Jareel – Life by the River

This river environment was rich in wildlife and plants. It sustained our traditional ways of living for thousands of years.

We hunted willee (brush-tailed possums) and boogahree (ringtail possums) and ate their meat, made their teeth into needles and sewed warm cloaks from their skin.

We stripped bark from black wattle trees, soaking it in water to tan kangaroo and possum skin hides.

The reeds growing along the banks of the Torryong made good jareel (thin fishing spears). We hollowed out the end of the reed and used beeswax to hold in the spear-head. We traded spears with other groups, often for stones from the other clans’ areas.

We threw boomerangs above ducks, to help herd them into our waiting nets strung across the river.

We took wood and bark from the trees and carved it to make murkas (shields) and murrins (canoes), and we feasted on freshwater bukaar (mussels) cooked over riverside wongeys (campfires).