Full title: [Stereograph views of Aboriginal sites in NSW], 1896
Author/creator: .
Date: 1896.
Call Numbers: PXB 1743
Record Identifier: 1JkPwexY
Language:
Formats: Pictures, Photographs
Contents: 6 photographs - stereographs
Publishers:
Notes:
Site 1 – Red Hands Cave
Red Hands Cave is situated in the Blue Mountains National Park near Glenbrook. It was gazetted as an Aboriginal Place in June 2015 and is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register. “Red Hands Cave is significant to the Darug [Dharug] Aboriginal groups and to other local Aboriginal people as being a ceremonial cave for initiations for young warriors. Red Hands Cave was named because of red, orange and white Aboriginal people's hand stencils located within the cave.
According to Aboriginal stories the cave was the abode of Aboriginal ghosts that represented the children left there by the Great Spirit. There are 45 hand markings both left and right and some of these are children. There is also documented evidence that there was a Bora Ring on the top of the cave… “ [State Heritage Register: accessed 8 Dec 2016].
Site 2 - Yagobie
Yagobie was a small village on a property with a rail stop on the Gwydir River west of Gravesend, NSW. The property was owned by the Maidens family. There was an extensive sandstone site at Yagobie used by Kamilaroi people to shape and sharpen stone implements, especially axes. Ethnologist John Fraser described the site in 1882: “Near Yaggabi on the Gwydir, there is a great rubbing place, which must have been used by the tribes around for many generations…Yet over at least two acres of this top there may be seen innumerable hollows made in the stone by the black-fellow when sharpening his axe; for as soon as one groove became too deep he would begin another beside it…” (JRoySocNSW. XVI 1882).
Anthropologist Isabel McBryde visited Yagobie in 1966 but was unable to locate the same stone working site (ibid). A Trove Newspaper search results in articles about lime and cement being excavated from Yagobie for use in building throughout the region after 1896. This photo shows evidence of quarry activity. Removal of the site may have also occurred because of the Moree to Gravesend rail line that was completed in 1900.
Site 3 – Slaughterhouse Creek
Isabel McBryde also described seven large boulders bearing rock art in the form of red ochre paintings at “Bravo” Station eight miles south of Gravesend, near Slaughterhouse Creek. Bravo Station no longer exists. A detailed description of McBryde’s 1966 inspection of the site is provided in her book Aboriginal Prehistory of New England. McBryde states that this was the only example of rock paintings known in the area of the western slopes of NSW – until another site was identified at nearby Graman in 1965.
Reference: Library acquisition file
Permalink: https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/1JkPwexY
MMS ID: 110581236
