Historical drawings of nine decorated trees at a bora ground near Gloucester. Their recorded presence is evidence of Aboriginal ceremonial life in the Gloucester district. 

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Cultural use and permissions

These carved tree designs are part of Guringay Gloucester cultural heritage. Please seek written permission through our Contact page before reproducing or adapting the patterns in any artwork. All requests are subject to approval by the Guringay Gloucester Circle of Elders.

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Guringay Country extends across a large area north of the Hunter River toward the Manning River—from the coast west to the Great Dividing Range. This Country includes the Paterson and Allyn River valleys, Gresford, Dungog, Stroud, Gloucester, Barrington, Barrington Tops and the upper Manning River, with longstanding cultural and family connections extending toward Port Stephens and neighbouring Gathang-speaking communities.

Guringay Gloucester represents one important section of the wider Guringay Nation. Our Gloucester–Barrington families belong to this broader cultural landscape while holding their own local family histories, ceremonial places, camps, burial grounds and responsibilities to Country.
The descendants of the old Gloucester and Barrington families continue to preserve the knowledge and stories of Jack Springheel, Jack Cook and Jessie Brummy, Susan Cook and George Russell, Dave Brummy, Jimmy Doyle and the many other old people connected to this Country.
Guringay people share the Gathang language with the Birrbay and Warrimay peoples. These neighbouring peoples have always maintained cultural, language, marriage and ceremonial relationships while retaining their own identities and connections to Country.
Aboriginal cultural boundaries are interconnected and should not be understood as rigid, surveyed or modern legal borders. Different historical records contain different boundary descriptions, spellings and interpretations.

 

SOURCES

John Fraser, The Aborigines of New South Wales (1892), plate opposite page 11. View the digitised publication. Robert Etheridge Jr also discussed the Gloucester bora ground in The Dendroglyphs, or “Carved Trees” of New South Wales(1918). View the National Library record and digitised book• Amanda Lissarrague and Robert Syron, Guringaygupa djuyal, barray: Language and Country of the Guringay People, 2024.
https://hunterlivinghistories.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Guringaygupa-djuyal-barray05-11-2024.pdf
• National Library of Australia catalogue record: Guringaygupa djuyal, barray.
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3657305244
• Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative, “Gathang—Birrbay, Guringay and Warrimay.”
https://muurrbay.org.au/languages/gathang/
• Hunter Living Histories, “Guringai Kabook and Watoo People of the Guringai Barrington River Gloucester, NSW.”
https://hunterlivinghistories.com/2018/08/15/the-kabook-watoo/
• James W. Boydell correspondence with John Fraser, 1882, reproduced and discussed in Lissarrague and Syron, 2024. Boydell identified the Gringai around Gresford, Paterson, Dungog, Singleton and the Allyn River.
• John Fraser, The Aborigines of New South Wales, 1892. This work must be read cautiously because Fraser’s very broad “Kuringgai” classification combined several distinct peoples and languages.
• R.H. Mathews, nineteenth-century records concerning the Gooreenggai and Keepara ceremonial traditions.
• W.J. Enright, “The Kattang (Kutthung) or Worimi: An Aboriginal Tribe,” Mankind, 1932.
• AIATSIS, information about Aboriginal languages and the relationship between language, people and Country.
https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/languages-alive

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