Seeing Sydney, Knowing Country: The Library of the Dreaming
A new exhibition at the Museum of Sydney creates a space in which to consider how we see and understand place. In this article, Dharawal and Yuin designer Alison Page shares the knowledge and philosophies that define Aboriginal understandings of Country and the life that is lived on it.
Sydney today is seen as a modern, globally connected, cosmopolitan city, known for its iconic harbour, famous beaches and ever-expanding suburbs. Now home to more than five million people from all over the world, it is hard to picture what Sydney was like when Governor Arthur Phillip arrived with around 1,500 convicts and crew on the First Fleet in 1788 to claim the land and establish a penal colony on behalf of the British Crown.
The Sydney that those first British colonists encountered was one of sprawling grasslands, exposed coastal scrublands, lush harbourside gullies, imposing sandstone cliffs, and rocky headlands with clear views of the Pacific Ocean. It was a landscape that was unfamiliar to them, and in the succeeding decades they set about mapping, dividing, recording and altering the land for their own uses. This process was documented in thousands of historical prints, paintings, drawings and archival records, a selection of which are on show at the Museum of Sydney in the exhibition Seeing Sydney, Knowing Country.
For millennia, however, this land had been known, cared for and occupied by the Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney. They witnessed the transformation of their Country over generations as sea levels steadily rose for thousands of years from about 18,000 years ago, flooding the timbered valley that is now Sydney Harbour. As they changed from a freshwater to a saltwater people, they adapted their use of the land and waterways and underwent a cultural transformation. And they maintained a complex, organised record of the knowledge needed to survive and thrive on Country with a mnemonic (memory-based) system that did not rely upon the written word.
The knowledge preserved and passed on by Sydney Aboriginal coastal communities offers a way to see Sydney as Country, as it was then, and still is today. This article explores some of the knowledge and philosophies that underpin Aboriginal understandings of Country: songlines, sacred places, home, traditional knowledge, sustaining life, and the material world.
Songlines
In the Dreaming, all life on Earth was created. Ancestral Beings travelled across the land, sea and sky, shaping the landscape and leaving their knowledge and energy at sacred sites. The Ancestral Beings (also called Dreaming Heroes) were part human, plant or animal, or they could be an elemental force such as rain or fire; they include the Kangaroo man, Yam woman and Lightning man.
Aboriginal people travel through Country visiting these sites, retelling the stories of the Ancestral Beings through oral storytelling, song, dance and painting, ‘uploading’ and ‘downloading’ information. This creates a system of learning that is mapped onto the landscape, allowing knowledge to be passed on from generation to generation. These maps of knowledge are called songlines. A songline may connect a constellation of stars with seasonal hunting practices, or the flowering of a species of plant to changes of season – in each case, they contain information important for survival and the management of Country. Encoding this system of learning within the natural environment means the whole landscape holds what Alison Page has termed the ‘Library of the Dreaming’.
Sacred places
Following songlines through Country leads to sites of learning and spiritual significance where knowledge is stored and can be unlocked. One such sacred place, on the banks of Sydney Harbour, is known by the Aboriginal name Tar-Ra. Aboriginal people visited the large flat rocks that were found here to cook fish.1 The colonists named this place Dawes Point, after Lieutenant William Dawes, who arrived on the First Fleet and built an observatory on the site in April 1788. Here Dawes worked with Patyegarang, a young Aboriginal woman, and others to compile a record of Aboriginal words and phrases, which has been used by modern linguists to create a dictionary of the Sydney languages.
The rocky platforms at Tar-Ra once featured rock engravings of a whale and a large Ancestral Being that were destroyed over the course of the 19th century.2 When sacred sites are destroyed, the knowledge and energy they contain is damaged, and the continuity of the Library of the Dreaming is disrupted. The loss of important information associated with sacred sites as a result of colonisation had a devastating impact on First Nations peoples. Aboriginal people today are working hard to right these wrongs through cultural renewal, ecological regeneration and language revitalisation.
The engravings at Tar-Ra were among thousands of rock engravings that were once found in Sydney, many of which survive today and can even be found in people’s backyards. Archaeologists have stylistically dated the surviving rock engravings to between 5,000 and 200 years old – those depicting ships were certainly made after the British had arrived.3 Because of the disruption to the Library of the Dreaming caused by colonisation, the purpose of the rock engravings at Tar-Ra is not known for certain, but engravings are thought to have played a role in ceremony, acted as territorial boundaries, and been used to educate young people about nearby local resources.4
Home
In many Aboriginal languages, the word for ‘home’ is Ngura. This refers to the broader cultural landscape that makes up an Aboriginal nation. It is a concept that encompasses much more than just the family home. Just as people today enjoy expressing their personal identity in the design of their homes, Aboriginal people’s identity is embedded in the land around their homes, an area that could span hundreds of kilometres. For Aboriginal people, a sense of belonging is found in Country as opposed to inside one isolated location like a house.
While Aboriginal people’s sense of home encompassed all of the Country belonging to their clan group, for protection from the elements they lived in sandstone rock shelters. They also built gunya – temporary structures made of readily available materials like bark, wood and sometimes stone, designed to suit the climate. In Sydney, the structures were made of sheets of bark propped up with frames made of tree branches, as depicted in the print Repose from the Beat Knoblauch Collection on display in Seeing Sydney, Knowing Country. 5
The materials used to build gunya were from Country, and returned to Country, so they were also part of the Dreaming stories of the area. Aboriginal architecture today reflects the same principles as applied in these traditional structures, in that it is functional, sustainable and part of a broader cultural landscape that contains the identity of the people of that area.
Aboriginal culture is also built upon a deep commitment to caring for Country. Clan groups share the responsibility of looking after the plants and animals where they live. The Gadigal people were one of the clan groups who cared for the freshwater streams in the harbour bays, including at Sydney Cove at the place the colonists called the Tank Stream. Aboriginal understandings of land ownership are inseparable from the responsibility to care for Country and are therefore very different from the system of land title applied in modern Australia. The boundaries within broader cultural areas were determined through the responsibility to maintain the local ecology, and were linked to stories, song, dance and ceremony.
The British colonists’ use of land often resulted in environmental damage and disrupted First Nations ecological management of Country. This 1833 map shows plans to drain waste directly into Darling Harbour. There had been some attempts to protect the environment in the early colonial era, including Governor John Hunter’s order in 1795 forbidding further pollution of the Tank Stream – the colonists’ main freshwater supply. Hunter’s proclamation was one of the first environmental protection measures enacted by the colonists, but it was ultimately unsuccessful and waste continued to be discharged into the stream.6 The motivation behind some governmental environmental restrictions was not preservation for its own sake, but to protect the minimum level of resources necessary for the survival of the fledgling colony.7 Particularly in the case of native trees, preservation was deemed necessary to ensure a steady supply of shipbuilding timber to service Britain’s enormous maritime empire, rather than to maintain ecological balance. The government sought to control and profit from these valuable resources and prevent ambitious settlers from lining their pockets through private sales.
The nature of the colonists’ relationship to the environment has been a source of contention among historians, with some arguing that they had negative, wasteful attitudes towards the Australian landscape and were blind to their own destructiveness.8 Others have argued that though colonists lacked the knowledge to care for Country in a sustainable way, many were able to appreciate the beauty and distinctiveness of the Australian landscape and its flora, seeing beyond its potential to be exploited for wealth.9 For these colonists, art historian Tim Bonyhady argues, ‘the protection of the continent’s native fauna and flora, pollution of its rivers, degradation of its pastoral lands, planning and improvement of its cities, preservation of beauty spots, retention of public reserves and access to the foreshore’ were significant issues, and reflected an attachment to the Australian landscape.10
Traditional knowledge
Traditional knowledge refers to the scientific, ecological, medicinal and spiritual information that Aboriginal people have collated and managed for thousands and thousands of years, passing on to future generations accurate knowledge essential for survival.
The guriidja (coastal banksia) is one of many native plants about which Aboriginal people in Sydney have recorded information in the Library of the Dreaming. The guriidja has various uses, including as food, medicine and in toolmaking, but one of its most important uses was in firestick farming. The cone shape of guriidja was perfect for use as a firestick, and like many Australian native plants it also requires fire itself in order to propagate. The propagation and renewal of plant species were carefully managed by Aboriginal people. The sandstone escarpments found in coastal Sydney, for example, were used as platforms to burn hot fires in early summer to open seeds, pods and legumes for planting.11 In 2020, Dharawal researcher Dr Shane Ingrey compiled an interactive guide to Dharawal plant use for the National Museum of Australia, bringing this long-held knowledge to life for modern audiences.12
The use of fire in controlled, timed burning allowed Aboriginal people to select how many plants were grown and in which locations, shaping the landscape to ensure an abundant supply of resources. Used to manage particular ecological areas in the environment, firestick farming was a universal practice across the Australian mainland and Tasmania. The British arrivals soon noted the extent to which Aboriginal people were responsible for shaping the environment, and the fundamental role that fire played in land management.13 One observer noted in 1883:
… there was another instrument in the hands of [Aboriginal people] which must be credited with results which would be difficult to overestimate. I refer to the fire-stick, for [Aboriginal people were] constantly setting fire to the grass and trees … [They] tilled [their] land and cultivated [their] pastures with fire …14
Controlled cultural burning was a way of caring for Country, and the amount of knowledge needed to successfully execute this task was immense – the frequency, heat and seasonal timing of burnings differed for every location and species of plant, and all of this information was stored in the Library of the Dreaming.
Sustaining life
Hunting and collecting food was a daily activity for the Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney, and men, women and children divided up the job of feeding the mob. The type and amount of food gathered was informed by traditional lore to maintain ecological balance and was linked to spiritual and cultural ceremonies and practices. The traditional knowledges applied to maintaining these practices involved ingenious artefacts like boomerangs, digging sticks, woomeras and spears, as well as built forms such as fish traps.
The freshwater stream that the colonists called the Tank Stream was one of many meeting places where people gathered to hunt, collect and cook food. The stream ran over a broad sandstone valley where Bridge and Pitt streets now lie, and flowed into the harbour, which was a great place for fishing and collecting shellfish like periwinkles, mussels and oysters. The stream was fed from a wetland full of birdlife and edible plants, which is now Hyde Park.
Before colonisation, Aboriginal people cultivated fruits, edible leaves, herbs, orchids, ferns and cabbage palms close to the edge of the stream. In the Tank Stream valley, these plants were surrounded by angophoras, casuarinas, banksias and tall, evenly spaced red bloodwood and scribbly gum trees, in whose shade the people could gather.15 This wide variety of plants were able to grow side by side thanks to carefully executed cool burns (controlled, low-intensity fires) conducted once every five years.16 Though the Tank Stream is the most studied area, all of the harbour bays were similarly managed to maintain a broad range of plants and other resources. Recent research has indicated that the pre-colonial ecology of the Tank Stream valley did not reflect an untamed wilderness, but a carefully maintained cultural landscape managed by Aboriginal people for millennia.17
Another important source of food gathered from sites such as the Tank Stream were Sydney rock oysters. Oysters are an integral part of Aboriginal life in Sydney and have been harvested and eaten for thousands of years. Many other shellfish were also eaten, and some were turned into fishhooks or used as handheld implements to repair spears, and for other cutting and piercing tasks.
Along with their practical uses, shells form a part of ritual and social traditions. Aboriginal women from the La Perouse community began making ornate shellwork as decorative items in the 1870s, spawning a popular arts and crafts enterprise that continues today.18 Shellwork reflects the cultural and ecological connection to Sea Country, including the management of species of shellfish.
Material world
In the Aboriginal world view, everything is a part of Country, including materials used to make tools, ceremonial objects and clothing. These materials contain the energy of the Ancestral Beings that created the species of tree, shell, animal or plant. Aboriginal people speak to the Ancestral Beings and ask for permission as they harvest the material they need, deepening connection to Country through the process of gathering resources. Even once they have been turned into a human-made object, materials hold the essence of Ancestral Beings, which is why many artists and makers talk or sing as they paint and create. This is why the built environment is an extension of Country.
Large old-growth forests of native cedar that once stood across NSW were felled by the colonists to provide timber for buildings and furniture. Known as ‘red gold’, cedar had been logged close to extinction by the beginning of the 20th century. The furniture on display in Seeing Sydney, Knowing Country is made from timbers native to NSW, much of it cedar.19 Though removed from the Country on which it grew a long time ago, it remains connected to it.
A colony on Country
The British built a colony on top of Country, using Country. When Governor Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet arrived in 1788, they saw nature and wilderness, unaware of the complex system of ecological management that had shaped the land beneath their feet. English systems of dividing land into counties, parishes and parcels of private property were imposed on existing First Nations boundaries. The colonists took intellectual possession of Country through naming and describing places, land and animals that were intimately known by the local Aboriginal people.
Sydney has evolved dramatically over the last two centuries. Despite the extensive changes made to the landscape, we can see that it remains Country – we just have to know how to look.
Notes
1. Paul Irish and Tamika Goward, ‘Dawes Point/Tar-Ra’, Barani: Sydney’s Aboriginal History, www.sydneybarani.com.au/ sites/dawes-point-tar-ra, accessed 18 February 2025.
2. Richard Sadleir, The Aborigines of Australia, Thomas Richards, Government Printer, Sydney, 1883, p17.
3. Irish and Goward. The Sydney rock engravings have been assigned a date range based on an Australia-wide comparative analysis of the style of the figures and animals featured in engravings.
4. ibid.
5. The print Repose from the Beat Knoblauch Collection on display in the exhibition depicts a gunya. However, it is an image crafted from the imagination of an artist who had never even visited Sydney. In 1813, London publisher Edward Orme produced a book of hand-coloured aquatints by artist John Heaviside Clark (with accompanying text) titled Field sports of the native inhabitants of New South Wales. The book catered to the European appetite for imagery of ‘exotic’ locales as Britain expanded its global empire. It is speculated that Clark based his illustrations on written descriptions of First Nations peoples and NSW flora and fauna. See: Alisa Bunbury, exhibition catalogue, Deutscher and Hackett, 2023, www.deutscherandhackett.com/auction/lot/field-sports-native-inhabitants-new-south-wales-c1813
6. Tim Bonyhady, The colonial earth, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, Victoria, 2000.
7. This applies to the first environmental protection laws enacted by Lieutenant Philip Gidley King on Norfolk Island from April 1788 to stop the overharvesting of plantain (bananas). See Bonyhady, p5.
8. Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters: an ecological history of the Australasian lands and people, Reed Books, Port Melbourne, 1995; William J Lines, Taming the Great South Land: a history of the conquest of nature in Australia, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1999.
9. Bonyhady, pp2–5.
10. Bonyhady, p4.
11. Bill Gammage, The biggest estate on Earth: how Aborigines made Australia, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2011, p167.
12. Dr Shane Ingrey, Knowing plants, nma.gov.au/av/endeavour/plants/#Home, National Museum of Australia, accessed 26 March 2025.
13. Gammage, p185.
14. Edward Curr, 1883, quoted in Gammage, p185.
15. Gammage, pp239–40; Michael Macphail and Timothy Owen, ‘What was growing along the Tank Stream Valley, Sydney Cove, in 1788?’, Australasian Historical Archaeology, vol 36, 2018, pp16–28; Graeme Aplin, ‘A strange natural environment: colonists in eighteenth-century Sydney’, Sydney Journal, vol 4, no 1, 2013, pp19–37.
16. Gammage, p240.
17. Macphail and Owen, p26. The same conclusion has been drawn by Gammage (2011), and Grace Karskens, The colony: a history of early Sydney, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2009, pp56–9.
18. Maria Nugent, ‘An economy of shells: a brief history of La Perouse Aboriginal women’s shell-work and its markets, 1880–2010’, in Natasha Fijn, Ian Keen, Christopher Lloyd and Michael Pickering (eds), Indigenous participation in Australian economies II, ANU e-press, Canberra, 2012, pp211–27.
19. Rodney Grainger, ‘In the steps of the Illawarra cedar-getters’, Forest History Newsletter, vol 16, no 1, 1972, pp16–21.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr Paul Irish for his insightful review of this article.
About the authors
Related exhibition
Now showing
Featured exhibition
Seeing Sydney, Knowing Country
This exhibition depicts the development of the NSW colony through a selection of historical maps, plans, sketches, artworks and objects
Thursday 17 April
Published on