Tjilbruke spring and track down along the coast south of Adelaide pivotal to the Kaurna people's dreaming
The Tjilbruke dreaming monument by scultptor John Dowie at the Kingston Park in Adelaide suburban Brighton overlooking the Tjilbruke spring, part of the Kaurna dreamtime story continuing along the Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia.
Image courtesy Sustainable in Holdfast Bay and Kaurna Cultural Heritage Survey
The Tjilbruke spring site along the Kingston Park coastal reserve at Adelaide’s suburban Brighton represented great cultural importance and spiritual significance to the Kaurna people and to the wider Aboriginal population in South Australia. The permanent freshwater spring, bubbling away in the sand for thousands of years, once formed a freshwater coastal lagoon.
Tjilbruke was a pivotal creation ancestor for the Kaurna people of the Adelaide plains. Tjilbruke lived as a mortal man entrusted with laws of the land. His nephew Kulutuwi was killed as punishment for breaking the law by killing a female emu. Tjilbruke then carried his nephew’s body down the Fleurieu Peninusla coast into Ngarrindjeri country near Goolwa.
Where Tjilbruke rested on his journey, his luki (tears) of grief at sunset every night formed the natural springs at Kareildung (Hallett Cove), Tainbarang (Port Noarlunga), Potartang (Red Ochre Cove), Ruwarunga (Port Willunga), Witawali (Sellicks Beach) and Kongaratinga (near Wirrina Cove). Tjilbruke placed the nephew’s body in a cave at Rapid Bay and transformed himself into the glossy ibis bird, known in Kaurna as Tjilbruke.
The dreamtime stories indicated links between surface water, groundwater, lakes and rivers, cave systems, natural springs, thermal springs, rain events recharging the aquifers and, in drought, excess discharge allowing culture heroes to move with watertable changes.
The Tjilbruke dreaming track was marked by commemorative plaques erected along the Gulf St Vincent coast during the 150th anniversary of European settlement in South Australia, starting with the Tjilbruke monument at the Kingston Park lookout and continuing south to Rapid Bay.
Robert Edwards, curator of anthropology at the South Australian Museum, suggested that the Tjilbruke myth should be recorded so the visitors could read the legend. A committee, including Sunday Mail reporter Bill Reschke, called for public subscriptions and collected about $1,000. Local businesses and governmental authorities contributed to the Tjilbruke monument, five metres high and comprising five large gneiss stones, to represent the head, body and haunches of Tjilbruke with another stone lying across the stone knees to represent the nephew. It was designed by John Dowie.
In 2001, a federal government-funded reconciliation project with the city of Marion and the Kaurna community (Dixon and Williams clans) built a visitor and education centre for indigenous and non-indigenous people to come together and reconcile their differences in the now metropolitan suburb of Marion. The Tjilbruke dreaming story covered four council areas through to Rapid Bay and Cape Jervis.
