Community encouraged to participate in Mount Dispersion celebration event
28 Mar 2022
Western Local Land Services has been working with the Culpra Station Landcare group to coordinate a celebration event to highlight the importance of the Mount Dispersion site and to explore options of how the history of the site can be carried into the future.
Apart from being a historical hub on the Murray River and a major meeting point for Aboriginal people, Mount Dispersion is the site of a colonial massacre sanctioned by Major Mitchell in 1836, in which at least seven unarmed and fleeing Aboriginal people were killed.
The Mount Dispersion site, near Euston, was gazetted as an Aboriginal Place in May 2020 due to the importance of its history to the Aboriginal community.
The celebration event is aiming to provide an opportunity for people to learn about Mount Dispersion and its cultural significance, being ‘more than the massacre’ and something that can be an act of reconciliation.
The celebration event will be held at the Mount Dispersion site on Friday 29 April, with stakeholders and community groups encouraged to attend.
Prior to the celebration event, the Culpra Station Landcare group has facilitated two workshops to gather ideas and suggestions, and to decide on the best course of action is for the Mount Dispersion site.
The results of the workshops will be announced at the celebration event, while the event will also be recorded in a documentary film by students from Melbourne University and RMIT University.
In the words of some of the Traditional Owners of the land: “We, the Culpra Milli Aboriginal Corporation along with the project management team, invite you into this project to share in celebrating, sharing and consolidating knowledge around the gazetting of Mount Dispersion as an Aboriginal place through an event aimed to act as an enabler of further culturally appropriate development options for the place.”
If you are interested in attending, please contact Charles Benson from Western Local Land Services on 0427 932 526 or Charles.benson@lls.nsw.gov.au.
Stakeholders involved in the workshops and project more broadly include the Culpra Milli Aboriginal Corporate, Western Local Land Services, National Parks and Wildlife Service, councils, schools and community groups.
Media contact: Charlie Whiteley, Western Local Land Services, 0428 679 974.