Aboriginal Culture
The Culture Of Indigenous People
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in Victoria is very diverse and rich, spanning many stories and experiences. You can read all these stories dealing with both contemporary and traditional life, spirit and Land, artefacts and arts, and more. Here are some of the Aboriginal culture stories.
Black Post White
This story shares the firsthand experiences of the Elders of the East Gippsland region and other members of the community as a result of the post white settlement. The bush has always been the home of the aboriginal people, but when the white settlers came, they took over these lands from the traditional owners with some of them massacred, and many forced to find other settlements. Without doubt, these affected tribal laws significantly, with many forced to adopt new places as their homes and find safety with Italian immigrants who themselves have faced racism in the past.
Ganagan
Glenda Nicholls dreamt about weaving a net, and she did that. The net she wove was the Ochre Net which she submitted for the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards in 2012, subsequently winning the Koorie Heritage Trust Acquisition Award. In Trust Care, the Ochre Net has inspired the exhibition of stories and artworks about waterways and how important they are to Koorie people. In the Koorie culture and way of life, a powerful spiritual connection to the sea, lakes, and waterways occupies a central place. The exhibition inspired the Ganagan Deep Water exhibition funded and supported by Melbourne Water and featuring several worlds in the Koorie Heritage Trust that came from several Koorie cultural groups. In the Taungurung language, Ganagan translates to ‘deep water’.
Early photographs: Indigenous Victorians
This collection of photographs was shot by Richard Daintree and Antoine Fauchery between 1897 and 1859 and were part of Sun Pictures of Victoria’s photography series. The photography series is made up of 50 albumen silver prints, 12 of them were photos of Indigenous Victorians, and the photographic series was the first of Australian scenes to be presented for sale to the public. It featured several Victorian landscape and mining activities in Victoria and showed people wearing western and traditional clothes while also documenting the impacts of colonisation.
Land and Spirit
The Land and spirit cannot be separated and serve as the foundation for everything sustaining us. It is a video collection including several excerpts of the “Lady of the Lake” in which the Gunditjmara Elder Aunty Iris Lovett-Gardiner gives accounts of the Indigenous and Lake Condah Mission experiences as well as other excerpts.
Indigenous Stories about Family
Family plays a central role in our lives, starting from the immediate families to communities and neighbourhoods. This story explores our history and the present and deals with cultural celebration as well as the hard times. There are several stories to tell, and members of the community share theirs.