BaramiBarabuguWalkTour_v3

18 / Sydney’s Aboriginal Journey 19 / Early Contact
08
THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM,
6–8 COLLEGE STREET, SYDNEY
The Australian Museum is
Australia’s oldest natural history
museum. It was established in
1827 when the British Colonial
Office authorised a museum
in NSW for the collection of
‘rare and curious specimens of
natural history’.
Today, it has a rich collection
of Aboriginal artefacts from
Sydney and NSW, many of
them donated by local citizens
in the 19th century. It also has
millions of specimens of fossils,
minerals, plants and animals.
09
hyde park south,
sydney
Until the mid 1820s, Aboriginal
people travelled from all over
Sydney, and as far away as
the Hunter and the Illawarra, to
gather at a ceremonial contest
ground to the south of the city.
The exact location of this site of
ritualised conflict settlement and
resistance is unclear. Described
as lying between the road to
Botany Bay and the Brickfields,
it was probably near Hyde Park
South.
John Rae’s 1842
view of Hyde Park
South (image
courtesy Mitchell
Library, State
Library of NSW –
DG SV* / Sp Coll /
Rae / 20)
Bloody fist fights involving up
to 100 people, spearings and
beatings were used to resolve
conflicts at the Brickfields
contest ground. These were
observed and recorded by
visiting Russian sailors in 1814,
and again 10 years later by
the French explorers Dumont
d’Urville and Rene Lesson.
Shell fish hooks (bara) from the
Sydney region (photograph by James
King, courtesy Australian Museum)