DIGITAL STORY MAP
Click on this link to view one of the project’s major publications: Dyarubbin: Mapping Aboriginal history, culture and stories of the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales
On your right you’ll see a digital map with Aboriginal place names and other information. On your left is a panel welcoming you and introducing the map.
Across the top of the screen are eight more tabs. Each one takes you to a different part of Dyarubbin, from Yarramundi in the south to Malu/Marlow Creek on Ganangdayi, the Macdonald River, in the north.
Aunty Edna Watson, Yellamundi
How to explore this map
You can explore the Story Map in at least two ways:
-
follow the stories by clicking on the tabs across the top. Each section gives you an overview of a different part of Dyarubbin and its Aboriginal place names, history, archaeology, ecology and geography. You can click on hyperlinked names in the text panel to see where they are on the Interactive Map.
or
-
explore the Interactive Map independently. As you move along the river, click on the different coloured dots to see the information.
The green dots represent the place names from the McGarvie list which we have been able to relocate and map. If you click them you’ll see:
-
McGarvie’s original spelling
-
a phonetic reconstruction (that is, according to current spelling and structure accepted for the Languages of this region); and
-
a suggested meaning, or ‘gloss’, if there is one.
Check out the key in the top right hand corner of the Story Map for what the other coloured dots represent, including known/recorded sites of frontier conflict.
Reverend McGarvie made at least eight journeys to record the place names given to him by Darug and Darkinjung people. You can see where he went by following the broken red lines on the map.
Mapping land was part of the colonising process. Colonial maps of the Hawkesbury River are dominated by settler names, places and boundaries. They erased the traces of prior occupation by Aboriginal people. Most modern maps continue this practice.
Parish of Pitt Town, about 1835
(NSW Land Registry Services)
This Story Map is an attempt to recover and acknowledge the much longer and abiding Darug and Darkinjung presence, and the richly cultured and named landscape of this river Country.
Dyarubbin’s Darug and Darkinjung people still see Country as inspirited and alive, and a way for them to connect with their Ancestors.
Leanne Mulgo Watson, Darug Land
Copyright Notice
Please note that the Digital Story Map text and data are Copyright ©the Authors (Grace Karskens, Aunty Edna Watson, Leanne Watson and Jasmine Seymour). Under Australian copyright law, no part of this work may be reproduced or republished without the consent of the copyright holders, except under the normal conditions of scholarly fair dealing for the purposes of research, private study or review. Proper written acknowledgment should be made for any assistance or insights obtained from this Story Map.
ArcGIS StoryMap created by DCS Spatial Services/Geographic Names Board of New South Wales. We gratefully acknowledge and thank Simone Reedy, Amy Love, Susan Fietz and Tara Slattery for their generous contribution and wonderful skills.
Special thanks to Linda Brainwood for assistance with picture research and permissions.