This Chapter...

discusses Aboriginal culture

and cultural practice, in
the past and present, and
their relationship to water
management in NSW.

Photo: South Australian Museum Archives

Aboriginal culture and water

Traditionally Aboriginal peoples cared for the land, living

as one with it. This custodial relationship, expressed
through cultural practice, sustained the natural
environment and secured the viability of resources
necessary to sustain their continuing existence.
Aboriginal environmental knowledge and associated cultural
practice is becoming increasingly recognised as essential
elements of todays land and water management practices.
Aboriginal people are well placed to contribute to and have
meaningful involvement in water management. Engaging
with Aboriginal people and respecting their cultural
knowledge and practices is important for all people because
the rewards are great: a healthier environment, healthier
communities, and a deeper understanding of the land.

Our Water Our Country

3-1

Water management has a long history for

Aboriginal people
From the earliest days of modern Australia, Aboriginal
people have been involved in water sharing, helping the
first European settlers as they stepped ashore.
The first involvement of white settlers with Aboriginal
peoples occurred around Botany Bay and Port Jackson
when the first fleet arrived in January 1788. The primal
contact related to water. A boat load of Arthur Phillips
party approached a cluster of natives on the shore of
Botany Bay. The Europeans mimed the need for water by
making bailing motions with their caps, bringing them to
their lips in gestures of universal implication. The natives
motioned the group around the point where fresh water
could be found 1.

Aboriginal people have an inner custodian relationship

with their country which connects them to their living
environment and natural resources. In Aboriginal culture
it is understood that managing the land and water meant
being at one with their culture and country. This is how
the lands and waters have been managed for tens of
thousands of years. For Aboriginal people, culture and
Country are not separate things.
Natures resources could be relied upon to provide
whatever was needed. Cultural practices allowed for
seasonal climatic changes as well as more extreme natural
events such as droughts, floods and fires.
Aboriginal people were exploiters, conservators,
managers and manipulators of water resources. They
were able to prevent the pollution of water, filter it
before drinking, to reticulate it and to store it so as to
reduce evaporation. They brought remarkable insights
to resolve intransigent problems of how to find water,
how to conserve it and how to use it to produce basic
food stocks of fish, shellfish and eels. Indeed, very little of
the fundamental elements of hydrology and hydraulics
eluded them. 2
Many accounts of the early settlers make reference to the
extensive and intricate knowledge of Aboriginal people in
finding and managing water and natural resources.

Joseph Lycett, Fishing by torchlight, c. 1819. National Library of Australia

As the colony developed and expanded, Aboriginal

knowledge of water availability continued to be
important for early European settlement. Today.
Aboriginal people still have a lot to offer, through their
cultural heritage and traditions of respecting natural
systems and working sustainably with them.
The traditional Aboriginal lifestyle of sustainable farming
of natural and cultural resources was developed and
maintained over many generations. Cultural practice
prescribed how to share water equitably and manage it
for the future.

There are vivid portraits of the Sydney tribes spearing and

netting fish from canoes fashioned out of a single sheet of
bark lashed at each end with vines and caulked with resin.
For instance, Governor John Hunter noted that around
the estuaries of Port Jackson, Broken Bay and Botany Bay
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with spears: the women with hooks and line and also
gathering shellfish.
Where people spent time was based on resource
availability and water was particularly important because
it sustained people, and also because it attracted and
sustained other resources such as plants and animals.
Proximity to drinking water governed the location of
camping sites and hunting grounds. Studies of shell
middens sites on the NSW south coast showed that most
were situated within 50 to 100 metres of fresh or brackish
water. 3

An Aboriginal group on the River Darling at Avoca Station in 1904. Photo: Cudmore Collection, South Australian Museum Archives

3-2

Our Water Our Country

Creation stories and culture

Traditional knowledge, cultural beliefs and practices rely
heavily on the foundation laid by creation or dreaming
stories, with their explanations of land formation, animal
behaviour, plant uses and remedies, and how the land
and its ecology must be managed.

different versions of this story, but its messages about

greed and selfishness are consistent. It is relevant to
todays society when talking about water management
and sharing the resource appropriately among all
users. Tiddalik broke the law and he had to live with the
consequences.

Another example is the story of the creator spirit Baiame

and how he built the stone fish traps or Ngunnhu at
Brewarrina, to help the people survive after a long
drought (see page 3-4). He also taught the old men how
to call the rain. Baiame instructed that, although the
Ngemba people of Brewarrina are to be custodians, they
were to share the maintenance and use of the fish traps
Cultural belief and practice regulated:
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with neighbouring tribes. The site became an important
regional meeting and trading centre, and is now
use of natural resources, e.g. water, soil, plants and
recognised as a heritage site of national significance.
animals
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Aboriginal communities and water
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management
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Water reforms can help protect culture, reinvigorate
and womens business
caring for Country and can contribute to building the
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capacity of communities to access their rights to water
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and to become involved in the water sharing decision
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making process.
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Within the current NSW laws on water, there are
culture.
opportunities for Aboriginal people not only to improve
Cultural belief and practice governed every aspect of
traditional Aboriginal life. It showed people how to
sustain the environment, and find food, water, medicines
and other resources. It also set out how water was used
and shared.

Different Aboriginal groups have distinctive sets of

beliefs and practices, and these need to be respected
and understood by governments during consultation
with Aboriginal people, such as when developing water
sharing plans.
Aboriginal lore and land management are not just
things of the past. They are very much a part of the
present and the future. Aboriginal land management
had been part of this land for tens of thousands of years,
and involves people being at one with the land, water
and environment. 4
Traditional culture is not recorded through the written
word. The library of knowledge was embedded in the
people, their living environment, and expressed through
stories, songs, dances and artworks which were, and still
are, passed down through the generations today.
Creation stories often have many levels of meaning, and
take many years to learn and understand. Children may
first hear a simple version, but will be given more details
as they grow older.
There are many variations of creation stories in different
Aboriginal groups throughout Australia. The stories and
beliefs may differ from group to group, but they share
core principles and protocols.

their local environment but also to use water for cultural

activities and business purposes. Some Aboriginal
communities are already taking up these opportunities as
the case studies in chapters 5 and 6 show.
Water access licences provide a key opportunity
for Aboriginal people. They have been put in place
specifically to provide the opportunity for Aboriginal
people to maintain the places, resources, and practices
that are significant for each local group. Communities are
now able to get involved in the water sharing process and
to speak up about what is important for their cultural,
social and economic development.
Aboriginal communities can access many benefits
from involvement in cultural and natural resource
management. Where the natural environment is being
repaired and protected, this will also assist in replenishing
and sustaining cultural resources, such as bush tucker.
Aboriginal communities can also benefit through
programs and projects that build capacity in natural and
cultural resource management, thus leading to further
employment options for community members.

Dreamtime stories are still being told and the knowledge

these stories contain is still being passed on from
generation to generation of Aboriginal people 4
A well known example of a creation story relating to
sustainable water management is Tiddalik the frog
who drank all the water (see page 3-5). There are many
Our Water Our Country

3-3

How Baiames Ngunnhu came to be

This story tells how the lore was created, how rivers
were made, and how to use the rivers resources
sustainably. The Ngunnhu (fish traps) are still there,
and still of great spiritual significance to the Ngemba
people (Brewarrina community), but low water flows,
and sediment build up are compromising their use.
Water reforms offer a chance for specific water
allocations to restore and maintain the Ngunnhu.

Everything was different then. There were no fisheries.

There was no river. This was the Dreamtime.
Many things happened in the Dreamtime. This was the
time that Baiame, the Spiritual Leader or Great Wirrinun,
came to the Aborigines through a tremendous upheaval
in the centre of the land. The earth opened, gigantic
rocks were thrust out and scattered on the flat red
ground, as Baiame entered the land of the sun and the
moon. Those giant rocks, rounded and smoothed by
time, are visible today in the Centre of Australia.
Baiames exploits have been preserved in legend by the
people who benefited from this patronage through the
ages. It is told that on one of his walkabouts, Baiame
stepped from Cobar to Gundabookawhich is a sacred
place of the river peoplethen to Byrock, where
the mark of his foot was left on a stone, and then to
Brewarrina.
Baiame stopped at the waterhole known as Gurrungga,
where he spied, beyond the rock wall that held back the
water, a large black fish. Being hungry, he raised his short
wooden spear and struck the fish which, wounded by
the thrust, broke through the rock wall and burrowed
desperately into the hard ground to escape. Baiame dug
after it, cutting a channel that filled behind him with the
escaping water from Gurrungga. The fish, grunting with
pain, dodged and twisted away from the pursuing spear
thrusts to form the tortuous bends of a now mighty river.
Where the fish doubled back, are the still billabongs.
Where Baiame rested in his pursuit, are the hard rock
barriers that cross the river.
The chase continued until the black fish broke into a
broad river and made its escape. So the Callewatta* was
formed and can still be traced from Brewarrina to the sea.
The once plentiful waters of the Ngemba, Murowari,
Paakantji, Weilwan, Barabinja, Ualarai and Kamilaroi
tribes who lived on the fertile country around Brewarrina
began to disappear. Fish drained away to the west, the
country slowly browned, as a Big Dry shrunk the waters
further, leaving strings of fading green waterholes.
The rich grasses yellowed, the trees withered, the
once abundant animal life was reduced. The survivors
crowded to the dry lakes and waterholes where they
were trapped by the clinging mud or became easy prey
for the hungry hunters.

3-4

Our Water Our Country

As the Big Dry continued the Ngemba of Brewarrina

faced a famine as the depleted waters of Gurrungga
were swallowed by the Sun. Their plight became known
to Baiame who returned to Brewarrina with his two sons,
Booma-ooma-nowi** and Ghinda-inda-mui** . Using
scattered stones and boulders dug up by Baiame they
laboured to set them out in the pattern of a great fish
net. First the boulders, then higher to a mans thigh with
smaller stones, until the stone mesh stretched down the
slope of the wall of the Gurrungga and across the dry
water course. Baiame showed how to open the stone
traps at either end and to set the stones securely so that
they would always be kept in good repair.
That evening, as the fires twinkled, the folk gathered
on the bare banks and held a corroboree for Baiame,
who took a coolamon and showed some of the old men
how to call the rain. For hours the hard ground rumbled
under the stamping feet, while the fine dust rose up
through the clapping boomerangs, clouding the camps,
before the dancers flung themselves down to sleep
around the dimming campfires. Slowly the dust clouds
drifted higher and higher into the night sky where they
ringed Giwa the moon, who filled them with rain.
The exhausted dancers were woken by big heavy drops
of rain, which thudded onto their stiff dusty bodies
and thumped into the soft powdered earth. For several
days the rain poured down, clouding the green water of
Gurrungga which rose slowly before the excited people,
who were then startled by a growing roar as a foaming
wall of brown water rushed into the Gurrungga, over
the rock wall, covering Baiames net or Ngunnhu, and on
down the dry Callewatta .
Slowly the creaming flood fell, exposing the sharp black
pattern of Baiames net, to show the fins and mouths of
thousands of fish breaking the surface of the water. The
watchers, overjoyed at the return of the fish, rushed into
the river and herded the teeming fish through the stone
mesh, killing them with their sticks, their short spears or
just grabbing them in with their hands. One grunted like
a wounded animal caught, this was one of Baiames black
fish, the black bream or grunter, which all grunt as the
great fish Baiame first speared. The older and wiser men
followed behind the excited hunters and blocked the
entry to the stone traps, preventing the escape of any
fish back down the river to warn others of the trap.
Long thin black lines scribbled themselves across the
blue sky as the waterfowl answered their ancient call and
the thanks of all were given to Baiame. This is the story of
how the Rock Fisheries came to Brewarrina.
Published with the permission of the Ngemba people
* Calle means water in Ngemba language. Watta was a translation of the English water
** Ualarai language

Tiddalik the frog

Tiddalik the frog broke the loretoday you could say
he ignored the water sharing planbut he suffered
the consequences. This is an ancient story that is still
popular today, it has been published in book form and
taught in schools. It is told in many parts of Australia.

Long ago there was a frog called Tiddalik.

It was the dry season and there was not much water
in the land. Tiddalik didnt want to go thirsty, and he
decided to drink all the water he could find, so he could
keep it all for himself. Down to the billabong he went and
began to drink, growing bigger and bigger as he slurped
up the water. Soon the billabong was dry. But Tiddalik
was not finished. He hauled himself up the bank and
hopped off to the next billabong, again he drank it dry.
When the other animals saw what Tiddalik was doing
they were shocked and angry. Without water they would
surely die. Didnt Tiddalik care about anyone else?
All the animals came together to talk about what they
could do. They decided someone should find Baiame
and tell him that Tiddalik was drinking all the water. The
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water and the billabongs will fill again
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working out all the funny things they could do to make
the giant frog laugh.
Then they set off to find Tiddalik. He was at the billabong
where the grumpy old platypus lived. By now he was
enormous, and he was still drinking.
The platypus was enjoying a swim, but as the last of the
water drained out of the billabong, he found himself
sinking in mud, and he was angry.
The kookaburra was the first to try to make Tiddalik
laugh, she let out a big loud laugh and made all the
funniest sounds she could possibly make, but none of
them amused the frog.
Then the wallaby and the emu did a funny dance, but
Tiddalik just sat there.

Tiddalik the frog in rock form in the Hunter region. Photo: John Thorpe

All this effort was making the animals tired and thirsty.
They tried their best and did their funniest tricks, and still
Tiddalik held onto the water.
But something was amusing Tiddalik. Each time the
grumpy old platypus tries to climb out of the empty
billabong, he kept tumbling back down,yelling at
Tiddalik as he went. Such a serious, angry platypus
Tiddalik started chuckling.
The platypus would not give up. Up the bank he
struggled then back he slid. Tiddalik was more and more
amused until he could not hold back he let out a big
laugh and all the water came gushing out of his mouth.
The animals rushed to get out of its path, but some were
caught in the wave of water and washed away.
The billabong quickly filled, the flood poured down the
dry creek bed, filling the next, billabong and the next
until once again there was enough water for everyone.
But Baiame was watching, and had seen what Tiddalik
had done. Baiame was not pleased with Tiddaliks greed
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greedy frog and did not consider all the other animals.
If you had not put back the water they would have died,
and for this you must be punished. Baiame turned
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water is there for all to share.
Written by Lillian Moseley (OEH), with permission, from a story told by
Graham Ward (deceased)

As all animals were taking it in turns to try and make

Tiddalik laugh, the grumpy old platypus tried to climb up
the billabongs steep, muddy bank but he was stuck and
this made him even angrier.
Then the koala and the lizard tickled Tiddaliks belly that
made him giggle, but he tightened his lips and refused
to put the water back.
Then the snake did somersaults and twisted himself into
knots. He almost choked himself and Tiddalik thought
that was funny. Tiddalik giggled, spilling a bit of the
water, but he didnt laugh.

Our Water Our Country

3-5

Different ways of thinking about water

For thousands of years Aboriginal people have had a
spiritual connection with natural features such as rivers
and lakes. Cultural beliefs and practices explained how
they were created, how they have special cultural values,
and methods or techniques for the long-term sustainable
.management of water dependant cultural values.
Lack of flows in the river systems, drained wetlands,
polluted estuaries and lakes, drying up of natural springs,
all greatly impact on Aboriginal peoples capacity to
undertake cultural activities. These include hunting and
fishing; access to medicinal plants and herbs; ceremonies
especially associated with water. Dreaming tracks,
songlines and spiritual connections with Country at the
heart of Aboriginal culture are fractured and sometimes
broken.
When Country is in decline, peoples cultural and spiritual
health, general and economic well-being declines along
with it.
For Aboriginal people, water has a spiritual significance
and is not looked upon as an element to be managed
in its own right, but as a part of the natural, spiritual
and environmental order of things. Aboriginal people
see things holistically; the land, water, flora and fauna
are as one. Life does not travel in a straight line, but in
an integrated pattern of interconnected cycles. When a
cycle is broken, the pattern becomes unbalanced.
The water reform process is grounded in western
management and scientific perspectives which divide
natural resources (land, water, vegetation, soil) among
different departments and specialists. Governments
and many non-Aboriginal people, look upon water as
something which can be controlled or managed on its
own. It may not have any spiritual significance and may
not be part of a belief system.
It is essential that non-indigenous stakeholders and
the wider community see our relationships to land
and culture. Through understanding comes support,
recognition and respect. Many non-Aboriginal people
have a simplistic view of contemporary Aboriginal
interests, and do not understand where Aboriginal
people are coming from. Often, for example, they may
think we are only interested in cultural sites, and not the
wider human rights, land management and economic
development issues. This makes it hard for them to see
Aboriginal concerns as core water management issues.4
To Aboriginal people managing Country holistically and
feeling spiritually connected to the land makes obvious
sense. The understanding that culture and Country
are one and the same, could help all Australians to a
sustainable future.

3-6

Our Water Our Country

Instream cultural values and water for

cultural purposes
For thousands of years, natural flows assisted Aboriginal
people to maintain a sustainable food and resource base
and undertake cultural activities such as ceremonies,
teaching and recreation. In water management talk, such
places, activities, or things that depend on water are
known as instream and/or off stream cultural values.
The water flow that helps protect and maintain instream
and/or off stream cultural values is known as water
for cultural purposes. Water for cultural purposes can
be described as sufficient flow in a suitable volume
and seasonal pattern to ensure the maintenance of
water dependant Aboriginal culturally and spiritually
significant places, practices and resources.
Water sharing plans can help to protect instream and off
stream cultural values. Where an Aboriginal community
identifies some natural features as having spiritual, social
and customary cultural values, the water sharing rules for
that catchment can be set up to protect these values by
providing an appropriate water allocation.
Instream and off stream cultural values could include
(but are not limited to):
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traditional bush foods, fish and other aquatic species
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The Brewarrina fish traps are a good example of water
dependent cultural values. Not only were they linked
to the Dreaming stories and a source of fish and other
aquatic species, they also served to slow the flow of
water and retain a sustainable fresh water supply to
ensure the peoples ongoing survival. They operate best
in a natural, unregulated flow.