Calga Aboriginal Cultural Landscape is a heritage-listed site at Peats Ridge Road, Calga, in the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as Calga Aboriginal Women's Site and Calga Aboriginal Sites. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 1 October 2019.
History The Peats Ridge Songline The Calga Aboriginal Cultural Landscape (Calga ACL) is located along the primary ridgeline of Peats Ridge which has been identified as a traditional Aboriginal walking route between the Hawkesbury and the Hunter rivers. Aboriginal people commonly followed ridgelines to travel through rough country. The route would be used to visit neighbours for trade, to arrange marriage, participate in ceremony or other cultural events. Often these routes were understood as shared areas along which "strangers" could travel through another group's lands without causing offence.McDonald, 2008 Modern roads in Australia often follow traditional songlines and routes of Aboriginal communities, reflecting how European settlers relied on the knowledge of Aboriginal guides to traverse the country. Over time these "explorers" routes became more formalised into roads and highways, as seen with Peats Ridge Road.
Aboriginal people identify routes such as Peats Ridge as songlines, routes that ancestral beings such as Baiame, Bootha and Daramulan took across the land, the knowledge of which is passed down through oral histories. The landscape along the songline is often marked by the actions taken by these ancestral beings in the past, physically expressed through their works such as rock engravings and, also through natural landmarks or features including topography, waterholes and trees. These would be interpreted and navigated by knowledge passed down through traditional songs and stories. As such, the songline provides a practical and mental map of important travel routes, and is also used to teach people about The Dreaming, the law and about obligations to Country. Songlines are still physically travelled as a teaching device for learning about Country, spirituality, ceremony and men's and women's business. The physical act of travelling the route and interpreting and responding appropriately to its markers is valued as an important part of the learning process.
Ancestral beings The Calga Aboriginal Cultural Landscape is recognised by Aboriginal people to have been marked by the presence of ancestral beings. Belief in certain creator beings is recorded as being common to Aboriginal groups across much of southeastern Australia. These creator beings were called different names in different areas, with variations in stories about their deeds. In the Sydney region there is a belief in three main ancestral beings who travelled across the land during the Dreaming, performing various deeds and creating other beings and the landscape as it is today.
These three primary figures are Baiame, the father, his wife Bootha, and their son Daramulan. The stories about their deeds and travels across the landscape vary from place to place but the belief in their role in creating the world links many Aboriginal nations together, often across vast distances. These figures are not perceived as having existed in the past but continue to exist and participate in life and ceremony in the present day. In some communities Baiame and Daramulan are understood to be different names for the same being, however, in those such as Darkinjung country they are known as father and son.Attenbrow 2010 These ancestral beings, sometimes referred to as culture heroes, are often identified in rock art from identifying features including larger than life size, combination of human and animal-life features and/or depiction of animal totems.Vinnicombe 1980
According to the local Darkinjung and Guringai communities, Biame and Bootha, at a site near Mooney Mooney, first instructed the other totemic ancestral beings to go out and create the land. One of these was Echidna who journeyed north performing various deeds before finally stopping, taking the form of Mount Yengo.Hodgetts 2010 At this time Baiame and Bootha also travelled across the land, eventually coming to Baiame Cave in Wonnarua Country southwest of Singleton. Within Baiame Cave pigment art depicts Baiame with his arms outstretched, said to be protecting the Hunter Valley. In addition to the Guringai and Darkinjung communities, those of broader south eastern Australia including the Wonnarua people believe that after he had finished creating the world he stepped on Mount Yengo and returned up into the sky, flattening its top. From the sky he took an all-seeing interest in people and particularly their conduct of male initiation.Godden 1982 Places visited by Baiame are sometimes marked with distinctive engravings of his footsteps.Hodgetts, cited in Ross 2011 Such places include the Brewarrina Fishtraps created by Baiame, Yambacoona Mountain where he taught community the lesson to share resources with each other and Mount Drysdale where he sleeps.Gordon, Paul 2018
According to the local Darkinjung and Guringai communities, Bootha was originally the holder of the law and gave it to her son Daramulan who in turn gave it to Aboriginal people via initiation ceremony known in this part of Australia as the Bora, Burbung or Boraba. Daramulan is often depicted in rock art as a male figure either in profile or front on with a club foot or one leg or alternatively he is depicted as an emu. Boys are called to initiation by the sound of the bullroarer, which represents Daramulan's thundering voice.Sharon Hodgetts, Darkinjung submission 2018 The Law of Daramulan is well documented by early European anthropologists such as R. H. Matthews: 'His name is made up from dhurru, thigh, and mulan, one side, the whole name meaning leg-on-one-side, as he is said to possess one leg only... He had a voice like the rumbling of distant thunder. It fell to his lot to separate the youths from their mothers and teach them the Burbung ceremonies'.Matthews, 1905
Like her son, Bootha's totem is the emu. She is sometimes depicted as an emu, or emu-woman, but such depictions are comparatively rare. She has a special name which is rarely spoken except by those for whom it is socially appropriate.Affidavit of Paul Gordon 2014
Aboriginal people from across eastern Australia express similar understandings of Daramulan's role as son of Bootha and central figure in initiation ceremonies. The emu story extends from the Pacific Ocean into the Northern Territory, the path of the story following the rising of the sun from east to west.Hodgetts, 2018
Aboriginal people recognise the Calga ACL as an important ceremonial place with a special association with these creation beings. At the women's site, the engraving of the female figure is determined, by its larger than life size, rare detailing (which reflects ceremonial practice and cannot be made public due to gendered cultural sensitivities), association with the large emu and footprint engravings and its proximity to ceremonial stone arrangements to be a depiction of Bootha, the wife of Baiame.Affidavit of Sharon Hodgetts 2014 The footprint is identified to have been made by Baiame and the emu is recognised as Daramulan by its size.Sharon Hodgetts 2014 This is reinforced by the womb-like shape of the amphitheatre which physically embraces the site and provides privacy, safety, resources and amenity for Bootha and ceremony related to her.
The heavy concentration of motifs related to Daramulan in the eastern portion of the site is seen to be highly symbolic, given the regional context and location along the songline. The profile emu with a three-toed foot and large protruding chest is interpreted as Daramulan in emu form, the prostrate male human figure shown pointing west with a small bandicoot alongside is interpreted as a "guide" pointing the way to men's ceremonial grounds further along the songline. The one-legged human figure is interpreted as Daramulan calling the mothers to bring their sons to him to be initiated and learn the Law that Bootha had given him.Hodgetts, Darkinjung Submission 2018
In light of this, the topography of the landscape, which is seen to be protectively embracing all within it in the shape of a womb, and its key location adjacent to the songline, the Calga Aboriginal Cultural Landscape is recognised as the highly place where Daramulan came into being and was first given the Law. It also marks the place where boys were separated from their mothers and taken for initiation, where they would die as boys and be reborn as men. It is a place where Law is respected, adhered to, practised and passed on.Darkinjung 2018
The cultural landscape The term cultural landscape refers to "the combined works of nature and man", as designated in Article 1 of the World Heritage Convention.Fowler, 2003 An Aboriginal cultural landscape is "a place or area valued by an Aboriginal group (or groups) because of their long and complex relationship with that land. It expresses their unity with the natural and spiritual environment. It embodies their traditional knowledge of spirits, places, land uses, and ecology. Material remains of the association may be prominent, but will often be minimal or absent".Buggey 1999, cited in Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water NSW, 2010
First introduced to the English speaking world by geographer Carl Sauer in the 1920s, the concept of cultural landscapes became broadly embraced by the cultural heritage management discipline across the world in the 1990s.Jones, 2003 At this time, practitioners in NSW and the NSW government began to move away from previous conceptions of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage as physical objects or archaeology such as rock art, to a richer recognition of multi-faceted Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes imbued with meaning. Where, previously, there had been a sole focus on NSW Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System (AHIMS) data of known recorded objects and archaeology known as "sites", contemporary NSW best practice recognises that complexes of "sites" are understood as part of cultural landscapes made up of layers of tangible and intangible significance which expresses the connection of Aboriginal people, past and present, with country.
In 2019, the NSW government formally recognised cultural landscapes in policy: 'For Aboriginal people, the significance of individual landscape features is derived from their interrelatedness within the cultural landscape. This means features cannot be assessed in isolation and any assessment must consider the feature and its associations in a holistic manner. This may require a range of assessment methods and will always require the close involvement and participation of Aboriginal people. By consulting with Aboriginal people and using the concept of cultural landscapes, the story behind the features can be told which demonstrates the associations that may exist between Aboriginal objects and other features within the landscape'Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water NSW, 2010
Study of the cultural landscape and its tangible and intangible markers and underpinnings allows for a rich understanding of the traditional connection of Aboriginal people past and present with totemic ancestral beings and with country. The womb-shaped valley comprises not just the women's ceremonial area along the northern ridge, but also the Daramulan-related area of particular significance to men which tells an important part of the story of Daramulan's coming into being and passing down of the law to men through initiation. It also comprises north-facing shelters along the eastern ridge and open camp areas at the base of the gully where groups could be supported for camping and preparation prior for ceremony.