Djarra Country 2016
Detail of my painting 15 years to gold – Djarra country 2016
The Dawson Series
The Dawson Series
See The Dawson Series by Eliza Tree, 16 drawings based upon information drawn from James Dawson – Australian Aborigines: The Languages and Customs of several tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria, Australia. George Robertson Press 1881. All captions are from the book.
Who is James Dawson?
James Dawson was a Scottish ‘squatter’ in the Western district of Victoria in the 1850’s. He and his daughter Isabrella were some of the very few who were ‘sympathetic’ towards the local Tribe whose Country they ‘occupied’ They allowed the ‘rightful owners’ to continue to live on ‘their/his?’ land, and continue to live their cultural life and ways.
First published in 1881, Australian Aborigines holds unique insights into daily life and cultural material. Initially Dawson wrote shorty articles for local newspapers, and was scorned upon by other squatters for recognising their humanity, and defending the unjust treatment and attitudes towards ‘original owners of the land’
After deciding that his careful description of the tribes, languages, customs, and characteristics of the First Nations peoples of the western district of Victoria was too bulky for its originally intended publication in newspapers, he decided to publish this book. Essentially a field-inspired anthropological account of the local Aboriginal population, written before the emergence of anthropology as a formal discipline. Dawson’s book draws on his daughter’s ability to speak the local languages and attempts a balanced description of a culture he considered ill-used and under-appreciated by white settlers. Minute details about clothing, tools, settlement and beliefs combine to depict a complex society that possessed highly ritualised customs deserving of respect. Dawson also included an extensive vocabulary of words in three Indigenous languages that he hoped would facilitate further cross-cultural understanding. His work provides valuable source material for understand the complexity and utility of daily life in at the frontier of dispossession and land invasion.
The Dawson Series on the wall during Arts Open 22, March 2022
Eliza Tree, Campsite and utensils, 2022
Eliza Tree, Implements for Fire, 2022
Making the Invisible Visible
from Invasion to Recognition
Eliza Tree
From Invasion to Recognition.
Revisiting Indigenous Cultural Landscapes, before the gold rush.
Exploration & Invasion to Goldrush.
1835 – 1851.
Paintings, Maps & Text.
And New Audio Visual !
Exhibition : 10 – 18 March. 12 – 5 pm.
Launch Sat 10th March. 6 – 7 pm.
Loft Gallery. 22 Exhibit.
22 Hargraves St Castlemaine.
In 1835 John Batman established an illegal settlement in Port Phillip Bay.
In 1836, Major T L Mitchell’s Expedition journeyed through Dja Dja Wurrung Country, the Castlemaine region – describing it as the “Australia Felix”
-the happy & abundant Australia.
Home of the Dja Dja Wurrung Peoples, for many millennia,
Living rich Cultural and Spiritual lives,
in abundant cultural, cultivated and created Landscapes.
Within a diverse & extraordinary bio region.
It’s time to revisit this forgotten Chapter.
Exploration, Invasion, Land rush to Gold rush. 1836 – 1851.
It’s time to broaden the grand narrative of the colonial gold rushes,
to reveal Indigenous Cultural landscapes, enjoying a temperate climate within a well watered and abundant geological & ecological region;
Land Grab and Pastoral Invasion of an unprecedented scale; Dispossession & dislocation of Indigenous Peoples;
Before the wild and heroic Victorian Gold Rush(s).
from Invasion to Recognition
ARTS OPEN – MEET THE MAKERS.
OPEN STUDIOS in the Mount Alexander region. 10 – 18 March 2018.
Eliza Tree
from Invasion to Recognition
Revisiting Indigenous Cultural Landscapes, before the gold rush
Paintings, Audio Visual, Maps & Text
Sat 10th – Sun 18th March 2018
10 am – 5 pm
(except Tues & Thurs)
Exhibition Launch 6 pm Sat 10th
6.15 Welcome to Country by elder Aunty Kerri Douglas.
And Music: Kavisha Mazzella & Nick Lyon.
Loft Gallery Upstairs 22 EXHIBIT. 22 Hargraves St.
Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Painting the history.
The original inhabitants, the Dja Dja Wurrung, lived in this area of central Victoria for 20,000 years or more, before exploration brought word of the ‘Australia Felix’ – the happy / abundant Australia. Re-evaluation of indigenous culture and lifestyle through images, maps and wider reading, reveals a different picture than previously painted. Aboriginal land management, cultivation and hunting techniques rewrite the story: not subsistence nomads but many highly evolved and organized family groups, living in an abundant environment, practising complex social, cultural and religious traditions. The indigenous ‘nomadic’ life carefully and respectfully managed the clans’ territorial country and ensured abundant resources.
The availability of a range of maps and texts, provides an opportunity to discover and examine the resistance of the Jaara people, the rapid and violent dispossession of the land from the Jaara, in one of the fastest expansions of Empire on the newly settled continent. Major Thomas Mitchell first explored and mapped this region in 1836 on his homeward journey through the Australia Felix, in anticipation of informing the Colonial Government of new pastoral lands. Despite evidence of the longevity of indigenous habitation and their continuing presence, Mitchell’s reports favoured the Colonial narrative of settlement and spurred a land rush from the north. “Certainly,” he wrote, “a land more favourable for colonisation could not be found. Flocks might be turned out upon its hills, or the plough set at once to the plains.” He described the area in glowing terms. “No primeval forest require first to be rooted out, although there was enough of wood for all purposes of utility, and as much as even a painter could wish.”
By 1837 and into 1838, overlanders began to travel southwards with their herds and flocks. This caused changes in the Colonial policy with the annexing of Crown lands and the selection of pastoral lands, enormous tracts for squatters to graze. The settlement of Port Phillip and Mitchell’s 1836 expedition were followed by a pastoral invasion ‘of unprecedented scale’. William Barker selected a run of 30,000 acres, with 7,000 sheep and Donald Cameron established himself across 20,000 acres with 5,000. Together, these two pastoral runs subsumed the traditional lands of the Galgal Gundidj clan of the Dja Dja Wurrung, including the Forest Creek watershed.
The narrative of pastoral invasion is significant, complex and overlooked, despite spanning the fifteen years immediately prior to the 1851 gold rush. Vast flocks of sheep and cattle were introduced into cultivated Indigenous landscapes, and they thrived. The waterways, previously described as a meandering chain of ponds, changed over fifteen years of use by squatters, to rushing and eroded creeks. The squatters selected and took up areas of land, always with the best access to water. The luscious verdure of grasses and herbage was rapidly diminished. This unpredictable, rapid and violent invasion was overshadowed by heroic stories of colonial hardship and by the ‘smoke and mirrors’ of gold rush settlement beginning in 1851.
The history of this region is written in its landscape and the land sets a stage for stories, myths and spiritual connections to be made. Forest Creek was the heartland and home range of the Galgal Gundidj clan of the Jaara tribes, who inhabited this region for millennia. Traditional stories include the local legend of giants throwing rocks at each other and creating Leanganook (Mt. Alexander) and nearby peaks. Volcanic eruptions can be traced geologically, to as recent as 10,000 years ago. The indigenous peoples created and transformed the landscape. They were the original ‘affluent society’ and the Dja Dja Wurrung were members of the oldest living culture on Earth. Their spirit inhabits the landscape.