AUSTRALIANTRAVELLER.COM 143
The 100 | Behind the wheel
Ultimately, the preservation of the traps and the health of the
Barwon River are crucial to the identity of Brewarrina’s Indigenous
population (about 60 per cent of the town). “Saltwater people are
saltwater people, desert people are desert people, but us, we’re river
people,” says Bradley. “If we lose it, we lose our identification.
Everything we needed was on the river. The Old People used to say
that the river is our blood – if we lose our blood, we lose our life.”
The well-documented struggles of Brewarrina’s Indigenous
people are, even now, still raw. From the late 1800s, they were
rounded up into Brewarrina Mission, 15 kilometres away from
the traps, separating them from their lifeblood. Earlier, around
400 people were slaughtered nearby in one of the Australia’s
worst atrocities, the Hospital Creek Massacre, apparently a
mistaken retaliation. “The river is a true reflection of the town:
it’s been through hardships, it’s been through struggles. So has
the community.”
In Brewarrina Aboriginal Cultural Museum there’s a spectacular
black-and-white photograph (see first page), taken in the late 1800s;
two youngsters stand at a trap’s mouth, ready to scoop up fish in
their hands, just like Bradley describes. The pre-weir river flows
healthily, the shapes and complexities of the structures paint a
clear picture of their purpose.
Today, locals still use the traps when the river runs strongly,
no rods and reels needed, but not like in the old times. This may
no longer be a plentiful community supermarket, so to speak, but
Ngunnhu is like a history book that helps knowledge flow to the
generations to come.
And, despite their fraught modern history, the traps remain a
meeting place, a community focal point, a place to reflect, and not
just for Brewarrina’s Indigenous population either. “The Old
People used to say, we don’t own the river, we belong to it. We
don’t own the fish traps, we belong to it. It’s our duty to share it all.
I want to make you, make all people, feel welcome so they can feel
part of this – just like the Old People intended.”
Perhaps this small elbow in the Barwon, its inexplicable energy
flowing even when the river doesn’t, can be a place to find new
common ground, a place to reconcile the past and establish a novel
new trajectory for the future.
“My dear brother,” Bradley says to me in the calming manner
that he often starts his sentences with. “If we come together like
they did, we build structures, friendships, education – we build
caring and sharing.
“Obviously,youand I are from different tribes, but just look
where we metat.”