Tarndanyangga Kaurna Yerta

“This is the Red Kangaroo Dreaming place of the Kaurna people. It was an important place for the Kaurna long before the City of Adelaide was established. The Adelaide Park Lands and Squares are part of this place and hold special cultural significance for us – the Kaurna people.”

Despite the COVID travel restrictions around Australia, IMA was able to run our first ‘pilot’ city tour in Adelaide with the Churches of Christ SA/NT. The tour was led by local traditional owner and elder, Frank Wanganeen. Also helping guide us was Billy Williams, a Gomeroi man and leader with the dhiiyaan community in Brisbane. They shared powerful reflections on all that we saw and heard on our experience in early May. It was a fantastic time that both honoured Uncle Frank, respected local Indigenous history and brought new insights and depth of understanding for those present. 

This ‘pilot’ tour took us to significant historical and cultural sites in the heart of Adelaide. From Pinky Flat, Pirltawardli and the sports and arts precinct, to the Aboriginal War memorial and Tarntanyangga (Victoria Square). We also travelled to the moving and reflective Colebrook Reconciliation Park. It is a powerful and poignant place associated with traumas of the past and the present. The day finished at the Kaurna Cultural Centre, hearing the Tjilbruke Dreaming Story of the coastal country. We also shared our reflections of this poignant day.

Indigenous Ministries Australia (IMA) is looking to work closely with Churches of Christ SA/NT, in particular with Peter Barney (State Minister) to develop these tours. IMA hopes to offer church groups and others a genuine, honouring and respectful way to listen and learn from our Indigenous brothers and sisters. This will provide opportunities to prayerfully reflect on our shared histories, and to seek healing together through our Creator God who seeks to reconcile us all to one another, the lands on which we live, and to himself.