{"id":139286,"date":"2024-07-05T04:59:19","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T18:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/?p=139286"},"modified":"2024-08-17T15:32:51","modified_gmt":"2024-08-17T05:32:51","slug":"committee-for-lorne-the-power-of-middens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/news\/committee-for-lorne-the-power-of-middens\/","title":{"rendered":"Committee for Lorne: The Power of Middens"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is now a respectful\u2014even required\u2014practice to report the finding of a site that may be a coastal shell midden. Next, Aboriginal advice and permission are mandatory before disturbing or altering any such site [State Government website: https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/y7uj8e6u<\/a>].<\/p>\n

While it is easy to dismiss a designated midden as ‘just a pile of shell fragments’, to an Aboriginal, it can represent a sacred site … a site where ancestors gathered to cook and eat their catch of fish, crabs, and shellfish and to tell the stories that are known as ‘song lines’. But, as these Aboriginal sacred sites seem to multiply, year-on-year\u2014with the majority found along our coastal fringe\u2014they are now close to beyond counting. Moreover, as most aboriginal sacred land quickly becomes ‘off limits’ to those who cannot claim aboriginality, the coastal ‘no-go land’ is fast metastasising. In turn, this often places a significant brake on the aspirations of a developer.<\/p>\n

While there are middens at several sites in or near Lorne, two are at [or near] the Point Grey redevelopment site. Though the first is unlikely to be affected\u2014it lies back along the Doug Stirling Track on a broadening sliver of foreshore near the hospital\u2014the other is more vulnerable. Positioned behind the current Co-Op building, it will demand developer awareness\u2014and Eastern Maar approval\u2014if it comes under threat. It is my understanding that GORCAPA is aware of this.<\/p>\n

What can be so special about a non-descript pile of broken shells that, to most, might seem inconsequential\u2014something to brush aside in the haste to build a new edifice? Why do Aboriginal groups fight so tenaciously to protect what might seem ‘useless’ barren land?<\/p>\n

The Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority [AAPA] asserts that a significant sacred site to an Aboriginal might include particular hills, rocks, waterholes, trees, plains, lakes, billabongs and other natural features that, to a non-Aboriginal, might seem of little consequence … see: AAPA website https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/y7tvfj9e<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The State Government website further describes coastal middens as: ‘… containing the remains of shellfish eaten in the same location over many years, but may also contain the remains of fish, seal and kangaroo. Charcoal and hearth stones from fires, grinding rocks and bone artefacts may also be present. Middens may present as layers of shells exposed in dunes, banks or cliff tops, as scatters of shell on other eroded surfaces in dunes, coastal scrub, rock shelters, and exposed cliff tops with good vantage points, or in sheltered places near coastal wetlands, inlets, estuaries, bays and river mouths.’<\/p>\n

After feasting at a gathering site [later to archeologically become a midden], elders would recount their people’s age-old oral histories and reinforce them through dance. Commonly called ‘song lines,’ these narratives have become the cultural bedrock of Aboriginal memory. A midden, therefore, is far more than a pile of spent shells\u2014it sits at the cultural centre of an Aboriginal people.<\/p>\n

A typical non-indigenous response [including, once, my own] to the word ‘midden’ can be: “…a sacred site? … why sacred? … after all, it’s just a barren coastal depression hidden in the dunes or a windswept promontory covered by marram grass. A sacred site? … really?”<\/p>\n

Well, yes! … to an Aboriginal, ‘really’ is ‘really and truly’. Let me try to explain.<\/p>\n

Until several personal ‘pilgrimages’ to Scotland in recent decades, I would likely have been among the ‘it’s just a heap of broken shells’ doubters myself … but then my perspectives subtly altered. My experience of two particular sites in Scotland\u2014both barren, windswept stretches of apparent ‘nothingness’ but that strangely brimmed with ‘everything’\u2014turned my once-sceptical perspective on its head.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, I understood. I now know what it is to feel the presence of the past … to hear sounds, see sights, and sense spirits from long ago. I now ‘get’ that a place, a space, an ethereum … derived from the Latin for ‘ether’\u2014the ‘upper, pure, bright air’ that fills all space and makes up all bodies … can be truly sacred.
\nA rocky knoll stands at the tip of the Mull of Kintyre, its grassy, windswept surface scored by the ruin of the now long-gone Clan MacDonald stronghold, Dunaverty Castle. In 1647, the infamous Massacre at Dunaverty occurred at the peak of the Civil War between the Royalists loyal to Charles I and the Covenanter armies of Oliver Cromwell when the conflict spilled into Scotland. After a siege and a negotiated surrender where assurances of clemency were given, some 500 MacDonald men, women and children were put to the sword. Dunaverty was later demolished as a ‘lesson’ to Clan MacDonald\u2014as if the massacre was not enough! Only two, an infant\u2014my direct ancestor\u2014and his wet nurse managed to escape. Standing on the knoll, the sounds and sights of the massacre assault my imagination, just as if I had been there. It is a powerful place, abundant in ghosts of the past. It is my midden #1.<\/p>\n

Even more emotive is Culloden Moor … my midden #2. A windswept moor just south of Inverness, it has been called ‘the place where Scotland died’. On each of my many visits, I am inevitably drawn to the battlefield’s eastern edge to sit pensively beside a smooth, triangular stone marked ‘Clan Donald’. Unabashed, tears flow. Lost in a powerful affinity for my Scottish roots, I leave a clutch of wildflowers. Others report similar emotions and similar responses when visiting the fields of Flanders or Gallipoli, yet how such empty spaces can so overpower transcends understanding.<\/p>\n

And so, I now ‘get’ that Aboriginals feel, sense, value, and seek to protect places that may seem, to others, ‘just a pile of shells’… and, sometimes, not even that. The powerful affinities I have felt at Dunaverty and Culloden whisper of similar passions. Intangible emotions, they nevertheless demand our attention and understanding. Come to think of it … perhaps most of us will have a special place, a ghosted echo, that touches a midden in our memory, deep within.<\/p>\n

Finally, I ‘get’ why the middens of Lorne matter\u2014perhaps not so much to me, but certainly to those of Aboriginal heritage\u2014for I now better understand that ancestry does speak and should be heard.<\/p>\n

John Agar
\nFeature Writer<\/p>\n

A word from the chairman<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Hello<\/p>\n

This week saw the release by GORCAPA (the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority) of the results of the Point Grey Community Values Survey. \u00a0The survey which was conducted in March\/April 2024, \u201csought to formally capture what community members and visitors have expressed about Point Grey over many years, and to understand any changes in sentiment\u201d and received an extraordinary 1,141 responses, substantially more than any other survey conducted by GORCAPA, or its predecessor GORCC. \u00a0The report can be found here https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/lorne-point-grey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For many of us who have lived with the Point Grey Precinct redevelopment over many years, there was nothing surprising in the survey results, which were remarkably similar to a previous survey conducted in 2018 (yes, 6 years ago!).<\/p>\n

The main findings highlighted in the report were:<\/p>\n