INDIGENOUS CULTURAL SPOTS
THE Gold Coast’s rich indigenous heritage will go on display to the world during the Commonwealth Games. Here are seven local sites with links to a culture dating back to near the dawn of human existence
BUSHRANGERS AND KWEEBANI CAVES
BUSHRANGERS Cave is the oldest mainland archaeological
site in Southeast Queensland and contains evidence of human habitation stretching back 10,000 years.
Located in a remote section of Lamington National Park on the Queensland-NSW border, the rock shelter contains evidence of stone stools and animal bones that map the changing climate of the region over millennia.
Kweebani Cave, high on the side of a plateau in Lamington National Park, was a refuge and cooking spot for Aboriginal people during the wet season or bad weather.
It’s on the Caves Circuit in the World Heritage-listed rainforest.
BURLEIGH HEADLAND
THIS Gold Coast natural landmark in busy Burleigh is a sacred place to the traditional owners of the land, the Kombumerri people, who know it as Jellurgal.
They believe the creation spirit Jarbreen formed the headland as he stretched skywards after washing honey from his hands in the ocean. His rocky fingers can still be seen stretching out into the sea.
Burleigh Heads National Park contains Aboriginal middens – ancient accumulations of shell and other food scraps including eugaries, mud whelks and oysters collected from beaches and nearby Tallebudgera Creek.
A midden at Hope Island on the northern
Gold Coast was found to 4500 years old.
TALLEBUDGERA CREEK FISH TRAP
LOCATED on the southern shore of Tallebudgera Creek just to the west of the Gold Coast Highway bridge are the remains of a stone-walled fish trap.
Fish would swim into the enclosure and then be trapped by the falling tide.
The Kombumerri people also used dolphins to herd fish towards waiting spears and nets, rewarding them with a share of the catch.
THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF CAOMOI
FINGAL Cemetery holds the remains of Aboriginal and South Sea Islander people including elder Caomoi, the “last king of the Tweed”.
When surf bathing became a craze in the early 1900s, Caomoi reportedly asked his son Churaki to watch over swimmers at Greenmount because it was considered a cultural obligation to keep visitors to their country safe.
The minutes of the first meeting of the Tweed Heads and Coolangatta Surf Life Saving Club in 1911 recognise Churaki’s feats and he received a letter of commendation from the Royal Humane Society Australasia for the rescue of a Mr McGonagil.
Fingal has been a place of significance to indigenous people for thousands of years.
It is known to the Bundjalung people as Booninybah, place of the echidna.
Cook Island, just offshore, is the ceremonial ground of the Jungurra, the pelican.
MERMAID WATERS BURIAL GROUND
IN 1963, contractors who were illegally digging soil to use as top-dressing on lawns started unearthing bones.
Two years later archaeologists would later find the remains of more than 150 indigenous people buried at the site over a period of 1000 years until the late 1800s. It was determined that that land had once been covered by rainforest and burial ground contained the remains of men, women and children.
In 1988, the remains were repatriated to the Gold Coast Aboriginal community and reburied at Kombumerri Park a short distance from the original burial ground.
JEBRIBILLUM BORA PARK
ONE of the last intact bora rings on the Gold Coast has been preserved in a park at the corner of Gold Coast Highway and Sixth Avenue in Burleigh Heads.
Bora rings are ceremonial grounds where manhood initiation ceremonies took place and women were forbidden. Jebribillum is also the site of the and the first Queensland War Memorial specifically dedicated to indigenous servicemen.
THE CORRIGAN WALK
THE Corrigan Walk at Bond University is Australia’s largest private collection of indigenous art on public display.
Named for art patron and collector Patrick Corrigan who has provided most of the works, it traces the evolution of indigenous art from the traditional Western Desert Movement to colourful contemporary styles.
The collection features the works of some of the most celebrated and revered indigenous artists including Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Sally Gabori, Tommy Watson and Gloria Petyarre.
The Corrigan Walk art tour is on today. To reserve a place, contact Laura Harvey on 5595 1430 or lharvey@bond.edu.au