Any story set on Gunditjmara Country begins with the land.
It is striking: the volcano that once stood here active, called by the Gunditjmara 'Budj Bim', formed the land in the deep time. The soil is black and rich, from which spring verdant plains.
And woven through it all is the rugged volcanic rock, black and pockmarked, confidently strutting amongst the land where 30,000 years ago Budj Bim set forth rivers of fire.
Indeed, the story of that eruption ; because even in that deep time, the Gunditjmara were already there to witness it.
But the story of that Country is also ongoing, and Budj Bim's upheaval was not the last, or most deadly disruption the Gunditjmara would see.
A new SBS/NITV series, The Australian Wars, has been probing some of these histories.
Forest around Budj Bim in western Victoria painted by Eugene von Guerard in 1858, showing Aboriginal forest management.
'What crawled out of that boat wasn't civilisation'
By the 1830s, the invasion of the sovereign Aboriginal nations was well-established and greedily expanding. It has been called the fastest-moving frontier in western history.
Established settlements in current-day New South Wales and Tasmania pushed ever outwards, with many settlers in lutruwita crossing the Bass Strait in the hope of changing their fortunes (by robbing others of theirs).
The white colonists established Portland in the southwest of current-day Victoria, and it remains the oldest European settlement in the state. Located in the middle of Gunditjmara Country, the conflict between the owners of the land and the white invaders came swiftly.
It has been suggested the colonists' experience of the Black War in the south prepared them for the gruesome acts they would go on to commit on the mainland. In 1840, the Police Magistrate of Portland, James Blair, described the town as being populated by "the very dregs of society".
Settler diaries of the time reveal the blunt tools of the ruthless and bloody land-grab that was underway: find land without other white settlers, murder the inhabitants, and claim the country with fencing.
“It was their civilisation that they brought here," said Gunditjmara woman Denise Lovett.
"And they criticised us and said that we had no civilisation.
"What crawled out of the hole of that boat… wasn’t civilisation, and they had the audacity to talk to us about a civilisation."
Convincing Ground Massacre
Whaling was the primary economic pursuit of the whites in those parts.
A source of food for the Gunditjmara for millennia, whales were soon in shorter supply once the industrial scale of fishing commenced.
As elsewhere on the continent, competition for resources became the spark that lit the fires of many conflicts.
In 1833 (or possibly 1834), a dead whale washed up near the town of Glenelg in Portland Bay. The local Kilcarer Gundidj clan spotted the carcass and began their age-old process of stripping the animal of resources.
But it had also caught the attention of local whalers, who soon approached the Gunditjmara and began an argument over who had rights to the whale's bounty. The fight would turn physical, with the owners of the land casting their spears at the whalers.
They briefly retreated, before returning with firearms. It was reported in years after that there were only two survivors, and some have suggested that this is where the area's name, Convincing Ground, comes from: that the whites had 'convinced' the Aboriginal people they could not return.
It became the first, but not the last, massacre of Aboriginal people in those lands.
Protected by the land
The rough terrain of Gunditjmara Country was born of Budj Bim's eruption, before being moulded by the local clans into fish weirs and permanent homes.
They became known as the Eumeralla Wars, so named because of the river that spanned the area of conflict.
As the 1830s wore on, Aboriginal people of the area would strike at outposts and farmsteads, but the retribution was always fierce and resulted in many times the casualties suffered by whites.
The economy of the area became more focused on sheep farming, and the Gunditjmara made a change in their tactics. They had been focussing their attention on individual shepherds, but as the number of whites swelled ever more, they realised that people were replaceable.
Sheep were far more expensive to establish and maintain, and so their war became an economic one. Hundreds of sheep would be herded off farmsteads in single missions, to be found later by the colonists, killed or lamed. The settlers were enraged.
But for a time, retribution upon the Gunditjmara was limited by their skilful use of their Country.
The treacherous volcanic rocks of Budj Bim's eruption were extremely difficult to navigate (if you didn't know the right paths), and the Gunditjmara repeatedly retreated to the safety of this natural fortress to the frustration of the whites.
In this way, the owners of the land were able to stage one of the longest resistance movements of the Frontier Wars, with the Eumeralla conflicts lasting some 15 years.
Battle of Eumeralla Station
A number of Gunditjmara led an attack on a local farming station, stealing sheep, the major economic pursuit of the colonists.
His group made off with 1000 sheep. At the time, every sheep cost roughly £3 to own. In today's money, the Gunditjmara raid would have cost over $600,000 Australian dollars.
Though many of those sheep were recovered, Tarrarer soon returned with a much larger force, leading a band of men 150 strong.
But the colonists were also prepared this time, bearing guns and ammunition amongst the 25 men the station owner had assembled.
Tarrarer led several waves of attack, and though they were severely diminished by the whites' guns, they again made off with over 1000 sheep.
The station owner's men chased them, but again they were protected by the rocky outcrops of their ancestral land.
Native police
Members of the Native Mounted Police photographed on 1 December 1864 at Rockhampton.
The Australian Native Mounted Police Units were established across the continent, and continued to operate in some areas even into the 20th century.
Inspired by developments in South Africa, they were made up of Aboriginal men, but always under the command of one or more white officers.
The attributes that were central to the success of Aboriginal resistance (knowledge of the land, tracking skills, living off Country) were the very qualities turned against them by other Indigenous people, though recruited from Nations far away.
Though it is a bitter thought, it is perhaps a small wonder that decades into the European invasion, First Nations people were making desperate decisions with clouded judgement.
“They wouldn’t have done what they did if they had been in a right mindset, and their tradition," said Ms Lovett.
"You reward them with shiny (things) and make them feel important. Because they hadn’t felt important for a long time. They were victims of what happened to all of us."
End of a war
The introduction of the Native Police was a devastating blow to the Gunditjmara.
Though they continued their resistance until 1849, it was always on the losing side.
It's believed that around 80 settlers died; while the Gunditjmara suffered the loss of 6,500 of their people, from a total of 7000.
There are no memorials to the Eumeralla Wars. The first significant commemoration it received was from Yorta Yorta woman Deborah Cheetham AO, the famous soprano.
She composed Eumeralla, the War Requiem for Peace, whose haunting melodies represent the losses of the Gunditjmara, and the beauty of the land that long protected them.
Recent news that may change that, welcome news to the Gunditjmara people.
“The truth needs to be told, regardless of who we offend," said Ms Lovett.
"Because we’ve been more than offended. More than offended."
The final episode of The Australian Wars airs on Wednesday 5 October at 7.30pm on SBS and NITV, and will be available after broadcast on SBS On Demand.
