Aboriginal Mural
45 Grosvenor St, Abbotsford
Honeywell
Site Walk
The Inception team did some walking along the Yarra River trail and found a lush, wooded river environment.
During the summer months, Aboriginal people moved to the plains, rivers and coast. Along the Yarra, men hunted kangaroo, possum, emu, bush turkey, fish, eels, snakes, water rats, frogs and platypus.
Fishing was carried out from bark canoes, cut and shaped from the river red gums; or by spearing fish from the riverbanks. Eels were captured in stone traps or others woven from rushes.
Women hunted small animals and gathered edible plants, berries and shellfish providing up to two-thirds of the clan’s diet. Vitally important to Aboriginal wellbeing were the roots of various plants, including the tubers of the murnong (yam daisy) that were later decimated by sheep and cattle grazing. Other plants provided medicines, fibre for weaving and utensils. Women also made clothing from animal skins, stitched together with animal sinew. Possum Skin cloaks were highly prized.
Murnong Yam Daisy
Original Wall
The feature wall is 4.7m x 2m and located in a prominent area immediately outside the Honeywell staff lunchroom and deck that overlooks the Yarra River.
Artist Nathan Dawson working on the Honeywell Melbourne Mural
About the Artist
Nathan Dawson is a Gomeroi man from the Guyinbaraay clan from the Gunnedah area of NSW. Nathan mainly uses water-colour, ink and pen.
Nathan has lived and worked in Japan for a total of ten years, during which time he was chosen for the NIKA Art and Design Awards for three years in a row and his works were exhibited at the National Art Centre, Tokyo.
Nathan presently lives in Lismore, NSW with his wife and 4 children.
Artist Nathan Dawson standing in front of his artwork for the Honeywell Melbourne Office
Barak’s Beginnings
William Barak was born in 1823 at Brushy Creek, an offshoot from the Yarra River, as a member of the Wurundjeri clan group who were part of the Woiwurrung peoples.
Barak’s father was an important Aboriginal leader for the Woiwurrung in the Heidelberg region of the Yarra. Barak’s mother Tooterrie was from the Goulburn river region at Murchison and gave Barak the tribal name of ‘Beruk’.
Victoria has five Aboriginal groups surrounding Melbourne: Woiwurrung, Boonwurrung, Taungurong, Djadjawurung and Wathaurong together make up the Aboriginal ‘Kulin Nation’.
Kulin Nation Tribes
Melton
Journey to Manhood
Each tribe has a chief who directs the group’s movements and there are a number of other senior roles including; warrior, counsellor, doctor, dreamer and sorcerer. Women are important in the clan groups and are consulted regarding strategic decisions including ceremonies, initiation and marriage arranged between tribes.
In this picture, Barak is about 11 years old (1834) and is hunting fish for dinner. Later, at the age of 13, Barak was given the cultural symbols of manhood including possum skin around his biceps, reed necklace, nose peg and a waist string.
When Barak was 19, he joined the Native Police Corps and it was then his name changed from Beruk to William. Native Troopers like Barak helped to police the Yarra River area. Barak became known as a talented tracker with skills in demand for years after he left the Native Police Corps.
William Barak at age 11 (1834)
A Skilled Tracker
For example, Barak was often engaged in tracking missing children and thieves on the run including once, the notorious bush outlaw - Ned Kelly and his gang as per the following:
Pointing to the woodland down below, Barak turned to the senior policeman, “Robbers (Kelly and his gang) are in there – go get them.” The head policeman replied “You go in first, we’ll follow.” Barak bristled “I have no gun, I track.”
So the police decided instead to send for reinforcements and the Kelly gang escaped.
Trackers like Barak could spot a drop of blood on a blade of grass, or tell what sort of horse had gone by and whether it had a rider. He could distinguish even between the sort of boot heels a fugitive was wearing.
William Barak was a highly skilled tracker with the Native Police
Ned Kelly and his gang hiding from Barak and the police
Yarra Creation Story
As he grew older, Barak became an important source of Aboriginal cultural knowledge, painting Corroborees and helping people to understand what life was like in the early 1800’s, before Europeans arrived. Below, Barak explains how the Yarra River was formed:
Two boys walked up to a wattle tree in search of some wattle gum they liked to eat. One of the boys climbed up to the top of the tree to get some and threw it down to the other boy, but when the wattle gum struck the ground it disappeared. The boy on the ground looked everywhere, confused about where the wattle gum had gone and eventually found a small hole in the ground and poked his spear into it. A loud rumbling voice came back and the ground shook. An old man who had been sleeping underground emerged and snatched the boy, carrying him off into the bush, leaving a trail in the soil because the boy was heavy.
Bunjil the creator, heard the boy cry out and felt sorry for him and decided to put very sharp stones in front of the old man who tripped, fell into them and was cut to pieces whilst the boy rolled safety onto dry grass.
Before the old man died, Bunjil the creator appeared and said to him “let this be a lesson to all old men, they must be good to children”
Bunjil then turned to the furrow in the ground left by the old man and made it deeper, filling it with water and growing it into the Yarra River.
Bunjil pursuing the old man child thief from Barak’s Yarra River creation story
Buckley’s Chance
On the opposite river-bank of the mural (in Barak’s future), we can see a fair-skinned man in a possum-skin cloak by the name of William Buckley. At six foot six, Buckley was a convict who had escaped in 1805 from Tasmania to Melbourne at the age of 23yrs. On the run from police, Buckley’s two co-convicts succumbed to sickness leaving him on his own. Fearing for his life, Buckley chanced upon an Aboriginal grave site and found a spear lying next to it which he took to protect himself. Soon afterwards Buckley, passed out in the bush very unwell and was discovered by two Aboriginal women who had the men carry him back to their camp. Buckley was fed eel and packed with warm possum skins to recover from his fever by the Aboriginal women whilst the community debated what should be done with him.
The spear Buckley had with him was identified as belonging to a highly respected man ‘Murrangurk’ and the community assumed that Buckley was Murrangurk, who had returned to them and was duly accepted into the family hut. Buckley recovered and learned to hunt eels, spear fish and observe Aboriginal cultural traditions and later became an interpreter for the settlers.
A young Barak saw Buckley as a tall, white man dressing like a ‘black-fella’ in a possum-skin cloak, living and hunting in harmony with the community.
References
Victorian Collections “Life of Barak”
https://victoriancollections.net.au/stories/william-barak/life-of-barak
Simons R (2020) Researching Indigenous Australians
https://www.coursehero.com/file/87408880/Assignment-1docx/
Wiencke (1984) When the wattles bloom again: The life and times of William Barak, last chief of the Yarra Yarra tribe.
