The recent publication of compilations of archives covering the Coranderrk settlement of Healesvile and the indigenous history of the Yarra Valley by local historian and author Mick Woiwod will by launched by Professor Joy Murphy Wandin senior elder of the Kullin alliance in Victoria on Sunday 29^th April at 2.00 pm. At Eltham Library
Coranderrk Database
Many books, articles and film documentaries have appeared over the years detailing the story of Coranderrk, the Aboriginal station established on the Yarra outside Healesville in 1863 and unfortunately forced into closure in 1924. With the 150 anniversary of the station’s establishment due in 2013, a great deal of renewed interest is being shown in the station’s many successes and ultimate sad closure.
Coranderrk Database is a collection of Mick Woiwod’s extensive research collected over many years and now being made available for the first time to budding authors interested in identifying further aspects of this remarkable sequence of events in our Victorian story.
Birrarung Database
For thousands of years, Wurundjeri people have lived along the Yarra (or as they know it, Birrarung, the river of mists), especially set in place for their very own use in the Dreaming by their creative beings.
Nowadays, the Yarra has lost much of its magic, its indigenous story buried beneath a thin veneer of mainstream living, social infrastructure and privately owned dwellings. Much like a modern archaeological dig, the Birrarung Databse is designed to breathe new life into cultural material that a wide range of earlier authors unearthed and interpreted before again imbedding in a multitude of at times difficult to locate literary works.
Each copy of these databases includes a searchable CD made possible by the wilam naling grant administered by the Public Records Office Victoria. Funding for each hard copy has been made possible by the generosity of Bruce Nixon of Tarcoola Press.
The databases are being freely distributed to Aboriginal organisations, Public and secondary school libraries, historical societies and other relevant organisations in what is now Wurundjeri Country.
Limited sets will be available for sale to individuals on the day.