Wishing everyone the very best during this difficult time of covid19
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I pay my respects to Aboriginal Peoples - past, present and future and to all Peoples who promote a continuity of Aboriginal culture as a connectedness to species, spirit and the environment.
I am dharug-dharawal from the area known as muringong (Camden). I am custodian as murura of (Johnny) budbury a paternal ancestor and as mandagerry a matrilineal ancestor. My ancestors were born as belgeny (alt: bala-nyini) a waterhole near kirboowallie, a shallow place to cross durrubbin (the Nepean River) near Camden NSW. Budbury's daughter mandagerry (Mary) was my grandmother's grandmother.
I was born as gadigal ngurra (Camperdown Hospital) and taken home as gweagal (East Sydney) then as muringong (the Oaks near Camden).
I was grown up as woronora - dhawaral at Engadine NSW, and as
bruinbin gunya turon, our family hut by the river near Hill End NSW).
I identify as all of these places, specifically dharug-dharawal as muringong place-time origins of my ancestors, I cannot divide myself between dharug and dharawal, particularly because budbury’s ngurra (Country) is situated where Tyndale would have us draw a line across ngurra to divide dharug from dharawal. Without this colonial boarder we experience the region as a broader connectedness of peoples.
eora (meaning peoples) are connected from the mountains to the sea as murura of the Sydney basin, north south east west from Wiannamatta, the mother (South Creek and tributary branches) and as Durrubbin (Nepean/Hawkesbury river) and ngurra (Country) towards Georges River
The Cowpastures region: Joseph Lycett c1817, Image courtesy of National Library of Australia.
Venessa Possum Continuity 2016, photographic documentation of a temporal site-specific artefact.
Location: Parramatta Orphans Home and Female school / lso attached to the Female Factory was built on the banks of Burramatta (Parramatta River). This is where my matrilineal ancestor Mandagerry was admitted c1827 to be trained in domestic service. The building is now known as 'Whitlam House' on the Parramatta Campus of the University of Western Sydney. Burramatta flows inland from the coast, and Burramattagal is the clan of this dgarug ngurra (Country), honouring burra (the Eel) as a dharug songline, travelling more than 10,000 kilometers as a global breading cycle.
