Land Before Time

Artist: Lee Hampton

Nation/s: Wodi Wodi – Worimi – Yuin

Story: Before European Invasion, the Great Southern land of Australia was occupied by more than 1 Million Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. There was around 500 different language/tribal groups that made up these numbers.

Borders were drawn and understood between neighboring tribes, and the lands were managed this way for more than 60,000 years. It is said that time frame could be more than 100,000 years. Many Aboriginal people today will refer to Our Land as “Always Was, Always Will Be, Aboriginal Land”.

We were living on a Land Before Time, this refers to time being invented by white man, in a sense of, white man works to a scheduled time frame, where as Aboriginal people always went by the seasons. We took care of Mother Earth, and in return she provided us with what we need to sustain life. Although we will never again see the Land Before Time, we can remember the stories past down from one generation to the next, that have been told for tens of thousands of years, that show us how to care for our land.

Something that our new occupiers are yet to understand, and hopefully one day, we will once again see a balance returned to nature.