Gundagai lore information

Gundagai lore is associated with Gundagai, Australia, a place of considerable reputed Aboriginal cultural significance, with both archaeological sites and anthropological associations related to sacred and spiritual beliefs of the local clan group and wider cultural associations.

The Gundagai area is part of the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri speaking people before and post European settlement, and also holds national significance to Indigenous Australians. The floodplains of the Murrumbidgee below the present town of Gundagai were a frequent meeting place of Wiradjuri speaking people from nearby regions. One indication of the ancient, sacred cultural landscape that is North Gundagai is the bora ring that has been identified close to town.^[1]

The location of Gundagai on a sizeable prehistoric highway, (the Murrumbidgee River), along with the significant and sacred Aboriginal ceremonial ground across all of North Gundagai, and other ancient archaeology, indicates it would have been an important ceremonial, mining, manufacturing and trading place for Aboriginal people before the arrival of the Europeans.^[2] As with all ancient sacred places, particularly within still continuing Australian Aboriginal culture, the sacredness of Gundagai's amazing Australian Aboriginal cultural landscape continues despite colonial and later intrusion.

Gundagai Aboriginal elders, Jimmy Clements and John Noble, attended the 1927 opening of the new Federal Parliament House in Canberra by the Duke of York (later George VI.) Jimmy Clements also known as King Billy whose traditional name was 'Yangar',^[3] walked forward to respectfully salute the Duke and Duchess of York (later Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother), and after that the two elders were formally presented to the Royal couple as prominent citizens of Australia.^[4]