Circular Projects » Gatherer

The traditional custodians of the land, the Boonwurrung and Woiwurrung speaking people, have lived as hunter-gatherers in the Point Cook area.

Women and children gathered indigenous plants for food, weaving and medicine, passing on the knowledge from each generation to the next.

The Boonwurrung and Woiwurrung people got most of their food from plants because it was a more dependable food source than hunting. They gathered the plants in string bags or baskets.  Seasonal fruits such as kangaroo apples and native raspberries were collected in woven bags or wooden dishes and shared back at camp. Greens included native spinach and pigface or karkalla, while wattle gum and banksia nectar were eaten as sweets.

Fibrous plants, including sedge and mat-rush, were gathered for weaving baskets, bags, eel traps and belts.

Blackwood, woolly tea-tree, sneezeweed (also known as old man weed and river mint) were used as medicine for a range of ailments.