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Article Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
Aboriginal stone arrangements occur throughout Australia and many are associated with ritual activities (Black 1944; Bowdler 1999, 2005). Despite the significance of ceremonial stone arrangements to Aboriginal people, there has been little archaeological research undertaken into the ritual importance of such sites. Although stone arrangement sites have been reported in archaeological literature over many decades (eg. Black 1944; Brayshaw 1978; David et al. 2004; Flood 1980:143-155; McBryde 1974:31-66; McIntyre-Tamwoy and Harrison 2004; O'Connor et al. 2007; Veitch et al. n.d.), these recordings have tended to be descriptive, and the arrangements have been portrayed as 'static'--records of past ceremonial activities that, once made, remain as unchanging symbols of particular meaning (McIntyre-Tamwoy and Harrison 2004).
Exceptions to this are the work of David et al. (2004), McIntyre-Tamwoy and Harrison (2004) and Veitch et al. (n.d.). David et al. employ archaeological and ethnohistorical data to document the temporal depth of historically recorded rituals associated with stone arrangement sites from the western Torres Strait. McIntyre-Tamwoy and Harrison (2004) similarly use archaeological data and ethnohistorical evidence to link stone arrangement sites from Cape York to turtle increase ceremonies that have continued from the distant past into the present. Veitch et al. (n.d.) report on the Gurdadaguji stone arrangements of the Newman area in Western Australia and document techniques they developed to date the contexts for individual stones in the arrangements. They found that placement and relocation of the stones that form the arrangements occurred over a 3000 year period, demonstrating regular and ongoing maintenance of the site from the distant past to the present.
These studies demonstrate that stone arrangements have been linked to ceremonial behaviour from traditional times into the present, and that--far from being static--these places continue to be part of important ritual and maintenance practice right up to the present.
This is the interpretation brought to the Gummingurru Aboriginal stone arrangement site complex on the Darling Downs of southern Queensland. After decades of separation from Gummingurru, traditional custodians re-established contact with the site in 2000. Since then, through a 'resurrection' of management practices and maintenance traditions that include re-discovery and revealing of buried stones, the custodians have given the site and its cultural landscape a new meaning that reflects the 21st century context of its current social and political location. Now with a focus on teaching and education, the Gummingurru site is occupying a place in Aboriginal society that is paradoxically both the same as, yet different from, its 'original' and 'traditional' focus. In this paper, written in close collaboration with members of the Gummingurru Aboriginal Land Trust, and especially the Trust's Secretary, Jarowair custodian Brian Tobane, I discuss the evolution of meaning and understanding of the Gummingurru site and its increasing significance as a place of reconciliation in 21st century Queensland.
THE GUMMINGURRU ABORIGINAL STONE ARRANGEMENT
The Gummingurru Aboriginal stone arrangement site lies north of Toowoomba, close to the township of Meringandan on the Darling Downs, in inland southern Queensland (Fig 1) in the locality now known as Cawdor. The country is the traditional home of the Jarowair Aboriginal people, who are one of the many Aboriginal groups associated with the Bunya Mountains (or Boobarran Ngummin) and the (usually) triennial feasts and ceremonies held there in pre-contact times (Jerome 2002; Morwood 1986, 1987; Rowlings-Jensen 2004; Sullivan 1977). The Gummingurru site is one of a series of ceremonial and associated places in the cultural landscape that is the social catchment of the Bunya Mountains. Other places include Maidenwell Rock Shelter (Morwood 1986), Gatton Rock Art site (or Challawong) (Morwood 1986, 1992), and the Kogan stone arrangement (Bartholomai and Breeden 1961) (see Fig. 1), and various other Dreaming tracks, increase sites, pathways, burials, ochre and stone quarries, art sites, and occupation sites (Rowlings-Jensen 2004:31; Thompson 2004:8; Brian Tobane, pers. comm. 2005).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
The Gummingurru stone arrangement is itself part of a localised cultural landscape that, according to Aboriginal custodians and local residents, also includes men's and women's campsites, art sites, scarred trees, and at least one ochre quarry. (1) It is situated on one of the main routes used historically by Aboriginal peoples to travel between the southeast Queensland coast and the Bunya Mountains (Gilbert 1992; Petrie 1904:16; Thompson 2004). Before European settlement of the area in 1877 (Gilbert 1992:36), Aboriginal peoples travelling to the Bunya Mountains from the areas subsequently named Moreton Bay, the Gold Coast, the Brisbane and Lockyer valleys, and the Darling Downs would come to the Gummingurru stone arrangement to participate in initiation ceremonies (what Sutton 1985 [cited in Bowdler 2005:132] calls 'man-making ceremonies') to ensure that young men were able to take part in the major social activities that were associated with the Bunya feasts (Petrie 1904: 19-23). These events were generally restricted to initiated men. While Petrie (1904:19-23) describes both men and women being present at corroborees, actual participation in activities such as corroborees (i.e. traditional dance and song), marriage ceremonies and alliance-making activities seems to have been largely restricted to men, (Gaiarbau in Winterbotham 1959:63-65; Jarowair traditional custodians, pers. comm. 2003; Jerome 2002; Morwood 1986; Petrie 1904:16-23; Rowlings-Jensen 2004:30; Sullivan 1977:38-43; cf Bowdler 1999, 2005:139-141).
Whilst at Gummingurru, people camped at gender segregated occupation sites close to watercourses in close proximity to the stone arrangement site, and women and children were forbidden to come close to the initiation grounds (Paddy Jerome and Brian Tobane, Jarowair traditional custodians, pers. comm. 2001). In the late 19th century the site was still being used for ceremony and male initiation (Gilbert 1992), but by the early 20th century most of the traditional custodians had been removed to Cherbourg, Palm Island, and other Aboriginal settlements throughout Queensland. The site has probably not been used for its 'original' purpose since about 1890 (Thompson 2004).
The first European settler in the Cawdor area was James Benjamin Jinks, who in 1871 settled the property on which the Gummingurru site is located. He passed the property to his sons and grandsons (Gilbert 1992). Jinks's great-great-grandson, Ben Gilbert, took up the land in 1948 and in 1960 he reported the stone arrangement to the Queensland Museum, which oversaw its first professional recording in that year (Bartholmai and Breeden 1961; Gilbert 1992).
Bartholomai and Breeden documented the 5ha site in considerable detail. Comprised of basalt rocks eroded from the natural cap rock, large rocks are used in situ to form the base for large stone accumulations in the form of mounds of rock and concentric circles. Smaller rocks have been used to create smaller and more figurative motifs, including single circles, pathways and mounds (Bartholomai and Breeden 1961:234), the latter features interpreted variously as animals and totems (see below).
Bartholomai and Breeden (1961) describe two other stone arrangements near the Gummingurru site: Kogan and Oakey (see Fig. 1). Gummingurru is the largest and most complex of these isolated stone arrangements--the most easterly such stone arrangements recorded in southern Queensland. Bora grounds to the east of the Darling Downs are all earthen ring arrangements that do not include figurative motifs (Satterthwait and Heather 1987).
INTERPRETING THE PLACE--EURO-AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVES
Up until the mid 20th century, although a significant Bora (2) site was known to have been in the area, most settlers thought it was an earthen arrangement like most of the other Boras of the region (Gilbert 1992; cf. Gaiarbau cited in Winterbotham 1959:71-76). Although Gilbert was aware of stories of Bora grounds on or near the property his grandfather owned, he had always assumed that these were earthen rings, as are all the other Bora grounds in the Bunya Mountains catchment (Gilbert 1992) and in this part of Australia generally (Bowdler 1999; Satterthwait and Heather 1987). The heavily grassed paddock with the basalt rocks protruding through the grass was not recognised as being of any interest, and stones from the northern edge of the site were regularly removed from the paddock to be used to help support fence posts that could not be dug into the ground because of the presence of shallow cap rock. So by the time anyone recognised the site, most Aboriginal people had long been removed, and parts of the site had been disturbed. Consequently, there is little specific remembered knowledge about the site held by Aboriginal peoples.
Knowledge about the use of the Gummingurru site and interpretation of its motifs comes from Gilbert (1992). Gilbert is regarded by many, including the current Jarowair traditional custodians, as having knowledge about the site because of his relationship with knowledgeable Aboriginal people who lived in the area from the time Gilbert's great grandfather farmed...
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