Community & Rememberance
term 3
The Importance Of Country & Place
Aboriginal Language
Language is extremely important to the aboriginal people. Languages carry cultural knowlage, so the loss of a language means to loss of colture, of Aboriginal people's to thier ancestors.
" The important things about language and what it means is that language contains the essence of our ancestors, every comes from place and identifies people and links to the land, country, the dreaming: they are all inherent in languages, therefore it means the people , the land, everything." Yolongu Elder laurie Baymarrwangga.
the local language group for the Illiwarra is Tharawal
It is also known as Wollongong
SPIRIT OF THE LAND-POPPLET
PLACES NAMES
The Aboriginal name for Shellharbour has been recorded as both Yerawah (meeting place), and wonwin (place were there were big fish). The European name Shellharbour refers to the large quanities of shells found in Aboriginal middens along the foreshore in the early to mid 19th century. Due to the mining of shells in the mid 19th century for the production of lime these vast middens no longer remain.