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Aboriginal Stories

The Aboriginal people who occupied the Western New England Tablelands, and the North West of New South Wales were the Murri people. Many of their descendants still live around these areas today.

Descendants of the original Murri tell us, through the stories handed down from the "old people" (the people who lived in the traditional Murri Way, before the coming of the Europeans, or as people say today, "the old people, who lived in the old way"), that once all the Murri people were of the same group, all speaking the same language, all having the same customs, laws and traditions. Then came the time of the Great Flood which covered much of the land with water. Because of this, groups of people became isolated from each other. As the years passed these groups developed their own languages, customs, laws and traditions, - their own way of life. Each group of Murris had its own territory, or "taurai". Each taurai became the responsibility of the people who lived there. Baiame, the Great Creator of the World, told the Murris how to look after their taurais and how to conserve their resources. He told them how they must live and gave to them the laws they must follow. Each generation was given the responsibility of passing on the laws for living to ensure that all generations of the Murris lived the good way that Baiame had shown them so long ago in the "Dreamtime", and followed all his laws.

Over the thousands of years, the Murris lived in complete harmony with their environment, conserving their resources by continual movement from place to place within their taurais. Mostly each Murri group remained within its own taurai, but there were times when neighbouring groups came together for various purposes,

• settling disputes between groups and individuals (this was done by the Council of Elders, the Elders being the leaders, the most respected and wisest of the people)
• arranging marriages
• for trading
• for ceremony

At these meetings there was much singing, dancing and feasting. It is always good to get together.

The Murris lived by very strict laws, laws which were set down for good living. If a man or woman broke these laws, he or she was dealt with most severely, even to the penalty of death or banishment. The Elders within the group decided on the form of punishment, and it was the responsibility of the person's friends to see that this punishment was carried out.

People did not "own" things, as we do today, it was there for the use of all, the responsibility being with the people to look after everything. Everything within the taurai was shared. During the day food was collected by the men and women (and children too) and brought back home to be cooked and eaten together. Although all the food was shared by all, each person was only allowed to eat certain things, or portions of meat, according to his or her position in the group. Even the children knew just what they could or couldn't eat, how much, and what portion of meat. When a child was born, he was given special names, and he had a special place in the relationship with the rest of his group. His special names came from his class and totem and these determined from birth to death, his place in the group, with whom he associated and married, the foods he could or could not eat, and the special laws that he must follow all his life.

As the people of each taurai developed their own languages, they gave their languages special names. These language names became the names given to the Murris who occupied these certain taurais.

TRADITIONAL STORIES AND LEGENDS

The telling of the old stories was done by special storytellers who sometimes took only a few minutes to tell a story. Other stories took several days and nights. Small children who stayed at home during the day with the elderly people listened to all sorts of children's stories. Older children listened to many stories about The Dreamtime and how Baiame made the world and all things on it. Through the stories they learned all the things they had to know about Creation and Life. Natural features around them all had their own special stories. Stories were told by singing and dancing, and drawing as well as by narrating them. Sometimes a story was told by one person, sometimes the whole group was needed to act out or sing and dance the story. There were stories about everyday things as well as stories for special times such as special ceremonies at which women and children were not allowed to be present.

The Supreme Being, or Great Creator of the world was known to the Murri as Baiame. Unfortunately, most of the stories of The Dreamtime and Creation have been lost in the Western New England, but there must be similarities in the stories recorded in other areas occupied by Murri people to the stories told in these areas in the old days. William T. Wyndham in "The Aborigines of Australia" recorded the following, which related to the Jukambal:

"The Ucumble (Jukambal) Tribe had a tradition that they arrived in the country as animals, and their old men had a great many chants descriptive of the arrival, and of that which each one said and saw, on its arrival...Each male has his (Gier) aboriginal meat or animal, which is his totum or animal, and which he will not eat on any consideration, as he supposes he arrived in it. The same holds good in the case of women. Byamy resides in the milky way which is His road. The dark patches consist of oak trees and the lighter portions of water. The natives had a very fine chant relating to this which I have unfortunately, forgotten, it began "Dibro Billar". All the chants of the creation were most religiously sung and repeated at the Booras."

Following is one of the traditional stories of the Jukambal and Anaiwan people of the Inverell/Tingha districts, told to me in an interview at Tingha in 1980, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Munro:

"we are told, in the stories of the old people, that we are descended from the Murris, who first came to the North West of NSW a long, long, long time ago. When the Murris first came here they all spoke the same language and all lived the same way. Then came the time of the Great Flood which isolated groups of Murris from each other. Following the Great Flood, these isolated groups remained separated from each other. Over the years, these separated groups then became the language and dialect groups of the western NSW river systems, each with their own territorial country (or 'taurai') and each developing their own languages and traditions, only coming together for special meetings, ceremonies, for trade and for settling disputes between various language groups."

John MacPherson in "Ngarrabul and other Aboriginal Tribes, Part II: Distribution of the Tribes."

The Legend of George's Mount

Those who selected land far up George's Creek, east of Bundarra, found that they had settled near a strange and frightening neighbour, George's Mount, a rocky, scrub-covered hill which periodically gave forth loud rumbling noises, accompanied by a shaking of the ground for miles round. The area was shunned by the aborigines, who had a legend to account for the strange phenomena. William Easy's son, Fred, who in later years made a living by shooting possums for their skins in the vicinity of the rumbling mountain, recounted the legend:

"A big old blackfellow, the head of a powerful tribe came into conflict with a huge kangaroo and they started to fight. Neither one could conquer the other and they fought and fought for centuries. After fighting for a while they grew tired and maybe rested for many moons and then they fought again.

"The rumbling sound is the angry voice of the blackfellow, and the thumping and quivering of the countryside is caused by the kangaroo furiously beating his massive tail on the ground."

A variation of this story said it was possible that the noise was caused by "an underground river, or water, or even volcanoes".

The Tingha Stone Woman

The story of the Tingha Stone Woman is known to most of the local Aboriginal people of the district.

"There was once a young girl who decided to choose her own husband, and not let the older people choose one for her, as was the custom of those days. She married a person who was not of her right group and did not belong to her people. The young girl ran away with her husband, but the girl stopped to have a drink of water. The Elders had sent people after her to kill her, because she had broken the law and when they found her bending over drinking the water, they hit her on the back of the head with a nulla nulla, causing her neck to break. She is still there today with her head in the water, and she is a warning to all young girls not to break the laws of marriage."

This story is also recorded by Howard Creamer in "Mythical and Religious Sites in N.S.W." in HAIGH, C and GOLDSTEIN, W. "The Aborigines of NSW".

National Parks and Wildlife Service, Sydney, 1980 p.96 with a colour photo on p.103.

"Mother of Ducks" Lagoon

The "Mother of Ducks" Lagoon is situated in the Strathbogie area. It runs north-east from the Severn River for about half a kilometre and is about 50 metres wide. The lagoon is clear crystal blue in colour, with green reeds growing around the foreshore.

Mrs. Draper said that in the old days the lagoon was used by three different groups of Aboriginal people as one of their main food supplies, because of the abundance of wildlife that flocked to the area. Each of the groups had great respect for the lagoon, and would only kill the game required. The Aboriginal people believe the lagoon to be bottomless and to possess the power to protect the wild ducks and to provide plenty of food for the people, as long as the people obeyed the laws.

Another lagoon, also known as "Mother of Ducks" Lagoon is located at Guyra.