Confronting the Bunya Mountains
My Scottish great-great grandfather Duncan Munro logged timber from Crows Nest, south of a sacred Indigenous site, the Bunya Mountains in South-East Queensland. Recently I found ‘Munro’s Camp’ in the Bunya mountains— a relation? I took my family to the Bunya mountains to find out.
Duncan Munro arrived from Scotland as a free-settler in Brisbane in 1859 in the middle of the Frontier Wars (1840s-1890s) when First Nations peoples were murdered, falsely accused of crimes, disrespected, and the population devastated from introduced diseases such as smallpox, influenza and measles. I don’t know much about my great-great grandfather’s life in real terms — or exactly where he logged — but I have found ‘Munro’s tramway’ north of Toowoomba (near Crow’s Nest) and a huge stately Queenslander home ‘Bunya Park’ that he built in Geoffrey St. Toowoomba next to a thicket of Bunya pines – now a public park.
Until today I didn’t know anything about the millions of years Bunyas have survived since Pangea and dinosaurs roamed the earth. I didn’t realise a Bunya isn’t a pine at all, but a rare surviving ‘ancient conifer’ of the family ‘Araucariaceae’ that include the Wollemi Pine – now famous for diverting extraordinary fire fighting efforts to save the last remaining individuals during the catastrophic black summer in Australia 2019–2020. And so precious that ordinary civilians are not even allowed to know where the Wollemi reside, lest they be killed by curiosity before flames.
Before today I knew nothing of the thousands of years of sophisticated farming of bonyi (Bunya) by local groups the Wakka Wakka, Djku-Nde, Jarowair and Barunggam. Careful periodic burning of the surrounding ‘Bunya Grassland Balds’ earned Darling Down’s tribes the name ‘Gooneburra’ or ‘the ones who hunt with fire’ by the coastal tribes. Multi-tribal gatherings at the Bunya forest every 2–3 years coincided with particularly large bunya nut harvests. Huge meetings were feasts where stories and songs were exchanged, corroborees and ceremonies (e.g. weddings), trade occurred and disputes were resolved. First Nations peoples would walk up to 600km for these events, from as far away south as Grafton, west as Charleville and north as Bundaberg. Some reports had visitors from Western Australia and South Australia! Each bonyi cone can be up to 10kg, producing up to 60 nuts.The nuts can be eaten raw, roasted or ground into a kind of flour called nyangti.
When I took my family to ‘Munro’s Camp’ in winter 2020, I discovered that it was named after the surveyor Hector Munro, who wrote about indigenous culture in the early 20th C., in both an intrigued/respectful and colonial/dominant sort of way.
Treasured Bunya Nuts. The personal possessions of blacks are usually not many, and in my time, as far as I could gather, the bunya trees were the only individual treasures. Each tree would be marked by its owner with his particular sign, and on his demise the owner of the property would bequeath it to his family. The territories containing the trees, of course, belonged to the various tribes, and the trees were greatly treasured by the blacks; who would never cut them, and took great exception to white men doing so. When the bunya nut season was in full swing feuds would be abandoned for the time being, and all blacks would be free to move at will through the precious country of the bunyas, but at the end of the season the armistice would end, and the feuds be resumed — ‘Dark Ways: Aboriginal Foibles’ from notes by Hector Munro, The Queenslander, 26 July 1928, p.6.
Growing up I knew that my strict Scottish Queensland relatives had built some of the most beautiful timber homes in the early days of white settlement. In 2016 I visited ‘Bunya Park’ with my husband, 1yr old daughter and 5yr old son and even put a geocache under a park bench opposite his house. We walked along Munro’s Tramway and tried to imagine the difficulties of pioneer life. Although I suspected my ancestor’s logging was directly connected to the destruction of Australian ecosystems and indigenous ways of life. I had no concrete idea of the horrific displacement and the irretrievable loss.
Today I took my husband, 5yr old daughter and 9yr old son to the Bunya forest for the first time. We drove along the ridge until we reached ‘Munro’s Camp’ and walked to ‘Carbine’s Chute’. Carbine built the chute in 1863 so that coveted red cedar could be logged and sent down the mountain. From 1863–1877 logging practices respected the revered Bunya pine and it was not touched. But, large gatherings of indigenous Australians were seen as a threat. When indigenous groups did not gather in 1878, the land was thrown open for selection and the great hoop and bunya and hoop pine were butchered and slide down the mountain side. After many years of frontier violence, laws were passed in the 1890s removing people from their traditional lands and relocating them on reserves and missions.
The last gathering of indigenous groups to the Bunyas took place in 1902. This and the forced removal of tribes severed cross-cultural exchange. A small mercy is that the Bunya forest was donated to the people of Dalby in 1927 in order that it be preserved for all times – at least saving some of this irreplaceable ecosystem.
My feelings today were big. I had gratitude that I could visit my ancestors places of work and enterprise. I was awed by the epic ancientness of these trees and their forest and I was horrified by the loss of cultural practices by the first peoples of Australia directly as a result of my people.
What to do now? Initially I felt that all the white place names needed to be removed and replaced by appropriate indigenous names (such as ‘Ayer’s Rock’ is now known as ‘Uluru’). Place names, like statues, demonstrate cultural dominance. I also felt compelled to try to bring red cedar back to the forest somehow… but realised how naive this thinking was. So, I will seek advice and recommendations on how help from the Bunya Mountains Murri Ranger and other cultural and scientific advisories.
I’ve read small amounts about how the Bunya forest changes throughout the year. From occasional frost and snow in winter, flame trees and fireflies in spring, water falls and bunya nuts in summer and autumn mushrooms and subdued hues in the autumn. I want to visit for the bumper harvest each 2–3 years in February. I want to begin my own ceremonies that acknowledge the role my family has played in the history of this place, to apologise, to try to absorb and experience the sacredness and ancientness of this place; to reflect and plan on how to do better in this world; and to dance and sing and have fun with community.
What can we learn from the Bunya pine the most ancient tree and the oldest continuous human cultures on earth? Can we build our respect, humility, resilience and integrity in this space? How does the past influence what we do to survive Australia now, in an era of catastrophic fire and COVID-19?
The weight of today was heavy, but rich, meaningful and life-changing. It was also delicious! We tried bunya nuts in a meat pie, a carrot cake, fudge. and biscuits. They tasted like something between a chestnut and a potato. I purchased a bag and our family hammered open the nuts and made Chilli using nuts instead of kidney beans.
My kids were in awe of the forest and joyful with the wallabies. We hugged trees and read their names. We drank coffee and hot chocolate and chatted to local and travelling folks who come to enjoy this place. I wondered how I could be a good Queenslander and a good citizen. I wondered about my grandfather Crawford being born in 1904 in Toowoomba to my great grandfather Robert. But also the falling out between Duncan Munro and his son Robert which left him penniless with the exception of ‘sixpence for the buggie ride’ – and lead to my family growing up estranged and disconnected in Sydney. I wondered about the other Munros who showed great interest in indigenous culture — such as Hector at ‘Munro’s Camp’.
The Bunya has had unprecedented resilience to extremes of climate and weather preserving them for over 200 million years. I want to build a narrative for my children inspired by the Bunya that acknowledges our past and imagines a resilient future.
30 Jun 2020, 12.10am
