Spearing the kooyang

Richard Bamblett from the Gunditjmara people awaits kooyang (short finned eel) to pass through the woven basket that has been placed at the inflowing neck of a traditionally engineered stone channel at the Tyrendarra Indigenous Protected Area. The channels provide connective pathways between larger ponds where Gunditjmara people farm and harvest their kooyang.

 

Ancestors of the Gunditjmara engineered these channels and maintained an extensive aquaculture system through the stones and wetlands of the Mt Eccles lava flow, to manage water resources and exploit the kooyang, freshwater crays and other fish indigenous to the area.

 

Damein Bell, 2010. Photograph

 

This item is in copyright. Used with permission.

 

Image courtesy of the Winda Mara Aboriginal Corporation

 

Indigenous land use