Kamay Botany Bay La Perouse Headland & Bare Island Oral Histories
Recording stories of Connection to Country at La Perouse
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service
Trigger has been engaged in working with members of the La Perouse Aboriginal Community to record a series of oral history videos. These videos were recorded on Country at La Perouse Headland and Bare Island, within the Kamay Botany Bay National Park. To date we have recorded 5 videos over a 12 year period. This work followed on from our work in developing a Landscape, Architectural and Interpretive Strategy Master Plan. Trigger led a multi-discipilinary team of heritage consultants, architects and landscape architects for this project that integrated architectural, landscape and interpretive components.
Our first oral history video recorded in this series features Aunty Barbara Simms, Bidjigal and Wadi Wadi woman, and members of her family. She talks about fishing, tales of her life as a child on the mission and the changes in the landscape over time.
Three generations of Aboriginal Women talk about connection and belonging in a series of oral histories filmed on Bare Island. Sisters Marcia Ella-Duncan and Jacqueline Puckeridge, descendants of the Walbunja people of the far south coast of New South Wales and who have kinship connection with the Bidjigal people of Botany Bay; Marcia’s daughter Lauren Ella-Duncan; and granddaughter Zara Singh tell their stories and the way they feel when on Country.
Uncle Sonny Simms, Bidjigal man, is featured with his sister, Barbara Simms, a Bidjigal and Wadi Wadi woman talk about the dearly held memories of growing up in Laperouse and harvesting Mutton Fish at Pussycat – an inlet near La Perouse in Kamay Botany Bay. They also talk of being part of the stolen generation.
"It was how you lived, and how you had to live to get ahead and get a feed."
Barbara Simms, Bidjigal and Wadi Wadi woman