Across Australia, we are seeing a slow (yet steady) momentum growing around dual naming iconic places with their original Indigenous names – and now, for all of us in Sydney, there’s a special place close to home that could be next in line. Enter: the Blue Mountains.
The NSW Geographical Names Board is currently in the process of discussing whether or not to change the name of a certain section of the Blue Mountains (read: not the whole thing) to ‘Gulumada’. This area is the traditional land of the Darug people, and has been in their custodianship for 50,000 years.
The name choice of ‘Gulumada’ is the product of a discovery made by historian Grace Karskens in 2017, when she stumbled across a document from 1829 detailing 178 original Indigenous names for significant sites across the Hawkesbury region in Sydney’s north-west. Galumada was just one of the names revealed on the list, with Windsor revealed to have once been called ‘Bulyayorang’ and Sackville, ‘Dorumbolooa’ – amongst many others.
If the choice is made, and Gulumada goes through, this change would be a dual name, meaning that it would coexist alongside the English one. In Sydney, we have recently seen the renaming and returning of Me-Mel, once known as Goat Island in Sydney Harbour to traditional owners, while over in Narooma, famous Montague Island was given the dual name ‘Barunguba’ just last week. Cape Byron looks like it could be up next, with an imminent change to ‘Walgun’.
With Fraser Island being officially renamed K’gari (a welcome change, when you look at the dark history of how the island got its name) and Ben Boyd National Park on NSW’s South Coast getting renamed Beowa National Park (Ben Boyd was a known slave trader), this past year has shown a national movement towards recognising the land's Indigenous history, while still keeping our shared past, present and narratives alive.
This is nicely summed up in the words of David Harris, the NSW Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Treaty to the Sydney Morning Herald:
“As I see it, it’s about building more meaning, and being accepting of everything that’s happened, rather than having a narrow view of history”.
“We’ve got to acknowledge the good, bad and ugly. We’re an interesting, multicultural place, and it’s a good thing when our place names reflect that.”