Resurrecting the power in the stones, developing a modern narrative of the agency and sentience of powerful stones, and recreating shared knowledge encounters at Gummingurru and its associated site architecture
E. Jaydeyn Thomas, Annie Ross, Shannon Bauwens, Conrad Bauwens
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引用次数: 1
Abstract
Prior to European settlement, the Gummingurru stone arrangement was a place of man-making and knowledge sharing for Aboriginal people from across vast areas of what is now southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, Australia. One of the most powerful sites of ritual and exchange en-route to the Bunya Mountains, Gummingurru was the place at which boys became adults, were assigned “yurees” (totems), and given Law to inform their roles in society for the rest of their lives. We argue that the stones themselves had agentive power in the creation of men. European invasion brought access to Gummingurru to a temporary end. The site lay dormant for many generations until it was returned to the Jarowair clan of the Wakka Wakka Nation in 2008. Since this time, the Gummingurru stone arrangement and its associated site architecture have been resurrected through the combination of applied archaeological and ethnohistorical research and Aboriginal knowledge. Today Gummingurru is at the centre of a major cultural revival on the Darling Downs. It is the locus of the development of Aboriginal control of reconciliation activities and the establishment of a power-base for the management of both the Gummingurru and Bunya Mountains landscapes, with the stones themselves acting to control the process.
期刊介绍:
Archaeology in Oceania is published online and in print versions three times a year: April, July, October. It accepts articles and research reports in prehistoric and historical archaeology, modern material culture and human biology of ancient and modern human populations. Its primary geographic focus is Australia, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and lands of the western Pacific rim. All articles and research reports accepted as being within the remit of the journal and of appropriate standard will be reviewed by two scholars; authors will be informed of these comments though not necessarily of the reviewer’s names.