The artist Digby Moran describes this painting as “Representing the track along the Ballina Coast with its scattering of pipis and stones. The lines can represent the flow of water and waves but also has significant cultural meaning for Aboriginal people of the local area. The background is inspired by the splattering of mud that we would cover each other with as kids growing up at Cabbage Tree Island.”
Bundjalung – Yugambeh
The traditional Aboriginal custodians of this Country are the Nyangbul People (also spelt Nhangbul), part of the greater regional Bundjalung-Yugambeh language chain.
This coastal path passes though areas where the Nyangbul People made camps and hunted and gathered food.
Todays descendants recognise important ceremonial and spiritual places along this coast, including Shelly Beach, Black Head, Flat Rock, Skennars Head, Boulder Beach (the beach of stones), and Lennox Head headland. This coastline remains a special place to continue traditional Aboriginal beliefs and recognise ancestral connections to Country.
The 2012 declaration of the East Ballina Aboriginal Place under the National Parks and Wildlife Act formally recognises the historic and contemporary cultural values of this land.
