees performed by 35 Indigenous people who travelled from Cherbourg, took place at the conclusion of the twelve-month project, when the bora ring was re-entrusted to the care of the Gold Coast City Council to be preserved.
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In 1874, 18 men and women were arrested and charged as "vagrants", and after a 14 days' imprisonment were sent back to Goolwa and Milang. Running battles between the police and similar groups continued for decades. History books about Adelaide have largely ignored the Aboriginal presence, and Womadelaide is held each year in Botanic Park without acknowledgement of the Aboriginal encampments 150 years ago on the same land. There is a tradition of performing corroborees and dances dating back to the 1840s, including the "Grand Corroboree" at the Adelaide Oval in 1885 and corroborees at the beaches of Glenelg and Henley Beach around the turn of the century.
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All 18 lakinyeri (tribes) would meet there for corroborees. Around further down the river was Tagalang (Tailem Bend), a traditional trading camp where lakinyeri would gather to trade ochre, weapons and clothing. In the 1900s, Tailem Bend was assigned as a government ration depot supplying the Ngarrindjeri.
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The Falls, called Yarra Yarra were important to the local Aboriginal tribes, the Woiwurrung and the Boonerwrung, who used it as a crossing point between their lands, in order to negotiate trade and marriages. The location was also used to meet the other three members of the Kulin Tribe, in order to settle disputes, trade and hold corroborees.
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Corroborees and other ceremonies continued under the protection of the Macarthurs of Camden Park, though numbers steadily declined. As the district became more densely settled a town was needed further south than Liverpool. Campbelltown was formally established in 1820 and named in honour of Mrs Elizabeth Macquarie's maiden name, Campbell. In 1826 the town plan was formalised.
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Captain Faddei Bellingshausen referred to Bungaree's welcoming visit to the Russian exploration ship Vostok in 1820. Bungaree spent the rest of his life ceremonially welcoming visitors to Australia, educating people about Aboriginal culture (especially boomerang throwing), and soliciting tribute, especially from ships visiting Sydney. He was also influential within his own community, taking part in corroborees, trading in fish and helping to keep the peace.
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Other early grants were in the Parishes of Minto and in adjoining Evan, Bringelly, Narellan and Cook. These all lay west of Parramatta.Godden Mackay Logan, 2012, 21 James Macarthur and family members have recounted stories of Aboriginal corroborees near Camden Park in 1839, 1846 and 1850. One of the first improvements Macarthur made to the property was the construction of a small hut on a ridge at Benkennie (Belgenny).
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Gender is an important factor in some ceremonies with men and women having separate ceremonial traditions, such as the Crane Dance.Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, Volume 1 pp. 255-7 The term "corroboree" is commonly used by non- Indigenous Australians to refer to any Aboriginal dance, although this term has its origins among the people of the Sydney region. In some places, Australian Aboriginal people perform corroborees for tourists.
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The Gulidjan are a matrilineal society who intermarried with the Djab Wurrung, Djargurd Wurrung and Wada wurrung. Each person belonged to a moiety of gabadj (Black Cockatoo) or grugidj (White Cockatoo). At interregional corroborees, where upwards of 20 tribes each having its own language or dialect, would gather, Gulidjan was one of four languages spoken, the other three being Tjapwurrung, Kuurn Kopan Noot and Wiitya whuurong, a dialect of Wathawurrung.
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Albert Park was originally part of the extensive Yarra River Delta, which involved vast areas of wetlands and sparse vegetation, interspersed by lagoons, some of which were quite large, including the lagoon from which Albert Park Lake was created. The area was occupied by localised tribes of Indigenous Australians, the Wurundjeri people, for around 40,000+ years prior to European settlement, and was one of many sites around Melbourne where regular corroborees (meetings) were held.
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Aboriginal tribes occupied the area around Perth for around years before European settlement, using the wetlands as a source of food (fish, waterfowl, crayfish and turtles) and fresh water. Local Nyungar tribes continued to use the lakes for resources and as a meeting place up until they were reclaimed for housing developments in the 1940s, with meetings of up to 400 people recorded in corroborees at Lakes Monger and Henderson as well at Hyde Park.
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Entrance to the billabong from Bulleen Road The Bulleen billabongs were an important territory for the Manna Gum people for approximately 5,000 years.Green, The Aborigines of Bulleen. Generations had lived on the river flats when wild fish and ducks were abundant. Bolin was the largest lake/billabong in the area and was a significant ritual meeting place for the aborigines, where numerous corroborees were held either by the billabong or on the hills.
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"Masked Corroborees of the Northwest" DVD 47 min. Australia: ANU, Ph.D. Indigenous musicians have been prominent in various contemporary styles of music, including creating a sub- genre of rock music as well as participating in pop and other mainstream styles. Hip hop music is helping preserve some Indigenous languages. The Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts in Brisbane teaches acting, music and dance, and the Bangarra Dance Theatre is an acclaimed contemporary dance company.
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Many Indigenous communities also have a very complex kinship structure and in some places strict rules about marriage. In traditional societies, men are required to marry women of a specific moiety. The system is still alive in many Central Australian communities. To enable men and women to find suitable partners, many groups would come together for annual gatherings (commonly known as corroborees) at which goods were traded, news exchanged, and marriages arranged amid appropriate ceremonies.
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Aborigines knew of the venom of the stonefish and had corroborees which involve re-enacting death from someone who trod on the fish. The Aborigines of Northern Australia and the Great Barrier Reef had different ways of preparing the fish for eating to avoid poisoning.The Poisonous Stone Fish Dreaded Denizen of the North The Argus 14 March 1936. After stonefish poisoning, the amount of antivenom given depends on the number of puncture wounds from the stonefish spines.
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The name Cobar is derived from the Aboriginal Ngiyampaa word for copper, Kuparr, Gubarr or Cuburra, meaning 'red earth' or 'burnt earth', the ochre used in making body paint for Corroborees. The name also represents an Aboriginal attempt to pronounce the word 'copper'. Some of the most significant Aboriginal rock art in NSW is found within the Cobar Shire. The indigenous Ngiyampaa/Wangaapuwan traditions of this diverse bio-region are best represented in the rock art of Mount Grenfell, 40 km west of Cobar.
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Vestiges of Albert Park's Aboriginal history still remain, the most noticeable being the large ancient River Red Gum Tree, reputed to be the site of many corroborees. It is thought to be over 300 years old, the oldest remnant tree in the Port Phillip area, located next to Junction Oval on the corner of Fitzroy Street and Queens Road, St Kilda. The Clarendon Street gates were originally built of wooden pickets in 1910, they were cast in wrought iron in 1939 and can still be seen today.
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Newmarket Brickworks Chimney, 2015 In prehistory, the area was inhabited by the Turrbal Aboriginal clan. Corroborees were held at Sedgeley Park estate. The name Alderley derives from Alderley Edge in Cheshire, England. Alderley is an older suburb, having had a post office since 1878 and a railway station since 1899. On Saturday 19 April 1890 auctioneers G. T. Bell offered 296 residential lots (mostly 16 perches) in Alderley Park Estate on Hall Street, Alderley Street and Wakefield Street with South Pine Road to the west.
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Stonefish antivenom is the second-most administered in Australia.Stone Fish slk320 Some Indigenous Australians have corroborees which involve re-enacting the death of someone who trod on the fish. The Aboriginal people of Northern Australia and the Great Barrier Reef have ways of preparing the fish for eating to avoid poisoning.The Poisonous Stone Fish Dreaded Denizen of the North The Argus 14 March 1936 After stonefish envenomation the amount of anti-venom given depends on the number of puncture wounds from the stonefish spines.
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Records of large gatherings of Aboriginal people were recorded in the area as early as 1841 and specifically on the showground site in 1862. These annual gatherings were important cultural occasions which included corroborees such as the one documented in 1862. According to oral tradition the showground site was a campground for the ancestors of local Aboriginal people. The annual gatherings were significant as they were attended by Aboriginal groups from as far afield as the coast, the regions of the lower Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers.
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There are some observations of attacks on fuscous honeyeaters, but the two species tend to avoid each other, where they occur sympatrically. In some regions, smaller birds are absent, due to the aggressive nature of white- plumed honeyeaters and other species of similar size, resulting in the exclusion of these poorer competitors. Foraging groups may use a chip-chip contact call, or a song which is repeated by nearby individuals. Corroborees of up to 12 or more individuals, sitting together on a branch, have been observed, which engage in extensive calling, followed by rapid dispersal.
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It was expanded in 1915 with an addition to its street frontage, which is now the oldest extant part of the building. According to the Victorian Heritage Database, it was once the site of the first permanent building in the Frankston area, a pub named the Cannanuke Inn, built in the mid-1840s. The use of the site as a meeting place also pre-dates European settlement of Frankston, and was used by the Indigenous Australian clans of the Bunurong tribe on the Mornington Peninsula for corroborees and as a trading place.
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Late in 1839, a woman and her baby were murdered by natives near York, and Governor John Hutt responded by establishing a special police force known as the Native Police. As a man well known and widely respected by the local tribes, and familiar with indigenous language and customs, Drummond was appointed the colony's first Inspector of Native Police. He made regular patrols of the Avon Valley district, and continued to attend corroborees and tribal gatherings. He became a valued tracker and negotiator, and earned the respect of both colonists and natives.
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The Australian Aboriginal counting system was used to send messages on message sticks to neighbouring clans to alert them of, or invite them to, corroborees, set-fights, and ball games. Numbers could clarify the day the meeting was to be held (in a number of "moons") and where (the number of camps' distance away). The messenger would have a message "in his mouth" to go along with the message stick. A common misconception among non-Aboriginals is that Aboriginals did not have a way to count beyond two or three.
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The term corroboree is commonly used to refer to Australian Aboriginal dances, although this term has its origins among the people of the Sydney region. In some places, Aboriginal people perform corroborees for tourists. In the latter part of the 20th century the influence of Indigenous Australian dance traditions has been seen with the development of concert dance, with the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts (ACPA) providing training in contemporary dance. The Australian bush dance, which draws on traditions from English, Irish, Scottish and other European dance styles, is also a common community activity.
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The confluence of the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers before 1880. Photograph of wool washing sheds in and on banks of Yarra River The area surrounding the Yarra River and modern day Melbourne was originally inhabited by Natives of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. It is believed that the area was occupied by indigenous Australians for at least 30,000 years. The river was an important resource for the Wurundjeri people and several sites along the river and its tributaries were important meeting places where corroborees were held between indigenous communities.
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From the late 1820s magistrates provided lists of local Aboriginal people who might be eligible for the annual distribution of blankets. Comparison of the lists of neighbouring police districts for the 1830s suggests that the surviving Dharawal and Gandangara moved between Campbelltown, the Cowpastures and Picton, rarely venturing to more populated Liverpool. Tribal life continued in a limited way. Corroborees were held nearby at Camden Park and north of the Nepean at Denham Court until at least the 1850s, usually celebrated when other Aboriginal groups were passing through the district.
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Neighbouring tribes were invited to the fish traps to join in great corroborees, initiation ceremonies, and meetings for trade and barter. The fish traps indicate how a common understanding of this ancestral being influenced the social, cultural and spiritual interactions between a number of Aboriginal groups in relation to a major built structure on one group's land. Because of the fish traps, this place was one of the great Aboriginal meeting places of eastern Australia. The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
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The Ngarigo clan and marriage structure consisted of a dual class system with matrilineal descent. The Ngarigo would contact, via notched message sticks borne by messengers, other tribes such as the Walgalu and Ngunawal in order to arrange for all to meet up in the Bogong Mountains for the annual feasting off the Bogong moth colonies. Corroborees, together with initiation ceremonies at a bora ring were also held, and while in the hills, the Ngarigo and other tribes culled plants like mountain celery and alpine baeckea (Baeckea gunniana) for medicinal ends, preparing the former as a paste for problems in the urinary tract, the latter as a sedative and cough medicine.
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Frankston Coastal Arts Discovery Trail (2006). City of Frankston. p. 15 An important meeting place for the Bunurong tribe clans of the greater Mornington Peninsula region was the present site of the Frankston Mechanics' Institute, at 1 Plowman Place in the Frankston Central Business District (CBD), which was used for corroborees and as a trading place.Frankston Coastal Arts Discovery Trail (2006). City of Frankston. p. 23. Retrieved 8 October 2015 Bunurong territory, of which Frankston is a part, stretches from the Werribee River in the western metropolitan area of Melbourne east to Wilsons Promontory in Gippsland and was referred to as marr-ne-beek ("excellent country") amongst the Kulin nation tribes.
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Pentridge Prison Front Gate 2020 Coburg Historical Society Building Prior to European settlement, the area around Coburg and Merri Creek was occupied by the Woiwurrung speaking Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. The Wurundjeri had a religious relationship to their land, participating in corroborees and sacred ceremonies on Merri Creek. Coburg was first surveyed by Robert Hoddle in 1837 – 1838, and he recorded that a Mr Hyatt had a sheep station and hut on the east bank of the Merri Creek, near present Outlook Road. Hoddle marked out a 327-acre (1.3 km²) village reserve with two roads for the district: Bell Street West and Pentridge Road, later called Sydney Road.
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One time, the gum trees were destroyed, forcing the Kadimakara to remain on the ground, particularly Lake Eyre and Kalamurina, until they died. In times of drought and flood, the Diyari performed corroborees (including dances and blood sacrifices) at the bones of the Kadimakara to appease them and request that they intercede with the spirits of rain and clouds. Sites of Kadimakara bones identified by Aboriginal people corresponded with megafauna fossil sites, and an Aboriginal guide identified a Diprotodon jaw as belonging to the Kadimakara. Gregory speculated that the story could be a remnant from when the Diyari lived elsewhere, or when the geographical conditions of Central Australia were different.
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The traditional custodians of the land surrounding what is now known as Lake Illawarra are the Aboriginal Tharawal and Wadi Wadi peoples. Lake Illawarra was a valuable source of food and spirituality. Burial sites and middens (shell and camp rubbish heaps) discovered at Windang and surrounding areas indicate that the Wadi Wadi used the area extensively and performed various corroborees and ceremonies in the area. The name Illawarra is derived from various adaptions of the Aboriginal Tharawal language words of elouera, eloura, or allowrie; illa, wurra, or warra mean generally a pleasant place near the sea, or high place near the sea, or white clay mountain.
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Similarly, Thomas Mitchell reported the existence of permanent huts on both banks of the Darling River above present-day Wilcannia in 1835. Before the British came, thousands of people visited these fish traps for large corroborees in which each group's use of the fish traps was controlled by strict protocols. Brewarrina retains a rich collection of Aboriginal sites consisting of axe grinding grooves, burial grounds, open campsites, knapping sites, scarred trees, ceremonial sites, middens and stone quarries. Prior to European disturbance, both banks of the river at the fish traps were lined by almost continuous middens with an accumulation of shells and other objects more than a metre deep.
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For tens of thousands of years they occupied a large area in central NSW, from the Blue Mountains in the east, to Hay in the west, north to Nyngan and south to Albury: the South Western slopes region:Wiradjuri (NSW) - Aboriginal Tribes of Australia. South Australian Museum Clashes between European settlers and Aborigines were very violent from 1821 to 1827, particularly around Bathurst, and have been termed the "Bathurst Wars". The loss of fishing grounds and significant sites and the killing of Aboriginal people was retaliated through attacks with spears on cattle and stockmen. In the 1850s there were still corroborees around Mudgee but there were fewer clashes.
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When mimicked by theatrical performances of the practice at large corroborees, maritji often elicits much laughter. Bride kidnapping, though traditionally practiced when no spouse could be obtained by the usual means, was, according to a white informant, undertaken by formal prearrangements made between the raiding tribe and the group from whom the woman was to be "snatched", so the actual raid was a symbolic artifice rather than an act of violent intertribal competition for a scarce resource. The Wik-Mungkan call coastal neighbours north of the Archer and Watson rivers "bad speech" (Wik- waiya) tribes (such as the Anjingit, the Aritingiti, the Adetingiti and Lengiti) because they find their languages difficult to understand.
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H. 1892. Short Grammar and Vocabulary of the Dialect spoken by the Minyung People, Appendix A _in_ (NLA catalogue entry) The area around present day Bundall, proximate to the Nerang River and Surfers Paradise, along with various other locations in the region was an established meeting place for tribes visiting from as far away as Grafton and Maryborough. Great corroborees were held there and traces of Aboriginal camps and intact bora rings are still visible in the Gold Coast and Tweed River region today, including the bora ring at the Jebribillum Bora Park at Burleigh Heads. Captain James Cook was the first recorded European to have visited the Gold Coast when he sailed past on 16 May 1770.
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When the Privy Council asked Macarthur about "natives" in the area mooted for pastoral land, Macarthur replied that "they come amongst the settlers familiarly, but have no fixed abode, and live upon what they can find for themselves". Within a few years of the Gandangara people formally welcoming Barallier, John Macarthur had settled down in the best part of their traditional lands to graze sheep. James Macarthur and family members have recounted stories of Aboriginal corroborees near Camden Park in 1839, 1846 and 1850. Moves towards the establishment of Belgenny Farm were first made in 1801, when John Macarthur was exiled to England for causing dissent after fighting a duel in which he shot his own commanding officer.
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Jack also remembers occasional groups of Aboriginal people coming to Portland to hold corroborees for the town's people.NBRS&P;, 10 The National Parks & wildlife Service register lists 19 Aboriginal sites in the immediate area of Portland, typically rock shelters or expanses of rock with archaeological deposits and sometimes with art and / or axe-grinding grooves, open sites with scatters of stone artefacts and carved trees. In 1982 two sites containing scatterings of stone artefacts were discovered in East Portland during an archaeological survey of the Ivanhoe Colliery for Blue Circle Southern Cement Ltd but these sites were not conserved for various reasons. There have been no Aboriginal sites associated with the Portland Cement Works and Quarries Site.
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A corroboree, a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples often including dance as well as elements of sacred ceremony and/or celebration, has been incorporated into the English language and used to explain a practice that is different from ceremony and more widely inclusive than theatre or opera.Sweeney, D. 2008. "Masked Corroborees of the Northwest" DVD 47 min. Australia: ANU, Ph.D. In the latter part of the 20th century the influence of Indigenous Australian dance traditions has been seen with the development of concert dance, particularly in contemporary dance with the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association providing training to Indigenous Australians in dance, and the Bangarra Dance Theatre.
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WR Thomas, A South Australian Corroboree, 1864, Art Gallery of South Australia The traditional ceremonial dances of indigenous Australians performed at corroborees comprise theatrical aspects. At a corroboree Aborigines interact with the Dreamtime through dance, music and costume and many ceremonies act out events from the Dreamtime. Corroboree in many areas have developed and adapted, integrating new themes and stories since European occupation of Australia began. Academic Maryrose Casey writes that ‘Australian Aboriginal cultures are probably the most performance-based in the world – in the sense that explicit, choreographed performances were used for a vast range of social purposes from education, through to spiritual practices, arranging marriage alliances, to judicial and diplomatic functions’.
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The town centre later shifted to the Queanbeyan River about one mile east and was officially proclaimed as a township in 1838 with a population of 50.(Queanbeyan Museum) From 1861 onwards new waves of British and European migrants arrived in the district to take advantage of the Robertson Land Acts and take up small allotments. Queanbeyan Aboriginal groups continued to host regular gatherings and corroborees and began to align these events with the annual government distribution of blankets. Archaeological evidence and historical records show that the Queanbeyan Showground site was a traditional gathering place and burial place for Aboriginal people. Aborigines are first recorded camping on the site some time in the period 1846-50.
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When the Bogong moth began to proliferate, the Djilamatang, together with several other tribes of the region, such as the Dhudhuroa, the Jaitmathang, the Ngarigo, the Ngunawal and the Minjambuta (postulated by Dr Ian Clark to be a Wiradjuri exonym for PallanganmiddangClark, Ian, 'Aboriginal languages in North-east Victoria – the status of "Waveru" reconsidered', Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, 2011, Vol. 14(4): 2-22) entered into negotiation to settle outstanding disputes, and meet up to engage in rites of transit on the territories, and trade, in order to collectively forage in the Bogong areas to hunt the moth. These multitribal assemblies were often as large as 700 people, and coincided with bora ceremonial rituals and corroborees to initiate the young men.
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The Sunbury area has several important Aboriginal archaeological sites, including five earth rings, which were identified in the 1970s and 1980s, and believed to have been used for ceremonial gatherings. Records of corroborees and other large gatherings during early settlement attest to the importance of the area for Aboriginal people of the Wurundjeri tribe.Meyer Eidelson, The Melbourne Dreaming: A Guide to the Aboriginal Places of Melbourne, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, (1997; 2000). Bowdler, Sandra, 1999, A study of Indigenous ceremonial ("Bora") sites in eastern Australia, Centre for Archaeology, University of Western Australia, paper delivered at "Heritage Landscapes: Understanding Place &Communities;" conference, Southern Cross University, Lismore, November 1999 Frankel, David 1982 Earth rings at Sunbury, Victoria. Archaeology in Oceania 17: 83-89.
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Public Records Office Victoria, Dana's Native Police Corps (1842–1853) – Tracking the Native Police (Public Record Office Victoria) , accessed 2 November 2008 There were two goals in such a force: to make use of the indigenous peoples' tracking abilities, as well as to assimilate the Aboriginal troopers into white society. Both La Trobe and William Thomas, Protector of Aborigines, expected that the men would give up their traditional way of life when exposed to the discipline of police work. To their disappointment, troopers continued to participate in corroborees and in ritual fighting, although not in uniform. As senior Wurundjeri elder, Billibellary's cooperation for the proposal was important for its success, and after deliberation he backed the initiative and even proposed himself for enlistment.
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Bacchus Marsh is on the border between the Woiwurrung and Wathaurong territories of the Kulin Nation. The local clans were the Marpeang balug of the Wathaurong, and the Gunung-willam-bulluk (Wurundjeri) of the Woiwurrung. Bacchus Marsh was a meeting ground for anywhere between 150 and 400 Aboriginals even after white settlement, and corroborees were held quite regularly. While there do not appear to be any records of open hostilities between whites and indigenous people, by 1863 there were a total of only 33 Aboriginal people left in the Bacchus Marsh district, and apart from a handful of recollections of the original inhabitants preserved by pioneer settlers, sadly little remains apart from present-day locality names, mainly of watercourses: Coimadai, Djerriwarrh, Korkuperrimul, Lerderderg, Merrimu, Myrniong, Werribee.
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The Ayapathu were an inland tribe closely related to the coastal Yintyingka people. The first mention of them in settlement records comes from 19th century police reports, in particular those of William Parry-Okeden and sergeant George Smith of the Musgrave Mounted Native Police in 1897, both connected with complaints by pastoralists laid against the aborigines whose land they were occupying. Donald Thomson and Ursula McConnel studied the tribes of the region intensely, the latter from 1927 to 1934, nonetheless she provided little information on them other than noting that their hunting grounds were on the upper Holroyd River, that they intermarried with the Kaantju, and held corroborees with that tribe and the Wik-Mungkan at the junction where the Hoyroyd meets the Pretender river. The Wik-Mungkan tribe lay to their west, the Kaantju to their north, and the Koko Taiyari southwest.
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The first contact with whites goes back to 1848, at which time it has been estimated that each dialect group in the generic Djirbal tribal societies had around 500 members. Dixon estimates the total numbers at 5,000, which, within 5 decades of white settlement, indiscriminate shootings and disease, had the impact of leading to their decimation to something like 10% of their original strength by the end of the 19th century. They, with the related Girramaygans, eventually gathered together south of Tully in the Upper Murray, tolerated by settlers, one of whom is reported to have said in the 1920s that: 'There are no bad Aborigines left here: they've all been shot'. One pioneer was nicknamed scrub-itch (') because he adopted the habit of shooting at aborigines if he came across them dancing at their initiations corroborees.
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The changes he wrought were associated with the transformation of Baardi parkland estates into mulga scrub, perhaps with the advent of colonial cattlegrazers. A fourth figure that came into prominence in Baardi lore is Djamba. Worms found the cult dominant among the nearby Yawuru by the early 1930s, yet all absent among the Nyulnyulan speaking groups such as the Jabirr Jabirr, Nyulnyul and the Baardi, and hazarded the conjecture, with some evidence, that it came from the central Australian group, the Arrernte, via the Gugadja. This Djamba, a prototypical figure in widespread Aboriginal lore characterized by crippled feet, is associated with the introduction of guraṇara (ritual intercourse with exchanged women matters, tyuringa and instruments like the love bullroarer, mandagidgid; magic daggers and spindle-shaped sticks used as points (wadaṇara/durun), many associated with innovative sexually explicit corroborees and rites.
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Wild berries including the local wild raspberry, peach heath, wattle, roots of the bracken fern, native yam and native asparagus, were among other plants that augmented their diet and provided medicinal treatment. Those too old or to weak to undertake the migration stayed on the high tablelands and protected themselves from the cold by wearing Possum or Kangaroo skin cloaks and tending large camp fires established close to their bark huts. While tribal boundaries were clearly drawn and incursion of these often provoked fierce battles, there was also movement of neighbouring Clarence River/Macleay River Aboriginal tribes and those of the western districts up to theNgarabal tribal lands near Glen Innes for corroborees, to trade goods information and also for marriage and initiation purposes. Goods traded included ochre, sourced near Dundee in the Glen Innes area and stone from creeks in tribal lands to the south.
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Corroboree Park Housing Precinct house Alt Crescent Housing Precinct house The suburb was named after James Ainslie, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, the "first overseer of 'Duntroon Station' in Canberra who was employed by Robert Campbell in 1825 to drive a mob of sheep south from Bathurst 'until he found suitable land'; Ainslie chose the Limestone Plains (the Canberra district) and was overseer for ten years before returning to Scotland." James Ainslie was reputed to have camped in 1825 under gum trees at what is now Corroboree Park. Iris Carnell, born in 1900 and one of the original inhabitants of Paterson Street in the 1920s, recounted in 'Voices of Old Ainslie' that her mother, Celia Tong, born at Lanyon in 1871, remembered as a little girl what is now Corroboree Park as a scene of aboriginal corroborees. She said the aborigines used to sit around the tree now near the barbecues which has four trees growing from its centre.
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Glenda Chalker (a Cubbitch Barta clan traditional owner) records corroborees, including local Aboriginal Australian and visiting groups, occurring at the Denham Court estate into the 1850s.Godden Mackay Logan, 2012, 20 When the first fleet arrived in Sydney Cove in 1788 they found the soil unsuitable for farming and soon looked towards the heavy clay and loam soils of the Cumberland Plain (to the west) to sustain the colony. Early agricultural settlements were located on the rich alluvial soils of the Nepean, Hawkesbury and Georges River areas, as well as South Creek near St.Marys and at the head of the Parramatta River where the settlement of Rose Hill (later Parramatta) was established about six months after the fleet landed. A settlement at the Hawkesbury was established in 1794. By 1804 much of the Cumberland Plain had been settled and Governor King began to look for other regions in the colony for favourable arable land.
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