The Wollombi area is a map and ceremonial place, where different tribal groups from all NSW and even further afield, came on a pilgrimage to attend at least one ceremony throughout their lifetime, because it holds a lot of story. There are thousands of rock art and rock carvings that weren’t put on the rock to make the bush look pretty. We put them there to tell a story. So there are thousands of years of history, recorded history that our people put there explaining some of the events that happened in our history.

But also it's where our belief system is on the rock as well. And we still attend ceremony in the Wollombi area. There are lots of women’s sites. Lots of men's sites. People are still coming from different parts of New South Wales and even from the Northern Territory to visit these rock carvings and they're not just in the National Park. They're all through the Wollombi Valley - in the Corrobare State Forest, the Watagan State Forest, private property. I've been recording sites in the Wollombi area for about 30 years now and probably recorded 5000 so far and there are plenty more to find.

Now Paul, as a senior elder, you're charged with the responsibility of keeping the history alive. When did you first become interested in the association? The connection between your people in the land and the stories that were told?

I pretty much grew up out in the bush with old men in their fencing camps who still had story and song and language and taught us how to dance. It’s been in my life all my life. Then I came down into the Newcastle area in the early 1980s to share some of that knowledge with the local people and in the process linked with the Wollombi community. And from then on I just stayed around and discovered more and more of the sites in the Wollombi Valley.

Okay, so tell us about some of the things that happened in pre European times. You mentioned that many ceremonies happened out in the area. How frequently might that have been do you reckon?

At least once a year. Big ones. People would walk in from even if you look at some of the first white contact. They talk about people from where Coonamble is now, so way out in Weilwan country and Gamilaroi country, people were walking into the Wollombi Valley for ceremony. We knew about it. The old people that I grew up with knew about it. It was a very well-known ceremonial area. It's linked to the Central Coast and all the rock art on the Central Coast.

It’s also linked with the Kuringai Chase National Park and all the rock carvings in that Sydney area, where there are similar stories. The journey is to walk into the Wollombi and up into Yengo.

Because Yengo Mountain is a very important spiritual place for most people in New South Wales.

We're getting new evidence all the time, of course, about the duration of indigenous peoples in this country. And have you got any idea of how far back the connection with your race and the Wollombi area goes?

Well, I mean, some of the sites that have been found in Wollombi have been dated. Well, not that many have been dated, but I think that probably the oldest sites discovered so far are around twenty six thousand years old. But now, where I come from out northern New South Wales, we have 40 to 50,000 years old. Lake Mungo is over 60,000 years old. So if people were living around the lake, like Lake Mungo in Western NSW they were certain to live on the East Coast, but because of salinity and the different types of soil, a lot of evidence disappears faster on the coast than out west.

Are there areas that are more significant than others, or is that entire area in the Wollombi Valley important to indigenous Australians?

There are areas, but there are very important ceremonial places in the Yengo National Park and also on private property overlooking Wollombi Brook. Wollombi itself means meeting of the waters. Meeting of the waters also means meeting of the people because people followed their water. We walked our waterways and when our waterways came together we came together and that's where we conducted ceremonies.

Paul, how did it make you feel when you heard about the destruction of historical indigenous Aboriginal monuments in Western Australia when Rio Tinto proceeded with mining in sensitive areas? What was your reaction to that?

It tends to make you really angry that makes you sometimes think about, you know, fighting back in some way. When you destroy a 45,000 year old site for a bit of money, and that's all it's for - a bit of money, you know, what's wrong with governments when they allow something that is important be destroyed for a bit of money? Surely their responsibility is for looking after Australia as a country and its environment more than just listening to corporates that just want to rip our country apart.

Paul, are there young blokes coming through the system like you did 30 years ago that had a fascination with the connection between people in the land and wanted to keep that history alive. Are you seeing enough in the young people?

More and more. So there are some of our ceremonies where we have up to 5000 young men and older men attend at one time and that grows every year. They're bringing more or more people with them now. Our women's business is starting to grow as well. More and more women and young women are trying to connect back to their past, their beliefs and Wollombi is a really important meeting place where that is happening.

Can you see any way that what you want to protect can co-exist with mining in your area?

No. I don't think that there's any need for any mining to be allowed in the Wollombi Valley.

I mean, we've ruined the Upper Hunter. We've got holes everywhere from mining. There's plenty of coal in other places without touching a pristine place like the Wollombi Valley which, you know, has got Aboriginal sites, tourism, beautiful waterways. We don't need to allow a couple of those mining magnates to come in there and destroy that beautiful place.

Uncle Paul Gordon, good to have you on today. Thanks for coming on and sharing your thoughts. Thank you. There's Uncle Paul Gordon, who's the senior Aboriginal elder in the Wollombi area, just reflecting on the discussion around the potential for mining in the region, based on that region, the Wollombi Valley being isolated as a possible site for future expansion of mining.

ABC 29 June 2020