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Aboriginal Sydney

Caves and the hunting and fishing of the Port Jackson people In the foreground an Aboriginal person lies on his back covered in foliage with a small fish in his mouth in readiness for the Sea Eagle about to take it, thus providing an opportunity for this able hunter to seize the bird. Further away there are caves in which the people sometimes shelter themselves from unexpected weather. Elsewhere men are fishing on the shoreline with spears. Artist: CA Lesueur. Engraver: A Delvaux. New Holland: New South Wales Published as Plate 31 (top) in Peron, 1824 Atlas. Translation from French by Maud Page, Australian Museum.

When the British arrived in January 1788, there were more than 1500 Aboriginal people from several clans including the Gadigal, Wangal, Wallumedegal, Boromedegal, Gamaragal, Borogegal, Birrabirragal and Gayamaygal, living in the area from Botany Bay to Broken Bay and as far west as Parramatta. Their diet included a range of marine and land animals as well as plant foods, but for the people living near the coast, fishing was an important part of life.

Information about the Aboriginal people who lived around Sydney Harbour comes from many sources: written descriptions, oral histories, drawn and painted illustrations as well as objects collected by the earliest colonists and visitors to Port Jackson in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Archaeological sites such as Aboriginal rock engravings and shell middens* along with the excavated artefacts and food remains provide a record of the distant past.

The historical images were originally drawn and painted as scientific illustrations to describe the people of Australia. However, today, these illustrations have a strong aesthetic appeal and can be seen as artworks in their own right. Similarly, many people appreciate rock engravings today for their artistic value although they were made for very different purposes.

Using these sources, it is possible to bring together a picture of the changing life of Aboriginal people in the Sydney region over many thousands of years. This exhibition displays material from each of these sources and focuses on the role of fish and fishing in the lives of Aboriginal people.

*Shell middens are archaeological deposits in which shells are the dominant visible cultural items. They are the location of campsites and 'dinner-time' camps, and the shells are principally the remains of past meals.

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