The Aboriginals of Bolin Bolin
As Mick led us around Bolin Bolin we stopped at regular intervals and he informed us of many perhaps unknown facts about the aboriginals of the district.
The word Kulin means man or people and the negative was used for the name of the tribe or more correctly clan. For example Yorta Yorta means no in that particular language. The Worwong people say woi for no.
Aboriginals were multi lingual as girls always married into another clan.
Yarra Yarra means falling water. Aboriginals pointed out this area in Queen Street Melbourne and gradually it became the name for the river itself.
Darebin means swallows and Mullum Mullum means fish.
In the clan around Bolin Bolin there was about 60 people. Their shelters or Wiliam were of bark with a forked stick to keep up the bark. The floor was of foliage covered with possum skins for warmth and a small fore outside, carefully sited so that the heat went inside. If it was very cold the dogs were brought in for further warmth. The people wore nothing in summer and in winter possum skin cloaks, through which rain cannot penetrate.
When a gathering or corroboree was held at Bolin Bolin 1000 people met up. The eels were plentiful in the river at that point. The people knew of the 7-year cycle of eels. They spent 7 years in the river then swim out of the river to the Coral Sea to breed. The elvers later come back, so that in the months of March and April there is a glut of eels in the Yarra.
Other clans made up the large gathering to trade and to resolve conflicts between the clans. Celebrations such as weddings were held. Messengers travelled about with message sticks telling people in other clans of the arrangements. It was forbidden to harm the messenger when he had foliage attached to his stick. Foliage meant friendship.
The elders of the clans decided plans. Activities were settled by the full moon.
Trade depended on the area where clans came from. Manningham region had most items available. Ochre was in the district and large reeds for baskets. But the people needed shells form other areas and flint axes came from Warung territory.
Conflicts were decided by conciliation by the elders. Sometimes fights resolved problems and there were token punishments for appropriate misdemeanours. Punishments were tied up with spirituality and religious beliefs.
Elders arranged marriages, which were carried out by the mother’s brother who also was responsible for ritual initiations and performances. Gifts were exchanged at the marriage ceremony.
We were surprised at the sophisticated lifestyle of the aboriginal people and very grateful to Mick Wolwood for initiating us into aspects of the aboriginal people of our district.
Source: Notes from Mick Wolwood's recorded in 2004-05 DTHS Newsletter
Bulleen Park and the Bolin Billabong
From Banksia Street to Burke Road, Melbourne Parks has laid the Main Yarra Trail on the Heidelberg side of the river. On the Bulleen side, there is another walking track also covering the whole distance, this track continues from Banksia Park under the bridge where it joins another entrance from Banksia Street. Here the path is on Melbourne Parks and Waterways land, the track winds under trees up small hills and down to timber bridges and walkways across old swampy branches of the river. Another entrance comes from Kim Close before we cross the land that used to be the Bulleen Drive-In. Last century in the 1830s Wood's sheep grazed on these river flats.
The track follows the river in a wide curve and passes the entrance to another track around the Bolin Billabong. Along this section we could be out in the country miles, from Melbourne. Cattle graze in paddocks and in the summer bales of hay lie in the fields. Behind the Veneto Club, Melbourne Parks own a strip alongside the river, then the path enters Bullen Park that is controlled by the Council. Here the path no longer passes through bushland but crosses an open sports ground.
Past the sports field in Bulleen Park, there is a choice of two ways, the gravel path goes around the end of a small billabong, then alongside the archery ground. The other, a bush track, travels into a curve of the Yarra, winding under trees up and over hills between the billabong and the river. Fifty years ago, in the days when people thought a swamp should be drained and a hollow filled in, this became a local rubbish dump. In the 1970s, with a more enlightened council, the rubbish was removed and the billabong allowed to return to its original state and be the home for the many small creatures that live in wet lands.
On the grasslands, where 150 years ago Duncan's cows grazed, the track runs along the edge of the Camberwell Public Golf Course under the trees on the bank of the river, then, at Koonung Creek over a bridge connecting both sides of the golf links: Beyond the links the track cut through rough grass reaching a concrete bicycle path that leads to the Main Yarra Trail. The trail crosses the Yarra on a new foot bridge rising in a graceful arch over the Yarra. Across the river is a car park in The Boulevard at Ivanhoe. This is one place where continuous paths have been laid on both sides of the river. From the car park at Heidelberg to the car park at Ivanhoe it is a three and a half kilometre walk on the Main Yarra Trail. On the more interesting track on the Bulleen side it is five kilometres.
The track has traversed an area with a history that goes back thousands of years. Along the Bulleen side of the Yarra, lagoons, billabongs and river branches teemed with wildlife: fish and eels swam in the water while the air was alive with water birds and kangaroos grazed on the slopes above the river. Aborigines came here in hot weather, for there was an ample supply of food and the spreading red gums gave shelter for camping. With such a supply of food this was one of the few places tribes could meet for corroborees. The aborigines spent their summers here until 1842 and the last encampment of aborigines at Bolin took place in 1852.
There were many lagoons along this section of the Yarra and often during wet seasons the course of the river was hard to define. The largest lagoon, called Bolin, became known as Lake Bulleen by white men. It was an expansion of the Yarra River, lying on low ground about a mile above the junction of Koonung Creek and covered an area of fifty to sixty acres depending on the season.
In 1837, John Woods settled in the area and grazed his sheep on the rich pasture of the river flats. Two years later he sold his grazing lease to Robert Laidlaw and John Kerr. Kerr left shortly after but Laidlaw remained becoming the first permanent settler in Bulleen. During the 1840s, a community developed alongside the river. The farmers grew wheat and barley while Alexander Duncan made butter and cheese from his dairy faun. Most of the settlers were Presbyterians who had come from Scotland, they held a church service in Duncan's barn in 1842. The congregation sat on planks laid across barley sacks and used a cheese churn as an altar. Mrs. Duncan taught the children in her wattle and daub hut. They were proud to live in Bulleen.
Laidlaw made a large profit from growing potatoes during the gold rushes and in 1865 built a two story mansion, ‘Spring Bank', on Bulleen Road. The soil of the river flats was rich and with water from the river and lagoons the farms were the most successful in Melbourne but floods often ruined crops, so the farmers changed to dairying and cattle. In 1925 J. V. Wood purchased Springbank and changed the name of his dairy stud ‘Clarendon Eyre’.
In the first decades after the 39 - 45 war, few people thought of the Yarra as a place for recreation or bushland walks, they were busy building a family life. Councillors looked on the Bulleen flats as a place for a rubbish dump. In the 1970s and 80s, public attitudes and life styles changed, then the council cleaned out the gullies and raised and levelled this land for a sporting area. Bulleen Park, set in a broad curve of the Yarra, catered for football, cricket, hockey, model aeroplane flying and archery. A walking track connected with the tracks set out by Melbourne Parks and Waterways.
The most attractive part of the river flats is the Bolin Billabong. The area is public land and although there is at present no gate through the fence it can be entered from Bulleen Road below "Clarendon Ayre". A walking path is cleared through the grass right around the lagoon. The billabong is not a flowing stream it is a calm peaceful stretch of water. Eucalypts curve out over the lagoon throwing shadows on the surface and the wind blows gentle ripples across the water, while often groups of ducks silently paddle past. On any fine day, at a bend where the water is deep near the road, fishermen sit patiently on the bank their lines trailing in the water.
Around the billabong an aboriginal food garden is being prepared. The work is being carried out by two apprentice gardeners who are aborigines. Food zones are planted in areas. In a wet patch on the north paddock, carex, lomandra longifolia and coprosma are planted. There is a fruit area with native raspberry, appleberry and kangaroo apple. In the eucalypt section manna gum and river red gums are planted; these provided bark for shields and other purposes. There is a range of wattles. Black wattle was used for sticky resin and blackwood for implements. Later tuberous plants such as lilies and orchards will be planted. At the top end a car park will be laid out with a walk through an interpretive garden. Around the billabong the range of species is to be increased with plantings such as native grasses.
Source: Irvine Green writing in 1995 03 DTHS Newsletter
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