Tonight, Friday 14th March there is a full moon over Hurstbridge.
In the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung calendar, the full moon at this time of year heralds the beginning of the season of ‘Iuk’ or eels. Mature eels, fat and nutritious begin their journey downstream from the Birrarung (Yarra) River and its tributaries to the sea. Remarkably these eels would then start a journey of thousands of kilometres northwards to the Coral Sea. With such an abundance of food in their eel traps, this was a perfect time for a corroboree.
A corrobboree was a meeting of the clans where ceremonial dance (singing often with body decoration and costume) was used to celebrate Aboriginal mythology and spirituality. Often performed by the river and under a full moon, it must have been a wonderful spectacle of human bodies and nature in harmony. These days of plenty were also used to pass down songlines, lore, histories and family relationships to the young, initiating boys to manhood, arranging marriages and allow disputes between clans to be heard and ultimately resolved. Occasionally these disputes would necessitate ‘payback’, or violent act performed on the guilty for transgression of clan law.
The word corroboree itself is not a Woi-Wurrung word but was fashioned by early settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the local Dharug language, ‘caribberie’.
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References: Diary of Sir George Gipps, 1838.
Images: Aboriginal Corroboree, 1907-1913, Charles Kerry, Australia,1858 – 1928 and Wurundjeri Seasons calendar (https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/586.2014/)
Wurundjeri seasons
