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  • Stacey: For Aboriginal people the Darling River

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  • has been the centre of their existence for over 40,000 years.

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  • Aboriginal people depended on the river for food, shelter, medicines, trade and ceremonies.

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  • Although land and water has changed dramatically in the last two hundred years,

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  • a strong spiritual connection continues to this day.

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  • There are some key places where aboriginal people meet to trade, feast and hold ceremonies.

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  • One of these places is Brewarrina and it was here that aboriginal people built a series of fish traps.

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  • They're estimated to be over 40,000 years old and one of the oldest manmade structures left in the world.

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  • Bradley: I've lived here all my life, on this river. It means everything to me, yeah.

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  • The fish traps, they're one of the oldest manmade structures in the world,

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  • which were built by our people to catch fish.

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  • All fish swim upstream and they built like a half a circle, there what you see,

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  • and they swim up into them and our people used to catch them

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  • with their hands or with spears, yeah.

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  • So that practice is still used today by our people

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  • but not so much with spears they usually catch them with their hands.

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  • They mean everything to our people and, you know like,

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  • it's like a spiritual contact we have with this place.

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  • You know like I walk down here every day looking at it.

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  • You know because I work just up here

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  • and I live across the river and they're important, yeah.

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  • Like they're important because they're old and like our ancestors built them

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  • and sure they're important to us, yeah.

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  • Back then it was like a shopping centre, like they'll get all their food from around here.

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  • So if they didn't get fish, they'd rather get kangaroos, they'd rather get emus from around here,

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  • yeah and the plants along the river would have, you know,

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  • they would've probably provided, you know like medicine for our people, yeah.

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  • It's our main food source, you know we've -

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  • well naturally people need water to live and naturally people,

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  • all people in this area love fish.

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  • There's - we get the Murray Cod and we get the Yellow Belly

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  • and even in the picture that we've got in a museum there's Silver Fish there too.

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  • Fish is an important part of their diet and if you have a look at it,

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  • a lot of our elders back then were pretty trim, you know. Exactly like me, yeah.

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  • Our people always said the river and the fish traps and this,

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  • you know like a lot of our real old elders told me that.

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  • They said that no one owns them they're for all the different tribes that come here, yeah.

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  • You know like we treasure these rocks, you know we love it.

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  • We've got that spiritual connection with our land and especially this place, yeah.

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  • This area means everything to me, yeah. It's like a marriage type thing you know.

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  • It's probably better you know, like it's - I love my place and I love this, you know, yeah.

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  • I'm passionate about my town and my people and my fish traps, yeah.

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