Aboriginal Village of stone houses

This is one of the few close-to contemporary records of the Lake Condah villages.

 

Brough Smythe Papers, c 1840

 

Accession number: MS 8781

 

From the State Library of Victoria's Manuscripts collection.

 

See the catalogue record for this item 

 

Transcription:

Blacks, about 50 miles N.E. of Port Fairy, by what is termed the Scrubby Creek, before settlers came among them had a regular Village. My informant who drew this states that there were between 20-30 evidently some of them big enough to hold a dozen people, their shape as under an aperture at top to let out smoke, which in rainy weather they covered with large sod, The form like a Bee Hive about 6 feet high + or - and about 10 feet in diameter. An opening about 3 feet for a door way which they could close at night with piece of bark. There, blacks made regular dams in creeks to catch fish. They could make straw nets and their baskets were different.  About 1839 settlers first began to settle in this area. About May 1842 a station was formed on the opposite side of the creek to this Aboriginal settlement...

Indigenous land use