Published on May 28, 2024
Encounters of place are complex, compellingly visceral and layered. Experience, perception and relational embodiment are the scaffolds of place that set it apart from notions of space.
“Places gather things in their midst … experiences and histories … languages and thoughts.”
The Western preoccupation with geographical space and Aboriginal regard for the constitution of place is the point of tension that sits at the heart of Billibellary’s Walk.
Layers of place
Billibellary’s Walk was designed as a guided walk with a full narrative delivered at prescribed stops, along with questions to prompt participant responses. A number of sub-themes, or layers of place, are woven through the narrative.
These include Aboriginal identities and being; seasons; landscapes and places; animals; water; plants and trees; time; and sensory perception.
They are the essence of the walk, unveiling a different history and sense of being, and setting participants on a path to transformative learning.
The following illustrates two examples of this with excerpts from the narrative.
Sciences & Technology
The Boorong pride themselves upon knowing more of astronomy than any other
Seasons
The walk invites participants to move through Billibellary’s land and to feel, know and imagine Melbourne’s seasons, which are subtly reconstructed as the context for understanding place and belonging.
In this sense, the walk aims to recognise and share the idea that the land is alive. It uses Dr Beth Gott’s (undated) six botanical seasons to differentiate times of the year and note the rhythm of the natural seasonal cycles that governed the lifestyle patterns of the people.
“If it’s late summer (February-March), you might smell the smoke from ancient fire burning practices, sanctioned by Elders, as it hangs in the air.
“The Wurundjeri people used fire to manage the land and to promote new growth, which would subsequently attract animals, and provide the right conditions for particular tuberous plants to grow, such as Myrnong or yam daisy.
“As the seasons change, so too does Billibellary’s expectation of his environment … as late summer moves into early winter (April-May) the Wurundjeri people prepare to move to higher ground for shelter. Bunjil, the eagle ancestral spirt, is building his nest and the echidna prepares to go into torpor.
“If it’s deep winter (June-July) as you stand here in 1830, the cold wind bites at you so you might pull your possum skin cloak around your shoulders … the Wurundjeri Willam move to higher ground, near the Dandenongs, for shelter.
“In early spring (mid July-August), the people would have slowly returned from higher ground as the temperatures rose.
“Imagine it is true spring (September-October) … you may see kangaroos whose young are graduating from the pouch or see migrating birds returning from the north.
“From here you could look out across the plains of the grassy woodland and if it is high summer (November-January) you might see animals congregating at dependable water sources as the land dries in the heat.
“Or as you walk you might hear the chatter of women digging for the roots of small tuberous plants which have died back but which are also at their best at this time of year.”
Water
The eel story is also one of water. References to water throughout the narrative connect Country, people, animals and time.
Waterways like the Birrarung (the Yarra River), the seasonal creek that flowed through what is now the University’s Parkville campus, and the extensive wetlands, streams and billabongs across Narrm defined the landscape and the movement of people and animals across it.
They also helped to conceptualise change through time.
“The Townend creek originated from somewhere near the current Melbourne Cemetery; it flowed through the University site and down a shallow valley, along which Bouverie Street is now situated.
“Continuing south, the meandering creek probably flowed into the shallow creek valley that was to become Elizabeth Street and then on into the Birrarung.”
Short-finned eels, known for their extensive upstream and downstream migration, continue to travel ‘upstream’ from Birrarung through the city’s drainpipes and stormwater systems, where once there were streams and creeks.
Finding their way along the pipes, they sometimes come out into a small pond in one of the University’s courtyards. The gardeners then transfer them to the Botanic Gardens, the ponds of which have established eel populations.
While the significance of the summer eeling season for the Kulin nation around the Melbourne area is well known, the discovery of eels travelling up the pipes has been an important one. It has helped to story the idea of place in our teaching.
The eels’ defiance of the urban landscape in their attempts to find their contemporary water path offers a metaphor for survival.
Unveiling place, revealing story
Positioning Billibellary as the central figure in the experience and perception of place for participants of the walk challenges the colonial control of the landscape and the people within it.
One of the important ways in which Australia’s landscape was brought under colonial control was through placenaming.
Naming Billibellary and the places he belonged to draws on the symbolism of the time at which Narrm was settled.
In 1835, Billibellary was thirty-four years old and a ngurungaeta. His leadership, preparedness for negotiation and vision for the future illustrate the important learnings bound within the walk itself.
This is an edited extract from Dhoombak Goobgoowana – A history of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne – Volume 1: Truth, published by Melbourne University Publishing and edited by Dr Ross Jones, Dr James Waghorne and Professor Marcia Langton. Hard copies are available to purchase, and a free digital copy is available through an open-access portal.
Billibellary’s Walk is available on Google Play or the App Store
This article was first published on Pursuit. Read the original article.