 In order to make your Outback NSW touring experience the best it can possibly be, we have produced an extensive "Darling River Run Map and Guide". |
Indigenous Outback NSW
Due to the complex nature of the Indigenous culture they are intended as an introductory guide only and to possibly promote an interest and rudimentary understanding between two very different cultures.
Brief History
- A Brief overview of indigenous history -
(Provided as a general introduction only - should you wish to find out more, please refer to our links section).
Early European naivety, which also permeates through to modern perceptions, viewed Indigenous Australians as one people. Aboriginal culture in Australia is no more homogenous than European Australia, but is a diverse and interlaced association of many different cultures that, along with Torres Strait Islander peoples, make up the fabric that we refer to today as Indigenous Australia.
Aboriginal Culture can be traced back at least 45,000 years and within the Outback NSW many Aboriginal 'groups' can be identified. Within this region, most of these groups lived along the many water courses that make up the Darling Basin and today they live in the towns of the area; no less connected to the area and its geological features as their forbears.
The Warrego, Lachlan, Paroo, Barwon, Murray and Darling Rivers provided not only a cultural basis for the people but also sustained life by affording food supply from the waterways and surrounding areas. The largest of these groups is the Barkindji, whose region stretches from Wentworth all the way along the Darling and up to Wilcannia and Tilpa – although their concentration was traditionally greater in the southern regions of the river. The ndigenous name for the river which we now know as the Darling is 'Barka' and the Barkindji literally means the people of the Barka (the river).
To the uninitiated, the NSW outback may appear to be on homogenous land but when one experiences the outback one soon appreciates the diversity of the land in this region and this multiplicity is reflected in the different indigenous groups that were and are custodians of these lands. The major groups (as identified by DECC) are as follows and are provided here as a general overview only:
| Group | General Region |
|
Gamilaraay |
Walgett/Lightning Ridge area |
Pre-European population levels have been estimated to have been as high as 750,000. With the arrival of Europeans (mainly English, Irish and Scottish) came not only dispossession, death and disease, but massive detrimental cultural impacts as well. Strong edifying beliefs and a determination have (all but slowly) made some progress in the last few decades (the right to vote, land rights, native title, identification of culturally significant lands and the recent 'Sorry' from the Federal Government have gone some way to reinvigorating cultural pride. These events have also helped many non-Indigenous Australians understand the importance and cultural contribution of the first inhabitants.
More and more places across Australia are integral in this process of acceptance and understanding and Outback NSW has some wonderful areas that provide an opportunity for people to experience Aboriginal culture and heritage and to learn about its significance.
Some great National Parks have been established in Outback NSW to this end and some of the must experience ones include:
Please refer to our Parks Section for more information on these wonderful parks.
Spiritual Culture
- A Brief overview of Indigenous Spirituality -
(Provided as a general introduction only - should you wish to find out more, please refer to our links section).
An element of this can be seen in how land is viewed in these cultures… land is not something that can be owned, traded, or exploited for profit. Land has a spiritual definition. "We don't have boundaries like fences, as farmers do. We have spiritual connections" (anon)
To indigenous Australians, all living creatures are dynamically and intricately linked and have all arisen from great ancestral spirits. Dreamtime can be viewed as the Creation and the perpetuation of the significance of these events, adherence to spirituality, forming of customs and the lineage of cultural beliefs down through the generations is The Dreaming; much of which is done through dance, song, mime and art.
As with most religions in the world whereby different 'accents' are placed on core beliefs, the Dreaming of Indigenous Australia also varies from group to group and region to region as it pertains to the 'country' of the respective people. While the continuum of the various Dreaming maybe different, they all derive from an analogous and interpretive Dreamtime; in a similar way that many non-indigenous religions vary but can be linked back to some core analogous and interpretive form of Creation.
While forming the relationships within the living world, the Ancestral Sprits travelled across the land and through certain events formed the physical land; mountains, hills, rivers, streams, trees etc. When the land was created, the Ancestral Beings formed into elements they had created. The hills, the animals, the flora, the stars etc, and they remain within those elements of the world thus creating the spiritual connection to the world.
How these Spiritual Beings formed the world after Dreamtime is the basis of the many sacred stories which get passed down through the ages and it is this that forms the Dreaming.
These stories are not just passed down by anyone within a nation, but by special custodians appointed by elders, who are responsible for maintaining the cultural continuum for future generations. The reference to custodians is pertinent as the stories of Dreaming belong to the nation, not the person, and it is the responsibility of the custodian to pass the stories on thereby maintaining perpetuating The Dreaming with strict cultural adherence.
As much of this is an oral story, and the detrimental cultural influences of Europeans (i.e.; Disease, massacres, westernising, and the banning of language and storytelling), a lot of the Dreaming has been lost – especially in many parts of South Eastern Australia; potentially resulting in the irreversible death of rich and diverse cultures.
Fortunately through cultural pride and strength, enough has been retained and there are efforts to perpetuate these irreplaceable traditions via today's custodians. This maintains the links with the past, placing them in context for today’s Dreaming and instilling cultural pride in communities, especially the young; for they are tomorrow's custodians of these very precious and unique ancient cultures.
This sanctity of custodianship in addition to sacred and secret stories may seem to non-indigenous people as curious, but it is because of this that it is passed through time in the correct way and with its original and intended context and while non-indigenous people may not comprehend the secrecy of men's business or women's business, it must be accepted and respected as in the same way as any cultural or religious diversity and not dismissed because of ignorance.
To hear some story telling, from a custodian, please refer to: http://www.dreamtime.net.au/dreaming/storylist.htm
- The Explorers -
... Outback travel nowadays can be done in the comfort of modern reliable vehicles and the security of modern communication to the 'outside' world but spare a thought for how it was done before the country was 'known'...
We can only imagine how it was done during the early 1800's ... horses and drays, camels and having to carry all supplies for survival, in many cases for over a year; the area was also unexplored and travel was undertaken with little or no bush craft skills and no idea where, when, how and if the suspected water courses flowed.
Such was the character, and naivety, of our early explorers and those who sent them out there.
George Evans was reportedly the first European to traverse the Great Dividing Range, at the Blue Mountains, to explore the upper reaches of the Macquarie River in 1813.
Knowing that all rivers must flow somewhere, he teamed up with John Oxley (Surveyor General) in 1818 to further explore where this river ran. They made great progress into the interior but fell short of discovering where it flowed because of the unforgiving and impenetrable Macquarie Marshes - about 75km short of the Darling River between Nyngan and Walgett.
Over the next 15 years, George Evans, John Oxley and botanist Alan Cunningham charted the majority of the upper eastern tributaries to the south of the Darling River and, like many others, concluded that these must in fact join up with the Darling and flow to a great inland sea.
The task of proving this theory was given to Charles Sturt who set off in 1828 on the first of his many quests to find this inland sea.
Fully equipped for a nautical, complete with boat, exploration of the western regions, Sturt soon leaned that the land was one of extremes (floods and droughts) as he trekked all the way to the Darling though the now drought ravaged area which, for previous explorers, was a land that abounded in water resources. The river at Bourke was almost totally empty except for some salty water bubbling from its bed.
Sturt though innately realised that this was in fact part of a major river system and named the river after NSW Governor Ralph Darling.
Upon Sturts return and buoyed by what he reported, Darling immediately requested a second expedition along the Murrumbidgee River to track its route to the Murray River. While continuing along the Murray River, Sturt came across a clan of about 600 Aborigines standing on a sand bar. The mob was reluctant to let the Europeans into their country and their hostile intentions to prevent explorer's passage were averted through the mediation by a warrior who had been following the expedition. When this situation was calmed, Sturt noticed that the sandbank the tribe was standing on was actually the point at which a river from the north joined the Murray River. Sturt was in fact at the confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers.
By the 1830's, the upper reaches of the Darling were known as was to were it flowed, the Murray River, and the challenge now was determine how it made the 700+km journey.
In 1831, Major Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor General, was assigned to investigate reports of a large river system, as reported by a recaptured convict who had lived in the area for several years, in the north-east of the basin. Mitchell's first explorative venture was cut short and the party was forced to return to Sydney after the loss of two of his men and all the party's rations after a conflict with local Aborigines; something Mitchell, but not other explorers, encountered.
Now that it was known, from Sturts ventures, that there was indeed a large river in the north and a large river that joined the Murray in the south, the authorities needed to know if in fact these two rivers were the same and it need to be charted.
In March 1835, Mitchell set off to continue what Sturt had started and reached the junction of the Darling and Bogan rivers in April. In the region that is now Bourke, he created a stockade (named Fort Bourke) to protect provisions from local Aborigines. The site was considered suitable to continue to explore the Darling by boat. This idea was fruitless as the water level was too low and after a few days of practically walking the boat along the river this was abandoned and continued by foot. By July of 1835, the party had reached what is now Menindee - Mitchell had actually called them Laidley ponds.
A common theme to Mitchell's endeavours was the conflicts he encountered with the indigenous population; something that was contrary to the experience of other explorers. This again became evident for Mitchell at Menindee with an altercation which resulted in the killing and wounding of several Aborigines. He is quoted as saying the Aborigines were " implacably hostile and shamelessly dishonest". (Contrary to the accounts of other explorers).
Mitchell was unwilling to continue downstream to determine if this river continued to the Murray and returned to Sydney with only 3/4's of the expedition objective completed.
With the job of charting the whole of the Darling River, Mitchell was redeployed for a third expedition to fill in the gap between Menindee and the confluence at what it is today Wentworth. The original plan was to return to Menindee but he changed route, due to the feared lack of water, and headed south to the Murray and downstream to its meeting with the Darling. The intention to follow the Darling upstream waned after about 30kms and he returned back to the Murray to explore the fertile area south of the river near the Loddon River. Although he failed, again, in his intended goal, greater glory was his with the exploration of the productive area he named the 'Australian Felix' - which is now the north western districts of Victoria.
The remainder of the Darling River was charted by Sturt in 1844 en route to explore a 'river' that lead of Laidley Ponds to the north-west that was called the Williorara that he thought might actually flow to the fabled inland sea. Unfortunately it was nothing but a flood creek.
While not specifically explorers of the Darling River, the famous Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills (Burke and Wills) passed through the area on there mammoth, but ill-fated, journey from Melbourne to The Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition arrived at Menindee on October 14 1860, and made camp at Kinchega Station after crossing the Darling River. A depot camp for the expedition was established at the Pamamaroo Creek (a sign and cairn mark the site of the camp). Upon their departure, Burke and Wills carved an arrow in the door post of the hotel to indicate the expedition's direction.