General News
21 August, 2023
Field Naturalists discover Indigenous population document
An 1841 census of Indigenous people in the local region was rediscovered by the Maryborough Field Naturalist Club recently. The copy of an original document is believed to be one of the most important of its kind in existence, according to the field...
An 1841 census of Indigenous people in the local region was rediscovered by the Maryborough Field Naturalist Club recently.
The copy of an original document is believed to be one of the most important of its kind in existence, according to the field naturalists. It identified 186 Dja Dja Wurrung people living in the area at that time.
The copy is believed to have been discovered by a member of the Maryborough Field Naturalists Club more than half a century ago. However, the document’s existence only became known to present day members when it was discovered among old papers.
The club decided at a recent meeting to advise Dja Dja Wurrung representatives of the document’s existence, and to offer to donate it.
The offer was accepted and the document received by Maryborough District Health Service’s Aboriginal Hospital Liaison Officer Kimberley Williams, handed over by the field naturalists’ secretary, Barb Thomson, and member Eileen Courtney who rediscovered the document.