Researching First Nations Australians’ cultural accounts that provide evidence of earthquakes and volcanoes
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This elaboration provides students with an opportunity to understand First Nations Australians' recordings of knowledges of geological events that occurred many thousands of years ago. First Nations Australians’ cultural accounts hold records and convey scientific knowledges of changes to Earth's surface and provide evidence of earthquakes and volcanoes.
Detail
The oral traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples are highly detailed and complex and enable knowledge from many thousands of years ago to be passed down unbroken through generations. Such narratives include scientific evidence of geological events such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunami, that have shaped Australia’s landscape. The knowledge that is held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples precedes European investigations of Australia, and hence today provides a deeper understanding of historical geological events that have led to specific land structures.
In far north Queensland recent volcanic activity is dated to more than 10,000 years ago. Volcanic activity in this region created many land formations including lakes and watercourses. Lake Barrine, in Crater Lakes National Park, is situated in the Atherton Tablelands in northern Queensland and encompasses the traditional lands of the Ngadjon-Jii and Yidinji Peoples. The geomorphic features of this region are the result of volcanic activity more than 17,000 years ago; Lake Barrine was formed by explosions from super-heated groundwater. The Ngadjon-Jii Peoples have passed on their geological and ecological knowledge of these volcanic events since this time, explaining not only the origin of the volcanic crater lakes of this region, but also the environmental and landscape changes that resulted from the volcanic eruption. The accuracy of this knowledge, dating back over 10,000 years, has been reaffirmed by Western scientific methods, and provides an example of how First Nations Peoples’ oral language traditions are an important repository of geological knowledge.
The eruption of Kinrara on the lands of the Gugu Badhun Peoples was another major volcanic event in the north Queensland region, dated to approximately 7,000 years ago. This volcanic activity generated geological changes in the region through lava flows that extended down the Burdekin River valley. The Gugu Badhun Peoples hold detailed knowledge of this volcanic event that explains the geological formations of the landscape and reaffirms recent vulcanological research in the area. Bungandidj Country in the Mount Gambier region in south eastern Australia has also experienced volcanic activity in the last 10,000 years. The oral records of the Bungandidj Peoples have preserved, for at least 4,000 years, the knowledge of volcanic events that formed the crater lakes at Budj Bim National Park.
Earthquakes can be caused by the movement of the earth’s tectonic plates, resulting in shaking on the earth’s surface. When the centre of an earthquake occurs offshore, the ocean floor may be disrupted sufficiently to generate a tsunami. Movements of the Indo-Australian tectonic plates have been the cause of earthquakes in Australia. Oral narratives of the Awabakal Peoples of the mid north coast region of New South Wales demonstrate the longevity of the knowledge of earthquake activity in this region. Similarly, tsunami events that inundated Australia’s coastal regions are preserved, for example, in the knowledges of the Gundungarra Peoples of south eastern New South Wales and the Kambure Peoples of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Many geological events over millennia have shaped the landscape of the Australian continent. Details of a considerable number of these geological events are detailed in the oral records of the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Peoples who have a continuing connection to those geographical regions.
This elaboration provides students with an opportunity to learn about geological changes that have shaped the Australian landscape. Students also learn how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples use oral based practices to record and convey knowledge, thereby preserving details of historical geological events for millennia. Students will have the opportunity to research the geological data in cultural stories and understand how the reaffirmation of oral records by recent scientific research endorses the importance of consulting these records as a historical source.