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    • The People of Budj Bim
    • The People of Gariwerd
    • Recreating the Country
    • Gariwerd - Reflecting on the Grampians
    • Daylesford Nature Diary
    • Daughter of Two Worlds
    • Central Highlands Walk & Ride Circuits
    • Goldfields Track Walk or Ride Guide
    • My Father's Son & Tomorrow
    • Sustainably Managing Private Native Forests – a guide for Victorian landowners
    • A Fortunate Accident
    • William Barak - Bridge builder of the Kulin
    • Adding Value to the Farmers' Trees
    • Bureaucracy Blues & Alpha Jerk
    • Perpetual Calendar
  • ESSAYS
    • Cultural burning
    • Raising A Green Wood Shed
    • Reimagining and reinventing our culture
    • Aboriginal standing stones
    • The slaughter of trees
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William Barak – Bridge builder of the Kulin
By Gib Wettenhall

This booklet was commissioned by the Victorian Government when the 525 metre long William Barak footbridge was built in 2006, connecting Birrarung Mar on the Yarra riverside to the MCG Stadium.

A true Aboriginal leader and hero, this booklet tells his incredible story clearly and simply.  It includes many photos and illustrations of his artwork and would be ideal for students. 

Born near the Yarra, Barak was present when Tasmanian pastoralist John Batman rowed up the Yarra River into history, beginning a traumatic series of events that was to forever change the Kulin’s way of life. As a boy, Barak was a witness to Australia’s first and only attempt to create a treaty between European settlers and Aboriginal clan leaders.

Sixty-five years later at the turn of a new century, William Barak was the most famous Aboriginal person in Victoria. He had led his people to a land they could call their own at Coranderrk near Healesville.

As a politically astute Kulin leader and an artist painting about Aboriginal subjects in a European style, he was one of the few Aboriginal people to have an impact on public consciousness in the nineteenth century.

Lionised by Melbourne’s press as ‘King of the Yarra Tribe’, he had become a bridge between the new arrivals and the original Aboriginal inhabitants.  Naming a bridge by the Yarra River after William Barak is a fitting tribute. This, after all, was once the land of his people, and he played a crucial diplomatic role in ensuring the Kulin retained a foothold within their territory well into the 20th century.

OUT of PRINT

$12.99 
24pp
Illustrated throughout
Published 2006. Soft cover, 210mm X 210mm
ISBN 0 9577131 5 0

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em PRESS Publishing specialises in Australian landscapes and their historical and cultural contexts. em PRESS is particularly interested in fusing Indigenous, European settler and nature-based readings of the landscape to provide a truer view of our country.