The Magic Lands team recently visited Gariwerd to pay our respects and learn the history of the area. Here’s what we found:

The first contact with Europeans in the Grampians area was with Surveyor General Major Thomas Mitchell in 1836, after heading southwest from Sydney, crossing the Murray River into the unknown lands of the Djab wurrung and Jardwadjali People. The two Aboriginal language group's territory encompassed the Gariwerd Grampians ranges and the surrounding plains and wetland areas such as Toolondo Reservoir, Lake Lonsdale, and Lake Bolac. Long before Major Mitchell climbed and named Mount Abrupt, the Aboriginal people had given their own names to every one of the dozens of saw-toothed peaks he sketched. The Aboriginal People knew them as Gariwerd, the nose-like or pointed mountains, and they lived amongst them for at least 22,000 years.

By 1840 the stream of squatters had swollen to become a torrent. At the end of the year, over half the traditional lands of the Djab wurrung and Jardwadjali People that relied on food, water, material resources, and spiritual succour had been taken over by squatters. The Djab wurrung and Jardwadjil believed at first that the white men were ‘ghosts’ of former clansmen, reborn once more.

The Aboriginals people's occupation of Gariwerd pre-dated Major Mitchell's arrival by at least 22,000 years. For 12,000 years, they sought out the rock shelters that pockmark the Gariwerd Grampians' sandstone as protection from the cold of the last great Ice Age. Archaeologists have recorded over 120 rock art sites in the Gariwerd Grampians ranges. Nowhere else in Victoria does such a number of rock art sites exist.

The Djab wurrung and Jardwadjali People constantly referred to their predecessors as the Old People, so we will call them those who lived through the Ice Age. Beginning 25,000 years ago, the landscape before them would have become dry and treeless, although, on the plains, there would have been larger, faster, and altogether more dangerous rivers to cross. Streams draining the meltwaters of the dividing range would have had twice to 30 times the volume of those today. As well as the animal species we are familiar with today, there may well have been megafauna and super large herbivorous browsers dominating the glacial grasslands. 12,000 years to 8,000 years BP: Seas rise with the ending of the Ice Age. After almost 20,000 years, the land bridges to Tasmania were threatened by rising sea levels.

In the early 1840s, with drought threatening survival, the Djab wurrung and Jardwadjali stepped up their campaigns of overt resistance. Fear of attack by Aboriginal Bands led to measures by squatters reminiscent of the American wild west. Squatters, shepherds, and hut keepers were habitually armed when they were away from their homesteads. Armed guards protected provisions drays. Several squatters erected huts with portholes and sliding doors designed explicitly for shooting attackers from any direction. By 1845 an estimated 70 per cent of Djab wurrung and 80 per cent of Jardwadjali were dead. From a conservatively estimated pre-contact population of 2,050 Djab wurrung and 2,220 Jardwadjali, only 615 Djab wurrung and 455 Jardwadjali remained alive.

After the frontier period, the Djab wurrung and the Jardwadjali’s language, culture and customs were stripped from them. In the final act – less than 50 years after Mitchell's triumphant march through Australia Felix, the Djab wurrung and the Jardwadjali were expelled from the land to which they once belonged. During the 1870s, the remnants of the Djab wurrung and the Jardwadjali were either forcibly removed or voluntarily relocated to the reserves of Framlingham, Lake Condah, and Ebenezer. One of the reserves was the aim of the Christian missionaries who managed.

Brambuk was opened in 1990 as a hub for cultural learning and indigenous training and features a cultural centre, information centre and a base for Parks Victoria. Brambuk plays a pivotal role in welcoming visitors to the Gariwerd cultural landscape and provides a place where people can learn about the historical significance of the region and its people.

SOURCE:

Brambuk Culture Centre

Gib Wettenhall, 2019, “The People of Gariwerd, The Grampians Aboriginal Heritage”