Roles and Reasons for Movement

Reasons for Movement

Hunt’s study suggests there were five main reasons for Australian Aboriginal people to move through the landscape as they gathered together in larger groups and then dispersed into smaller family groups:

Seasonal migration to access food or other resources
Ceremonial and religious occasions
Trade
Warfare and fighting
Communications

Based on P. Hunt (1992). Movement and landscape: An examination of Aboriginal movement in forested environments. BA Honours Thesis: ANU, Canberra.

procuring food and raw materials

Knowledge of the seasonal availability of different foods strongly influenced movement through landscapes

For example, groups from all over southeastern NSW came together in the Snowy Mountains to feast on the Bogong moths in summer

This also prevented exhausting the resources of one particular area

Special journeys were also made to collect special woods, resins, stone or ochres.

religion and ceremony

Ceremonial and religious events (e.g. initiation) were hosted at significant sites and often allowed a group to host other tribes

Significant journeys were made from the Monaro to sites in the Snowy Mountains, such as Kalkite and Khancoban, to sites on the coast, such as Gulaga (Mt Dromedary), Didthul (Pigeon House) and Biamanga (Mumbulla Mountain), and to sites inland, such as at Warangesda on the Murrumbidgee near Griffith.

The video above "Kuringal" (2020) tells the story of an 1883 gathering of First Nations People:

In 1883 a large gathering of First Nations People gathered at the top of Doctor George Mountain, near Bega, on the NSW Far South Coast to perform a mens initiation specifically so that it could be recorded by one of the world's earliest anthropologists, Alfred William Howitt. This film tells that story and explains the continuing importance of ceremony today for First Nations People.

trade and exchange

Trade provided products from outside one group’s area and helped maintain friendly relations with other groups

Pearl shells, for example, were traded from the north coast of WA all the way to NSW

When initiation ceremonies were being held, a market was sometimes held

Fraser saw one of these held by the Yuin in 1892 where one Aboriginal man “...wants suitable stone for an axe, wood for his spears and ‘bumarangs’ and shield and clubs, flint for cutting and skinning, gum to be used as cement, and lumps of gritty sandstone, on which to sharpen his stone axe; for adornment, the pipeclay and the red ochre and much valued, and so are swan-down feathers and the rose-colours crests of a certain kind of cockatoo, some of these he can supply, and for them, he gets in barter others that he wants.”

warfare and fighting

Early settlers observed how groups would travel for fighting on designed fighting grounds

John Hawdon remembered a “great battle” fought in the 1830s at Kiora “between the Morua and the Braidwood blacks. It raged loud and long, much to the terror of the household”

Fierce attacks were also carried out on other groups to capture women to become wives

Early settlers also report cannibalism; in June 1839 “down on the Monaro some white men watched with horror the massacre of some Bega blacks by a part of Monaro blacks, who then skinned them and ate them”

Even after European arrival, Aboriginal groups would come down from the Monaro to attack people on the coast

communication

Messengers spread information to neighbouring groups about when there was a food surplus or ceremony being planned.

Information was spread through speech, drawings in the dirt, and carved objects (‘message sticks’).

Songs and ceremonies could also travel great distances from group to group. People would journey a long way to learn new songs (Nerinda Sandry, 2020)

This video demonstrates how to make a traditional coolamon.

Coolamons are evidence for a variety of different roles that aboriginal people had.

Watch the video and take note of how men and women used different types of coolamons for different tasks.

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