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Year 5: The Gold Rush: The Wadawurrung People

Wadawurrung People

The Wadawurrung People are the traditional owners of the Ballarat region.

  • The local environment, on which Wadawurrung People depended, was irreversibly changed by European colonisation.
  • Without help from the Wadawurrung People, miners found it difficult to survive.
    • Wadawurrung People helped Europeans to find gold and even profited off it directly
    • The supply of local foods by Wadawurrung People was important to miners on the goldfields.
    • Sharing bush medicine with non-Indigenous immigrants saved lives.
  • The Wadawurrung People participated in the European economy through trade.
  • During the early gold rush some Aboriginal men played a crucial role as Native Police.
  • Collectors bought, stole and traded Wadawurrung artefacts which trivialised their cultural significance and helped Europeans confirm their theories of the “primitive savage”

Sovereign Hills: Hidden Histories

Mining and the Use of Ochre

Murnong Daisy (staple food of the Wadawurrung People)

Possum Skin Cloaks

Indigenous Perspectives on the Goldfields

Aboriginal Mining

Wadawurrung Traditional Food and Medicine

Native Police during the Gold Rush

Traditional Tree Use and Care

Images