Pages 9 - 77 (1600kb) - Eurobodalla Shire Council

EUROBODALLA ABORIGINAL CULTURAL HERITAGE STUDY
South Coast NSW
The only first hand documentary account of a ceremonial occasion in the Eurobodalla
area that has been located during this study comes from Boat Harbour. In the bush
near Boat Harbour in the 1850s Hermann Lau, a German migrant, witnessed a
corroboree involving men and women. An Aboriginal woman at that event also
provided him with mimosa bark to help with his toothache. Lau’s original description
is in German and while it has been summarised in English it has not been translated in
full:
Near the dockside at Boat Harbour stands a hut which is used by the
government surveyor Mr Larmer 91 and his staff when he is in the
district. The floor is covered with thick woollen blankets and it is a
very comfortable place. Lau was staying there one night with Larmer
and, plagued by toothache, was awakened at midnight from a fitful
sleep by wild shouts and heavy drum beats. Larmer told him it was a
corroboree and they set off to watch it.
They crept into the bush, Lau wearing a heavy bandage round his
aching jaw. Larmer was known to the Aborigines and they were given
permission to observe the dance. A woman asked Lau “What matter
Kobra?” (What’s wrong with your head?) and when Lau pointed at his
teeth, she said “Me bring you caban Dada” (I’ll bring you some
excellent bark). She returned with a mimosa twig, rolled the bark into a
little ball, and Lau put it against the aching tooth. It gave him
immediate relief.
Twelve powerful young men, naked, their arms and legs covered in
white stripes, were chanting a monotonous wild song, in time with the
beat of the possum drums. With exact regularity, they clashed their
weapons together, the boomerang against the spear, the nulla nulla
against the shield. One by one, each demonstrated his individual skill.
The others threw themselves on the ground, but immediately bounded
up again. They were followed by a young girl, in a white shift, who
leaped around wildly, but with a curious grace. The dancing lasted until
dawn. 92
In a newspaper article of 1892 there is an account of a story of the Wagonga people,
the author does not state where he heard the story but he was a local of the area and
presumably heard a version of it from the Aboriginal people of the area. The style of
telling and possibly the details have clearly been modified to suit European
sensibilities of the time. The story tells of an expedition by a large proportion of the
Wagonga people to Montague Island to collect sea bird eggs in the spring and the
disaster that occurred:
The tradition from which we quote tells us that the headlands of
Wagonga had in those days a large population, they were men of grand
physical proportions and of great activity in the chase, as also in the use
91 Mr Larmer had surveyed the area as early as 1837 see James, op.cit., p.8.
92 John Fletcher, Hermann Lau and his sojourns (1854-1859) in Sydney, Goulburn, Braidwood, Araluen,
Moruya and Shoalhaven, Sydney, Book Collectors’ Society of Australia, 1991, p.29.
Goulding Heritage Consulting Pty Ltd
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