Tjilbruke
Tjilbruke is an important creation ancestor for the Kaurna people of the Adelaide plains in the Australian state of South Australia. Tjilbruke was a Kaurna man, who appeared in Kaurna Dreaming dating back about 11,000 years. The Tjilbruke Dreaming Track or Tjilbruke Dreaming Trail is a major Dreaming trail, which connects sites from within metropolitan Adelaide southwards as far as Cape Jervis, some of which are Aboriginal sacred sites of great significance.
Man and creator-being
The Tjilbruke Dreaming pre-dates European contact, probably arising when the "Adelaide plains tribe", the Kaurna, settled the area at least 2,000 years BP. Kaurna Yerta Parngkarra stretches from Cape Jervis in the south, to Crystal Brook in the north, west to the Mount Lofty Ranges, across to Gulf Saint Vincent, including the plains and city of Adelaide.The Tjilbruke story became part of the southern Kaurna Dreaming. It is more than a creation story; it assumes the status of a religion for some, sets standards and rules for living, and provides spiritual meaning. It is both lore and law. The lore tells of a time when all the people lived in accord with peaceful trading laws which governed all their lives. The law was brought to the land, and "Old Tjirbruki", who lived as an ordinary man, a keeper of the law which came from the south, after the water covered the land. Tjilbruke was renowned as a "great hunter and firemaker", and a hero of the Kaurna. He also played a role in helping to protect the animals and the territory of the Kaurna, while at the same time having respect towards neighbouring peoples. It was part of his and Kaurna way of life to value all life, whether animal or human.
Variant spellings and versions
In about 1840, anthropologist Ronald Berndt recorded the spellings "Tjirbuk" or "Tjirbuki" from Ngarrindjeri man Albert Karlowan, as the name of a small wetland. Anthropologist Norman Tindale of the South Australian Museum recorded the spelling as Tjirbruki, but Tjilbruke is the commonly used spelling today.Since the early 1980s the Williams family, of the Mullawirra and Mulla mai/Kudnarto clans, have been senior custodians of the Tjilbruke story, and Karl Winda Telfer has collaborated with Gavin Malone to share the story. Milerum, also known as Clarence Long, has also been a contributor. The Tjilbruke story is part of a bigger and more complex story known as the Munaintya Dreaming, that has been passed down through oral tradition through the years.
Tjilbruke Dreaming story
The tale of Tjilbruke's journey down the east coast of Wongga Erlo/Gulf St Vincent is the best known of all Kaurna Dreaming stories, and has become a symbol of renewal of the Kaurna culture, although it was first recorded from Ngarrindjeri sources by Tindale and later Ronald and Catherine Berndt. It was recorded by Tindale over a period of many years up to 1964, but it was not until 1987 that he published the most complete version hitherto published, as The Wanderings of Tjirbruki: a tale of the Kaurna People of Adelaide.The story starts with an emu hunt by three men, Kulultuwi, Jurawi and Tetjawi. They were all nephews of Tjilbruke, but Kulultuwi had a special relationship to his uncle, as he was the son of his sister, and known as his nangari; the other two were his half-brothers. Tjilbruke was responsible for Kulutuwi, as an uncle as well as a father, to help him grow up correctly and do the right thing. While the young men went hunting in the Tarndanya area, across Mikkawomma to Yerta Bulti, driving the birds up Mudlangga, Tjilrbuke went fishing at Witu-wattingga. After finishing his fishing, he set up camp at Tulukudangga/Tulukudank and then started tracking an emu southwards. When Kulultuwi returned to the area, he found himself tracking the same emu as his uncle, which he was forbidden to do. However he killed the emu, and Tjilbruke, although initially angry, forgave him when he gave him some of the emu meat.
While Kulultuwi was cooking the emu meat over a fire, Jurawi and Tetjawi killed him with their spears, as punishment for his breaking the law of the clan. The brothers took the body to their clan campsite at Warriparri and told them the story, and they started to dry the body with smoke, as custom dictated. After Tjilbruke found out, he was very upset, and speared the two nephews to death, before carrying Kulultuwi's body to Tulukudangga, where an inquest and ceremony to complete the smoking of the body was held.
The story goes on to tell of how six freshwater springs were created by Tjilbruke's tears, as he carried the body of his dead nephew from Warriparri across to the coast and southwards past Aldinga Beach and onto the west coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula to Rapid Bay. The Dreaming includes locations in several geographic areas: the Adelaide Plains, the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the south coast at Rosetta Head near Victor Harbour, and also in the Adelaide Hills at Brukunga; so it takes in Ramindjeri and Peramangk country.
After Kulultuwi's body had been smoked and dried, Tjilbruke picked up the body and carried it firstly to Tulukudangga/Tulukudank. Here some versions of the story diverge slightly; one says that he wept at this point and his tears created this spring, while another says that Tulukudangga was an existing spring at that place. From Tulukudangga, Tjilbruke carried Kulultuwi's body all the way down the eastern side of Gulf St Vincent and onto and down the west coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula. At sunset every night of his journey Tjilbruke cried over his nephew's body, and his tears transformed into freshwater springs at six locations:
He arrived at a cave at Rapid Bay, near Cape Jervis, and then emerged from underground at Wateira nengal and created yellow ochre. He walked on to Lonkowar, near Victor Harbor, where he killed a grey currawong, rubbed its fat onto his body and tied its feathers onto his arms, before transforming himself into a glossy ibis as his spirit left his body. His body became the pyrite outcrop at Brukunga.
Saddened by these events Tjilbruke decided he no longer wished to live as a man. His spirit became a bird, the Tjilbruke, and his body became a martowalan in the form of the baruke outcrop at Barrukungga, the place of hidden fire. Tjilbruke was a master at fire-making.
Creation of the Tjilbruke Dreaming Track (1986–2006)
The Tjilbruke Monuments Committee was formed by Robert Edwards of the South Australian Museum, sculptor John Dowie and staff of the Sunday Mail in 1971. It was largely due to the efforts of Edwards and other non-Aboriginal people that drove the early promotion of Kaurna cultural tourism. A public appeal helped to fund the marking of the trail by plaques and sculptures, to pay homage to the Kaurna culture and to attract and educate tourists. In 1972 John Dowie created the sculpture known as the Tjilbruke Monument at Kingston Park, within the City of Holdfast Bay.Cairns were created at significant points along the Tjilbruke Trail articles and booklets were published in the 1980s, and the trail was included in Aboriginal Studies curricula. However, there was little input from Kaurna people at this stage.
In 1981, Georgina Williams began to research the trail. It was important to her "because Tjilbruke was to me an example of the law of my people and of the law related to the land and the places along the coast". A number of the sites have special spiritual significance, and in the 1980s, work by the successor to the Tjilbruke Monuments Committee, the Tjilbruke Track Committee, on the track became a central focus of Kaurna identity. The committee was later renamed the Kaurna Heritage Committee and then grew into the Kaurna Aboriginal Community and Heritage Association in the 1990s, which became recognised as the representative body for all Kaurna people on cultural heritage and other matters.
The Tjilbruke Dreaming Track, or Tjilbruke Dreaming Trail, marked by commemorative plaques at ten locations, was created during the 150th anniversary of British colonisation of South Australia, along the coast in close proximity to the sea shore. Various events, mostly celebrating white history, were held throughout the year, with the final celebrations on December 28, 1986, 150th anniversary of the Proclamation of South Australia. However the Dreaming Track was one of about 30 Aboriginal projects which were considered, and was a major undertaking. While the original idea had been to erect a monument at Rosetta Head/The Bluff at Victor Harbor, the site where Tjilbruke's spirit left earth and turned into the ibis, Georgina Williams pushed for the idea of the track, with several sites down the coast marked, "to provide a contemporary Kaurna presence within the physical public space of their own lands and in the public imagination".
In 2005, the City of Marion partnered with the City of Holdfast Bay, City of Onkaparinga and Yankalilla District Council to develop the Kaurna Tappa Iri Regional Agreement 2005-2008 , in which the Tjilbruki Dreaming Trail featured significantly. In 2006, six Kaurna interpretive signs were installed along the trail, in a collaboration with the state government. The markers have immense cultural and social significance for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, and help to bring Aboriginal cultural meaning to a wider audience.
Heading south from the Tjilbruke Monument at Kingston Park, there are ten markers, located at the following places:
- City of Marion:
- * 1 Hallett Cove/Karildilla, at a reserve on Weerab Drive
- * 2 Hallett Cove Karildilla, on Heron Way at the foreshore – site of the first spring
- City of Onkaparinga:
- * 3 Port Noarlunga/Tainbarilla – at Tutu Wirra Reserve – site of the second spring
- * 4 Red Ochre Cove/Karkungga – site of the third spring
- * 5 Port Willunga/Wirruwarrungga, Esplanade – site of the fourth spring
- * 6 Sellicks Beach/Witawodli, Esplanade/Francis Street – site of the fifth spring
- District Council of Yankalilla
- * 7 Carrickalinga Head/Karragarlangga, foreshore
- * 8 Wirrina Cove Resort/Kongaratinga, entrance forecourt – site of the sixth spring
- * 9 Rapid Bay/Patpangga, foreshore
- * 10 Cape Jervis/Parawerangk, lookout car park
In the current City of Marion Reconciliation Plan, it is planned to "Collaborate with neighbouring Councils to promote the local Kaurna Tjilbruke Dreaming Tracks" in June 2022.