Celebrating 100 Indigenous UNSW Law Graduates 100-Indigenous-Law-Graduates-Event_Booklet_V13_FIN | Page 34

34
Sydney’s Aboriginal people were divided into clan groups of
around twenty-five to sixty people, who traced their lineage through
their fathers back to a common ancestor. They shared totems and
had primary rights to their clan estate. The precise area of these
estates is not known.
We know that the connections of each clan through marriage
and ceremonial obligations linked them to areas far beyond their
individual estate. There were many languages spoken by Aboriginal
people across coastal Sydney.
cabbage tree leaves forming the roof (fig. 4). It is most likely that
they set up camp along the margins of the swamps rather than on
top of the open dunes, but we have no direct evidence to confirm
this. The swamps would have provided a range of foods and
resources, including fish, eels, tortoise and reeds for weaving.
The surrounding scrub also contained possums, the skins of which
were sewn together by Aboriginal people to make winter cloaks.
When Aboriginal people set up camp in the dunes, Aboriginal
people most likely slept in bough-framed shelters, with bark and
Fig. 5 Landscape in 1870s. John Skinner Prout c.1874 -1876.
View Near Botany Bay, State Library of Victoria
Fig.4 Augustus Earle, c. 1826. Australian native in his bark hut,
National Library of Australia