Mapping Australian history and culture
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. First Australians...
| Name | Cultural Areas Related to Indigenous Colonial Conflict in Victoria |
|---|---|
| Description | This map shows some important cultural sites or areas relevant to understanding Australian Wars and resistance in Victoria. |
| Type | Other |
| Subject | Australian Wars, History, Colonisation, Decolonising |
| Linkback | |
| Image | |
| Content Warning | This map shows cultural sites that are not secret and in some cases only the general vicinity or area. The sites on this particular map are only some and only those related to cultural violence, not all cultural sites. |
| Number of places | 4 |
| Contributor | Dr Bill Pascoe |
|---|---|
| Creator | |
| Publisher | |
| Contact | |
| DOI | |
| Source URL | |
| License | |
| Allow ANPS? | No |
| Citation | |
| Usage Rights |
| Language | |
|---|---|
| Latitude From | |
| Longitude From | |
| Latitude To | |
| Longitude To | |
| Date From | |
| Date To | |
| Date Created (externally) | |
| Added | 2026-04-23 12:18:06 |
| Updated | 2026-04-23 17:51:25 |
The greenstone quarry and axe works was important in Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung culture in Kulin country and wider. Greenstone axes were traded north and east for hundreds of kilometres. One was reported as far north as the Lachlan River. There is little evidence of trade to the east.
Some prominent Aboriginal leaders, such as Billibellary and Barak had rights to the quarry. The resistance leader Winberri, who was shot during the Lettsom Raid, was the champion of the head man of the quarry.
A major ceremony sometimes occurred, called by powerful men who lived in the Alps to the east. The ceremony was related to a story in which the wood of the logs propping up the sky was rotting, and everyone had to join together in cutting fresh logs to keep the sky from falling. For the ceremony people came from many regions bringing stone axes for the elders of the alps. Such a ceremony was held just prior to colonists coming to Naarm (Melbourne) and may have been related to the approach of colonists to the north in the Second Wiradjuri War around the Murrumbidgee, and the small pox epidemic.
Brumm, A. '‘The Falling Sky’: Symbolic and Cosmological Associations of the Mt William Greenstone Axe Quarry, Central Victoria, Australia' in Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20:2, 179–96 © 2010 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research doi:10.1017/S0959774310000223 25 Nov 2009
Howitt, A.W. Native Tribes of South-East Australia Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2001
Mount William Stone Hatchett Quarry, National Heritiage List, Australian Heritage Database, File 2/06/078/0002, Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 2007 https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/mt-william.pdf
Budj Bim is a major Gunditjmara centre famous for eel traps and a hub of smoked eel trade. There were stone huts in this area. This region was strategically important in colonial conflict because not only was there an abundant food supply, but the stony ground and wetlands were inaccessible to horses.
In Indigenous tradition, somewhere in this general area is bad country where Myndie resides who can extend his evil influence over great distances, in the form of lethal sickness. According to Assistant Protector William Thomas, a person beleived to be able to control this spirit was arrested and imprisoned in Melbourne for raiding livestock. Aboriginal people fled Melbourne for fear of an epidemic and only returned when the man was released. Parker associates this event with what appears to be the Lettsom raid, and explains that the disease expected to come from Mindie was smallpox (p 445-446, Smyth, 1878).
Smyth, R.B., 1878. The Aborigines of Victoria with Notes Relat
ing to the Habits of the Natives of Other Parts of Australia
and Tasmania, vols. 1–2. South Yarra: John Currey.
Brumm, A. '‘The Falling Sky’: Symbolic and Cosmological Associations of the Mt William Greenstone Axe Quarry, Central Victoria, Australia' in Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20:2, 179–96 © 2010 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
doi:10.1017/S0959774310000223 Received 12 Dec 2008; Accepted 2 Apr 2009; Revised 25 Nov 2009
Spiritual leaders and songmen resided in the Australian Alps. They were deeply respected by people to the west, such as Kulin, and Jaitmatang around Omeo. They called for the stone axe ceremony to bring people together to restore the pillars of the sky (see the Greenstone Quarry). An image by Barak includes people arrayed with stone axes, which may be a depiction of this ceremony.
Brumm, A. '‘The Falling Sky’: Symbolic and Cosmological Associations of the Mt William Greenstone Axe Quarry, Central Victoria, Australia' in Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20:2, 179–96 © 2010 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research doi:10.1017/S0959774310000223 Received 12 Dec 2008; Accepted 2 Apr 2009; Revised 25 Nov 2009