Aunty May Pearce and Alana Solomon from GEGAC’s Culture Team at the Krowathunkooloong Keeping Place. Photo: Troy Brown
They come from as far away as Pakistan, or Colorado.
They come from as close to home as Bairnsdale Secondary College.
For decades the Krowathunkooloong Keeping Place at GEGAC has been both a famed tourist attraction and a beloved local place of education and reflection.
And its importance to the region as a home of GunaiKurnai culture and history continues to grow.
In the past few weeks more than 300 people have visited the Keeping Place.
They have included tourists and backpackers from far-flung nations, but also staff and students from schools and businesses closer to home, including Bairnsdale Secondary College, St Mary’s Primary School, Wesley College in Melbourne, and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.
Joshua Tuiono, GEGAC’s Executive Director of Culture and Deputy CEO, said everyone at GEGAC was very proud of the role the Keeping Place plays in both preserving and protecting important GunaiKurnai cultural artefacts and pieces of history, but also in making sure that history is shared and remains alive.
“At the end of the day our goal is to help ensure the ongoing story of the GunaiKurnai people is seen and heard and understood, by as many people as possible,” he said.
“We don’t think of the Keeping Place as a museum, because our culture and our traditions are alive and thriving, our history and our stories are still being written.”
Local schools and workplaces often use a trip to the Keeping Place as part of their own cultural awareness training, to help staff and students better understand the culture and ways of doing of the original custodians of East Gippsland, the GunaiKurnai people.
GEGAC’s Alana Solomon, a member of the Cultural Team, said that as we mark National Reconciliation Week this week, she hopes more schools and businesses make time to visit the Keeping Place.
“Whether you have Indigenous heritage or not, I think some people might wonder what Reconciliation Week means for them, what are they supposed to do this week,” she said.
“One very powerful thing everyone can do is visit the Keeping Place. Come with your hearts open and your minds open, and learn something that you didn’t know before about the GunaiKurnai people, because that story is your story too, the story of this country.”
National Reconciliation Week is May 27 to June 3.
Those dates mark two important moments in recent political and legal history for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
May 27 is the anniversary of the 1967 referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Australians voted to remove discriminatory language from the Australian Constitution, and clarify, for the first time, the citizenship status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
June 3 is the anniversary of the Australian High Court’s Mabo decision in 1992, which recognised the legal existence of native title for Indigenous Australians, overturning the legal fiction that Australia was uninhabited when claimed by Europeans.
The Keeping Place is located on the grounds of GEGAC at 37-53 Dalmahoy St., Bairnsdale.
Guided tours of the Keeping Place are available, and we are happy to host group tours from schools, workplaces or other organisations.
It’s easy to book. Just visit gegac.org.au/keepingplace, or fill in the form below.
We hope to see you soon.