Back to Bidjara Country

It didn’t take long before the Bidjara custodians found evidence of a rich cultural history on Edgbaston Reserve, central QLD. 

Ancient stone tools, rock art and the connecting of storylines and songlines characterised the first Cultural Heritage Survey in August.

Last month, northern and southern Bidjara people, which are distinguished by their respective bases on the Aramac creek (a tributary of the Thompson River) and the Warrego River, spent the day under the hot central Queensland sun drawing links between their own knowledge of the land, and what their ancestors left behind. 

A meeting like this hadn’t happened yet on Edgbaston, and it was Ross Mitchell, Bush Heritage’s Aboriginal Partnerships Manager for Queensland who brought the community together. 

“We've got the Southern Bidjara and the Northern Bidjara to come together to collaborate walking around on Country, so it's really good to see that relationship,” says Ross.

Not only was this opportunity about connecting living Bidjara people to their ancestors who lived on Country for tens of thousands of years, it’s also a practice of intergenerational collaboration between those that are still around.  

“This is set up for some of the younger people to share what they find with their Elders who can’t spend the day walking long distances like they can, so when they take that information home with them, it’s a nice transfer of knowledge and a collaboration in connecting the evidence they find with storylines and songlines,” he says.  

Their existing knowledge, as well as their discoveries on the day spoke to a broader narrative of people moving across the landscape in search of water. The nearby wells and springs provided an oasis from the otherwise dry plains of semi-arid Queensland.  

“So there are three rock wells here, and I think they would have played a very significant role in determining the course of the custodians back in the day,” says Ross.

“They would have come to the water here and camped, then continued their journey to these springs….It's an opportunity to connect the northern and the southern storylines and determine how they really meet up,” says Ross. 

For Bidjara man, Floyd Robinson, the opportunity was one of only a few in his life that he remembers so fondly. 

“Many years ago, I was eight years old, and we went to Carnarvon Gorge with my grandparents with a lot of other Bidjara elders and we looked at bark burials and learned stories of our ancestors that roamed the country for thousands of years. And being here today is just as rewarding.”  

For Bidjara Elder, Trevor Robinson, simply being there and roaming his ancestral homeland was more than enough. 

“I think today has been absolutely exhilarating. It's probably a day that I will forever remember in my life,” he said.

For Ross, it was an introduction to the community, and the start of a long journey.

“Next, we'll sit down and discuss how we can move forward in a collaborative way,” he says, “This is not a one-off.”