Site Information
Pre-visit Activity Resources
This will give you some more background to our study site and help with page 4 of your fieldwork booklet.
Learning Intention
To learn more about the investigation site and its historical and current use to assist with planning the investigation.
Explore Brewongle EEC
Explore the Sackville North area in google maps.
Explore Brewongle EEC and surrounds in this drone video.
Aboriginal Connection to Country
Brewongle EEC is located on Darug country - the land of the Boorooberongal people. This land has thousands of years of custodianship and Aboriginal people have a deep connection to country and the land that supports all of us.
Country is a term Aboriginal people use to define all people, plants, animals, waters and land. We do not see ourselves separate from one another or our environment. We are all one and we are all connected on a spiritual and physical level. Our relationship to Country, our kinship and totem systems are a complexity of intertwined knowledge and respect. Just as we care for our Country through traditional land management practices such as Firestick (cultural burning), we also acknowledge and celebrate our seasonal calendar through hunting, movement and ceremony.
The landscape provides all we need in terms of plant and animal resource for food, medicine, tools etc. We never take more than we need and always ensure that what we use will remain and grow for future generations. We never farmed our lands; our yams were dug up to take only a portion of each and then replanted to continue to grow; our trees never logged and our animals not-hunted during specific times. Our landscape and all that encompasses Country, remained unchanged, forgiving and in abundance for thousands of years prior to settlement. - Erin Wilkins (Darug woman and educator)
Watch the videos below from Aunty Edna Watson and Uncle Wes Marne to gain understanding of some significant sites close to Brewongle EEC.
Aboriginal Land & Water Management
Grinding grooves used to sharpen tools on rock platforms of Dyrubbin at Sackville Reach
Fire-stick Farming
The Darug speaking Boorooberongal People are the traditional custodians of the water Country of the River. Dyrubbin (also Deerubbin) was a major resource providing fish, eels, shell fish, crayfish and birdlife for food hunting. Line fishing, spearing and netting were employed to catch fish. Line fishing was done by women and spear fishing by men, while netting was a community activity.
The river was also the life of communities providing fresh water and a method of transport via canoes known as noweys. Dyrabubbin had its own Dreaming stories of creation linked to Gurangatch the eel creator of the river.
Prior to British settlement the adjacent land of river flats was park like and abundant with food, both plants and animals. Plants were used in season and according to tried and tested preparation methods which reduced toxicity. Early British observers noted that the women tended fields of midyini (root vegetables) along side the river. These observers then tried the root vegetables also known as yams and made themselves quite ill as they had not prepared them properly. The root vegetables being tended to have been noted as the yams - Dioscorea transvera and Dioscorea bulbifera.
Fire-stick farming was employed to encourage regrowth of plants and new shoots that would attract small and medium animals to forage and thus make them easier to hunt. Fire-stick farming is often called Cultural Cool Burning. Fire-stick farming had the long-term effect of turning dry sclerophyll forest into grasslands increasing populations of grazers such as kangaroos. This method has a number of purposes other than to facilitate hunting. It can reduce hazardous wild fires by controlling fuel loads and reducing weed build up, and it can change the composition of plant and animal species and increase biodiversity.
There were strict Aboriginal lores regarding maintaining the health of the water and land which were related to totems. Each language group, clan and individual were assigned animals or plants for which they held dreaming stories. You could not eat your totem and were responsible for your totem like it was kin. In this way sustainable limits were placed on the use of various plants and animals by the totems holders. If totem holders observed that their plant or animal was in danger then they could say no to hunting or gathering for a number of seasons to allow it to recover.
Read Cooee Mittigar to learn about Darug seasonal change and sustainable use of the land and water in a picture book format.
For an in depth study of Aboriginal land management practices in the Hawkesbury Nepean catchment read the AHMS Yarramundi Cultural Heritage Report.
Brewongle EEC & Surrounds Through the Last 150 Years
Land use changes
This photo is taken looking from Brewongle EEC south along the Hawkesbury River. We are unsure of the date, but quite different land use can be seen compared to the current view on the right. Orchards can be seen on the left bank, as well as very different riverside vegetation to today.
The bush surrounding Brewongle has been drastically altered in the last 150 years. This photo shows the old schoolhouse, with all trees removed to create a paddock. This area is now a regrown forest and where most of your fieldwork will take place.
Brewongle EEC was Sackville North Public school from 1868 until 1972. The grounds have changed a great deal in this time. School ovals, cricket nets and grassed paddocks have now been replaced with ponds, native gardens and regenerated forests.
This photo shows how grazing occurred right to the waters edge. This grazing meant that vegetation was removed and made riverbanks susceptible to slumping and sediments being washed away during periods of flood.
River boats were used to access and transport produce from farms. This photo demonstrates how degraded the rivers edges were and how the embankments were worn away.
This photo taken to the south west of Brewongle along Sackville Reach shows clear evidence of deforestation. Today much of the vegetation has regrown as intensive farming has given way to hobby farms and recreation.