Melbourne's birth destroyed Bunurong and Wurundjeri boundaries. 185 years on, they've been redrawn

Sat, 3 Jul 2021 06:32:39 +1000

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-26/melbourne-aboriginal-traditional-owners-bunurong-wurundjeri/100236480>

"When colonists arrived to set up the city of Melbourne, Bunurong people who
had lived on the land for tens of thousands of years had their world upended.

"It'd be the equivalent today of a giant spaceship pulling up over the city,"
Bunurong man Dan Turnbull said.

"And I know, that's outrageous. But it was outrageous, what happened at the
time."

Over just a few decades, Bunurong and Wurundjeri people were pushed off their
land to make way for Melbourne.

Languages, cultural practices and access to important sites were banned.

In some instances, there were contemporary accounts that Aboriginal women
effectively terminated pregnancies, such was their despair at the world their
children would grow up in.

"You probably struggled to find anything that could have had a greater impact,
apart from maybe a natural disaster at a huge level," Mr Turnbull said.

Now, 185 years after the formal founding of Melbourne, the Wurundjeri and
Bunurong people have reasserted their status as traditional owners over the
heart of what is now a sprawling city home to more than five million people."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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