Bypass name

I WOULD like to see the bypass named Multuggera Songline, instead of Multuggera Way.

In 2012 the University of Queensland produced a Cultural Heritage Study of Gowrie Creek Waterways for the Toowoomba Council. It shows a songline running east/west similar to the Warrego Highway.

Patrick Jerome says there was a songline involving Mt Coot-tha, Mt Lofty (Gungai) and Gowrie Mountain and further west. Songlines were trading routes that criss-crossed Australia.

After they were initiated young indigenous people spent years learning songlines so they were handed down through generations and could be thousands of years old.

The songs used prominent geological features, rivers and stars to show the track and they usually involved a Dreamtime story to help people remember the sequence, the rhythm changed as the track changed from hilly to flat.

Songlines also showed were to find food, water, ceremonial grounds and camp sites, also what time of year was best to be in which area.

The songline language changed as they crossed into different people’s land, so they had to respect their host’s laws, and only travel on the songline.

So songlines were really important to indigenous culture and survival.

There would have been other songlines in our area as Toowoomba seemed to be a stopover point, with food and water available at the swamp.

So I believe Songline to be a more appropriate name than Way for an indigenous name.

The Battle of One Tree Hill or Wantry as it has also been recorded, was just one of the many skirmishes that occurred after the arrival of Europeans in our area, many people from both sides died.

We can’t change what happened 180 years ago but it would be good to show our respect, by having a memorial in the Garden of Remembrance to commemorate these brave people. — JEFF DAVIDSON, Toowoomba