The Indigenous Landscape
“You wouldn’t know it from looking around at the signs for the flour mill and the brewery and the timber felling—you wouldn’t know that this kunanyi has an aboriginal history much longer than the couple of hundred years that white people have been here.”
NOTE
There is an Aboriginal dimension to almost every Mountain topic and indigenous knowledge and culture is found throughout this site’s entries, nevertheless (as with every other section) Muwinnina Country is introduced by a survey of its landscape.
Therese Sainty in mountain country SOURCE ABC NEWS
Hobartians have come a long way from the condescendingly offensive description of the writer ‘E.P.D.’ who in 1899 ‘imagined’ a time in Silver Falls Gully when ‘probably the dusky aboriginals of this island crouched under their rude gunyahs, and indulged in their barbaric corroborees among the little openings here and there close to the stream’; nevertheless, notwithstanding a revolution in appreciation and respect, we are still lamentably reliant upon imagination and probability when it comes to the cultural life of people who lived in the shadows of the Mountain for millennia.
If a picture is worth a thousand words—and all three colonial-era images below are paintings of imagination, not observation—we come a little closer to the Muwinnina crouching under their gunyahs, among the little openings here and there close to a mountain stream. We can get much, much closer.
All metamorphication of the Muwinina community, country and culture over ten thousand years or more is now almost purely speculative—effectively unknown and perhaps forever unknowable, but such dearth is not confined to Tasmania’s ancient cultures—what of the Etruscans and Picts? Most of what is published is from a handful of French or British explorers and a few observant but unmethodical colonists, the invaders, and is confined to a period of decades, and after decades of study, Lyndall Ryan concluded that even the fragmentary knowledge of this culture at the time of settlement is so ‘hazy’ that even what is glimpsed among the little openings here and there is occasionally self-contradictory.
On the other hand, Muwinina culture undoubtedly shared traits with neighbouring cultures, and there are general parallels with indigenous cultures on the mainland too. More significantly, knowledge and understanding can survive outside of academia in oral tradition. After earlier sporadic forays, in 2023 the Wellington Park Management Trust sought guidance from, and on-going consultation with, a panel of Palawa and Pakana elders who produced a consultation report Palawa Values of Wellington Park.
muwinnina culture
The Mountain was surrounded by the Tahuni lingah—the South East Tribe—perhaps 1 000 people—who shared the same landscape, language and love life, but who cohabitated in one of perhaps seven tribal ‘bands’. We know at the foot of the mountain, on the coast side, lived the Muwinina, the responsibility for the eastern face of the mountain was primarily theirs. In the north and west gathered the Melukerdee. Out over the back of the mountain was a different mob. Two more distant bands were based on Bruny Island and at Recherché Bay, so of the 1 000 about three hundred people lived directly under the mountain they named Kunanyi.
SOUTH EAST TRIBAL LANDS The land around and including the mountain was the territory of the South East Tribe, whose country ranged from Storm Bay and the D’Entrecasteaux Channel (including Bruny Island) to South Cape, New Norfolk and the Huon Valley.
Between them, they spoke the mountain’s name at least three ways. On the eastern flanks ‘Pooranetere’ (also spelt POORANTTERE) while, on the west side, ‘Unghanyahletta’ (otherwise spelled Unghanyaletta). But there is good reason for adopting the third placename: kunanyi. Embedded in all three of the mountain’s names is ‘ur’ and the linguist Taylor argued that ur tells of the mountain’s skyline. Other placenames have been revealed and more features are being named in Palawakani.
The seven bands of the Tahuni lingah intermarried and fought together as a nation, but spent most of their time in even smaller hearth groups, sleeping in bark shelters, growing up around family campfires. The largest known settlement was at Kreewer/Little Sandy Bay, they camped in a place named Nipaluna or Linghe—others call it Hobart—and Knopwood had families of Muwinina camping in his garden for several years.
The Muwinnina were a maritime people. They moved over their 3 000 square kilometre landscape by the paths they trod and on the rafts they built. The Muwinina seascape—a stretch of coastline over 500 kilometres in length serrated with countless bays and rocky capes, all richly clustered with shellfish—were so dense their owners were (in terms of days walking between camps) one of the least migratory tribes. They feasted mostly on their oceanic bounty over winter. In summer they swam in Timtumili Minanya at Kreewer, crossed to Bruny Island on rafts, they walked the South Coast Track for familial obligations with the North West Tribe, Sensibly, they walked around the mountain—as they would have walked around lakes and impenetrable thickets, so the top of the mountain was highland backcountry for them, but a saddle can become a faster track to more distant parts of the estate, north and west, and they crossed over, with the two most useful, likely paths what are now Jefferies Track and the Lenah Valley Track.
What about the Mountain? We know they went up there. They left stone tool material scattered about in several places in Lenah Valley. They camped up there above the Springs, where there are several caves. In the Mountain’s northern foothills, mid-slope on the Goat Hills—Freycinet came upon a collection of 14 shelters. In summer, they climbed the Mountain, camped in its caves and for adventure it is imaginable that they scaled parts of the Organ Pipes. Probably, there are more sites. Aboriginal cultural heritage experts are confident that the records of aboriginal occupation are up the Mountain too, waiting to be found.
Up there they probably would have sought the mountainsides’ fattest does, its plumpest possums for their warmer winter coats, its hardest, sharpest stones, its clearest waters, its strongest spearwood, its sweetest nectars. The Tasmanian historian Bonwick noted ‘the wax clusters of Mt. Wellington’ among the fruits and berries consumed. They may also have harvested up there mountain lilies. At each of its climes, Rodney Dillon says, were foraged diverse medicinal ingredients. We know they practiced fire-stick farming in the foothills and all over the back of the Mountain.
“The Aborigines who trod these lands before me had a name for the sound tree trunks make when they rub together the breeze, retakunna. There is no word for it in the English language.”
The Mountain was the coolest place on the hottest days, its Springs never ran dry and its dampest rainforests never caught alight. It is probable therefore, in the case of a catastrophic bushfire, that Muwinina would have retreated to its wettest gullies, for these refugia could not burn. In more ancient times, the Mountain’s sides never fully froze like the other glaciated peaks. The mountain—the entire range—was also a fine viewing place.
At dusk the shadows lengthened and the people witnessed the mountain’s silhouette deepen and the fires of the stars extinguish in the western sky behind the Pinnacle.
When a life ended, Woorady told Robinson the Muwinina—unusually for Palawa—interred their dead. After the body was prepared by cutting down each limb, it was enclosed in bark and put underground [perhaps, as other Tasmanian tribes did, in a natural grave made by the uprooting of a large tree]. They then raised a heap of stones on the spot, and funeral rites were chanted from midnight till dawn.
What of the Mountain itself, what for a place that is the highest in all your country, which is in sight from almost everywhere and from where you can see everything: what for a place not just ever-present but all-powerful?
The Mountain is more than rock. Like all of Lutriwitta, the Mountain has existed from the beginning of time. It was put in place by creation ancestors. Laller made the Mountain. It is a living entity and it is life-giving. And it is kin. It is connected to the sea and to the sky and its streams. And it is inhabited.
As well as by the ghosts of the Muwinina themselves, the Mountain isinhabited by a range of lesser, but nevertheless likely ill-natured, spirits. Them who lurk in dark, foreboding places such as the mimi-like ones found in clefts of rock, those elf-like ones fond of the recesses of dark forests, and them who hover in the mist that sits on top of all mountains—Francis Nixon learned from Joseph Milligan.
This other-worldly presence could explain why there may be few artefacts of occupation on the Mountain’s upper slopes to be found. (Cursory investigation at the summit in the 1990s failed to find any evidence of occupation.) Perhaps the tribe feared the Mountain. “Thunder and lightning [parperdy] came from the Big Hill”, Therese Sainty told us. Rodney Dylan tells that the source is the two caves. In another telling, out behind the Mountain is the creator ancestor Culla~Minna, set as stone.
Also, the Mountain is a sacred landscape to which, after you die, your spirit will travel.
“I have always been taught that the mountain system that you connect with the most is the place where your spirit will go when it’s time to leave and to enter to the spirit world. For that reason, I don’t often walk on the mountain, knowing that that’s where I’ll go when I need to.”
Thus for hundreds of generations was life lived under the Mountain, thus until the dropping of the anchors of the European investigators and in their wake the English invaders.
From the sea, all along the southern rangers the French explorer Baudin witnessed smoke from fires. It appears highly likely that this burning occurred on the Mountain, almost to the Pinnacle. Freycinet confirmed this when he spent a day following the Muwinina across the back of the mountain, they igniting fire fronts all the way they went.
Matthew Flinders in 1801 noted in his Observations on the coast of Van Diemen’s Land that ‘From appearances it seems that the south-east part of Van Diemen's Land is tolerably well inhabited.’ Rowing to shore he made several attempts to meet the Muwinina, but “Once only, in the upper part of the river, were we able to overcome their efforts to avoid us. Two women ran off screaming, but a man stayd to receive Mr. Bass and myself. He was a short, slight made man, of the middle age. His countenance was more expressive of benignity and intelligence … and his hair was either cut or burnt very close. Our firearms were neither objects of curiosity or alarm and the only part of our dress that attracted his attention were the red handkerchiefs about our necks. He understood none of the dialects spoken in the neighbourhood Port Jackson or the common words of the Otaheitean language. He carried two small spears in his hand but seemed to be devoid of fear. He accepted a swan that was presented to him with great joy.”
George Augustus Robinson was informed by Wooreddy that as soon as the first English ships anchored at Nippaluna the people, startled, went up the mountain to watch from a safe distance the “devils” come ashore, descended to watch what the white people did, then quickly took paths in several directions to inform the surrounding bands of the news. They too came and looked—seemingly unnoticed.
For the first three years, relations were cordial. Small parties would visit the settlement. Trade commenced. Kelp and crayfish for potatoes and bread. But watering parties were warned and threatened if they strayed from their settlement. Cornstacks were burned in reprisal. Kangaroos were the bone of contention. And the defence of hunting grounds, punitive action and reprisals led both sides into open war.
Still, the parallels are striking. The people of long ago were like us joyful and lived and probably thought like us, explored the mountain, exploited it, had different names for it, drank of its waters, ate of its riches, admired it as we still can today, for unlike the coastal plains, the Mountain’s slopes and high echelons remain much as they have stood for millennia.
That which is steeped in deep time is to be admired and respected; however, what matters at least as much—and in this history arguably more so—are the cultural practices of the living community. Aboriginal culture is, of course, more than sites, more than stones and bones: it is also about the journey, beliefs and practices. Its cultural significance exists in the past, the present and the future. Aboriginal guides now lead people on cultural tours of their Mountain. Aboriginal artists have painted it. The South West Platform at the Pinnacle introduces the significance of the area for Aboriginal people prior to European settlement, and for contemporary Palawa.
That of the Muwinina themselves, as a social organisation, not one hearth survives, is a tragic thing, but not the end. The nearest descendants, the palawa/pakana, in their stead, through elder Aunty Cheryl Mundy trimanya wrote that they are ‘culturally responsible and compelled to heal and protect the health of the lands, waterways and skies’. When setting foot on this country today, Palawa greet the Mountain and its waters as they would a friend or neighbour, calling out “Ya Kunanyi!”
“Tasmanian Aborigines desire re-empowerment in land management … to continue relationships with land that has not been despoiled – much of which is in national parks.”
Starting from the position that the mountain rightfully—and not just traditionally—belongs to them; that the current boundaries of Wellington Park are inappropriate and insufficient; that their title was never ceded: they seek to have the Mountain declared an Aboriginal Protected Area. They want its night skies and nocturnes protected from the white lights of the city. They want their food, medicine and ceremonial resources on the Mountain protected: they want cultural burning fires.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre strenuously opposed the proposal to build a cable car up the mountain and a visitor centre at the Pinnacle as well as the Springs Zipline development because they want the Mountain’s sacred landscape protected from the world of developers who would commodify it.
Because the track network enables the Palawa of today to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors, it too has value and great cultural significance.
One hundred and twenty seven years after EPD, in 2026, plotting the future of the Mountain, the state government’s Our Mountain’s Future strategic review (and the community survey that informed it) contained many, many references to the ‘immense cultural significance’ of the Mountain to the Palawa. The Mountain is a ‘living cultural landscape with deep significance for Aboriginal people’ and ‘deeply sacred to Aboriginal people’. The Action Plan lists many actions to protect and celebrate these values. An Aboriginal person will be appointed to the Mountain’s new management board. Tasmanian Aboriginal Cultural Awareness training for business operators will be created and the Indigenous Ranger Program will be enriched. New signage and trail names will be adopted, perhaps an Aboriginal Cultural Interpretation trail. Special protection can be given to its most significant features, which includes the Octopus Tree.
HERITAGE VALUES
The South West Platform at the Pinnacle introduces the significance of the area for Palawa nations.
Muwinina Country exhibits aesthetic, social and spiritual values. These values are most significant to Aboriginal Peoples but also to others, and the Park’s management plan makes this clear.
“For Aboriginal people, Kunanyi’s Aboriginal heritage significance is as one deeply sacred and spiritual Aboriginal Cultural landscape since time immemorial. It remains both a physical and spiritual sanctuary where Aboriginal people can go to connect with Country, culture and the concepts of creation handed down by our ancestors”
HERITAGE assessments
The Mountain is an indigenous cultural landscape of high significance to Tasmanians, very high local significance to all Hobartians, and to indigenous Tasmanians even higher so.
For more than a decade, Palawa leaders have reiterated their view that the Mountain is very significant and has very high cultural significance. Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania Chairman Rodney Dillon: "It’s got a significance in the change of its shape, whether it’s snowing or blowing, or whether it’s raining or really hot. The shape of it, the face of it, the way the clouds hang around it, when the mountain changes colour, by the colour of the mountain you can tell what the weather is doing.”
The National Heritage Commission investigation into the nomination of Wellington Park concluded in 2002 that the Park is of national estate heritage significance, and part of that significance is the possibility of “the existence of Indigenous cultural values of national estate significance in this place.”
This indigenous significance has been recognised by the state government in Our Mountain’s Future. Alas, indigenous significance is difficult to get recognised at the local heritage level because the Tasmanian Planning Scheme specifically excludes it from consideration except in a very generic way. The significance must be demonstrated at the state threshold. At that level, under the current legislation, there is no landscape recognition option.
references
Country, Culture, People (City of Hobart 2025)
The Aboriginal Tasmanians by Lyndall Ryan (Allen and Unwin 1996)
First Tasmanians: A Deep History by Shayne Breen (MUP 2025)
Our Mountain’s Future Strategic Review (State Government of Tasmania 2026)
Aboriginal Heritage Wellington Park Management Trust (webpage)