Lake Bolac stone arrangement

The Lake Bolac stone arrangement is an Aboriginal ceremonial site near the town of Lake Bolac in the Western District north-east of Hamilton, Victoria, Australia. At some stage, some of the stones were removed to make way for a road (now the Glenelg Highway to Adelaide).[1]

The basalt stones are arranged in two lines and are said to resemble a giant eel.[2] The stones vary in size from about 30 cm to 150 cm, with some possibly having been embedded in holes in the ground so as to make them stand upright.[3]

Lake Bolac, and the similar Wurdi Youang site, were identified as being Aboriginal structures on the basis that there was no counterpart among colonial structures and there was no evidence that they ever formed part of any type of fence or building.[4] Both arrangements are on land that had been owned by a single European family since first settlement and there existed no tradition within those families of the arrangements having been built by Europeans.[5] Massola utilised similar criteria to identify the Mount Franklin stone arrangement as a potential Aboriginal stone alignment.[6]

The importance of eels to the Aboriginal economy was recognised early in the sites history: Lake Boloke is the most celebrated place in the Western District for the fine quality and abundance of its eels, and, when the autumn rains induce these fish to leave the lake and to go down the river to the sea, the Aborigines gather there from great distances.[7]

The Lake Bolac Eel Festival is a community music and art festival held each autumn on the foreshore of Lake Bolac in south-western Victoria, and inspired by the fact that Lake Bolac was a traditional gathering place for indigenous people before white settlement.[8]

References
  1. Flanagan, Martin (2 January 2009). "The lady of the lake". The Age. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
  2. Aboriginal Affairs Victoria, Miniposters #10: Stone Arrangements Archived 2011-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  3. Long, A. & Schell, P., 1999, 'Lake Bolac stone arrangement (AAV 7422-394); management plan'. Aboriginal Affairs Victoria: 20-21
  4. Aboriginal stone structures in southwestern Victoria report to Aboriginal Affairs Victoria Sharon Lane Revised December 2009 Archived 2012-06-25 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Lane, L. and R.L.K. Fullagar 1980 Previously unrecorded Aboriginal stone alignments in Victoria Records of the Victorian Archaeological Survey 10:134-151
  6. Massola 1968
  7. James Dawson, Australian Aborigines 1881.
  8. Lake Bolac Eel Festival Archived 2011-10-18 at the Wayback Machine

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