Topics: Culture: North West

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1842 - view

Some few opossums, bandicoots, snakes and iguanas and other items had been secured by these people during the day; so with the addition of fish and…eggs we had found in the swan nests, there was a bountiful supply of food

1843 - view

At a pre-arranged Aboriginal “corroboree” and ritualised sporting fight attended by around 100 m1843. men, women and children near Maitland to coincide with the settlers’ horse racing contest, one participant who had acquired a musket without sufficient skill in its use, shot an opponent dead by mistake

1843 - view

While tribes throughout the Wollombi district are: “peaceful people, and too few in number to have fights on a grand scale…occasionally a few heads are broken with the coterie, or a spear wound inflicted in retaliation for some breach of their laws or customs

1847 - view

Darkinjung language

1847 - view

Charlie Clark is one of the last to undergo traditional male initiation

1848 - view

Bora Ground

1850 - view

carves on a large flat mass of Hawkesbury sandstone the image of a white man going into the bush to cut timber carrying an axe over his shoulder

1853 - view

A large Aboriginal ceremonial gathering is held at the “Bulga Bora Ground” on the eastern side of Wollombi Brook, with its sacred circles defined by small mounds of earth and carved trees bearing the emblems that mark the initiation of young men of the tribes to tribal rites. 500 to 600 Aboriginal people attend from various tribes from as far as Mudgee and Goulburn. White settlers are excluded from the Bora

1855 - view

throwing boomerangs at the old “Koala Park” paddocks

1861 - view

Wollombi tribe is skilled at gathering wild honey and as a result of bartering with them

1870 - view

“flying away”

1870 - view

White people freely speak Awabakal language in Swansea, Pelican and possibly Belmont South

1879 - view

“last Darkinung fullblood man” to be initiated

1879 - view

Mathews wrote under the heading “Darkinung”: “Hiram, brother of Tilly, painted hands in the cave near the punt at Sackville Reach

1883 - view

Tom Dillon is a fully initiated man, with a scarred chest and missing front tooth

1887 - view

Gomebeere’s vocabulary

1888 - view

“Grand Corroboree” performance is held in Daniel Morrison’s garden in Singleton. He is the father of artefact collector Alexander Morrison

1889 - view

Margaret sought to caretake the burial ground

1890 - view

Collection of Aboriginal artefacts. Singleton newspaper man, Alexander Morrison is an avid collector of Aboriginal wooden artefacts from southeast Australia. At least four objects in his collection are made at St Clair: two parry shields and two clubs

1892 - view

Charley is also a source of information on the local bora initiation ceremony. Mathews later publishes his description of this ceremony, “The Burbung”