I pay my respects to all Aboriginal Peoples past present and future and all who support and promote continuity of Aboriginal culture as allies
Together we are intergenerational species spirit and environments
My family are dharug ngurra balanyini men and women, of the waterholes known as the cowpastures.
We are also known as Muringong which I experience as being-as-muru ngun, custodians of muru, paths and ngun, we two together.
This region has a connectedness between families who are walking forward together as yanamalila balanyini, singing burra murura, our rainbow serpent eel forming badu and bumul rivers and tributaries, from salt to brackish to fresh waters. These primordial waters are connected to primordial sandstones and as such we acknowledge 'we two' as Dtharawal tugear and Dharug ngun.
My family also acknowledges our ancestry as the Walsh of Kilkenny Mountain Ireland and are grateful to our brothers and sisters of Anawain for holding my ancestors in their Country when they were forced to migrate north from Sydney. Within time my ancestor Jimmy Claypipe, son of Mandagerry and John Walsh was able to return to our homelands as balanyini - Belgenny Camden
From a personal perspective, my blessings of being grown up on Country as bondi and bronti, wollondilly, woronora, guringai, yooran (tulon) and more.
Venessa Possum burramattagal Continuity, photographic documentation of a temporal site-specific artefact.
To follow are some images collected as early colonial graphic archives which relate to my ancestry and research. The first is a map of the area that became known as "The Cowpastures" after Crown appointed explorers found a cave painting of lost herds. I revise this archive as a cultural perspective, reiterating balanyina, men and women being-caretakers of waterholes from durrubbin (Camden region of Nepean River) to Georges River. balanyini is also acknowledging tugear, meaning 'we two' being-connectedness between these significant River systems of the Sydney basin.
The fourth image is a detail of a map made by a Crown appointed botanist showing George Caley. The map reveals a cultural feature of my ancestral ngurra. A formation of grasses and small trees reveals traditional land management for example, the burning practices used to cultivate a u-shaped area for seasonal herding of kangaroo and wallaby. Caley has given the place a Eurocentric name "Green dingle."
Venessa Possum balanyini murungun: Revising the Colonial Archive 2020, citing "WHERE THE WILD HERDS WERE FOUND IN 1795" (1932, August 13), The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16889509
The Cowpastures region: Joseph Lycett c1817, Image courtesy of NLA.
Female Orphan School by Augustus Earle c1825. In the collection of the National Library of Australia, object/281833
Detail: George Caley "The Limits and Boundaries of the Vaccary Forest" c1804; notice the letter E. cultivated as u-shaped area for seasonal herding of kangaroo and wallaby, and below this feature a sharp bend in durrubbin (Nepean River) is our kirbuwali (shallow crossing).