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FIGHTING WATERHOLES BURIAL SITE

Location

Konongwootong Reservoir KONONG WOOTONG, Southern Grampians Shire

File Number

207

Level

Stage 2 study complete

Statement of Significance

What is significant?
The Konongwootong Reservoir is the site of the previous chain of waterholes which were linked by Denhills Creek. It was here that in 1840, a hunting party of employees from nearby Kononwootong Station massacred a party of Aboriginal elders, women and children. The bones of those who were killed were buried in the embankment wall of the creek, but were uncovered one hundred years later in major floods. The remains of those who were massacred have since been reburied.

How is it significant?
The Fighting Waterholes Massacre Site is of archaeological and historical significance to the Southern Grampians Shire.

Why is it significant?
The Fighting Waterholes Massacres Site is of historical significance for the associations, and as the physical remnant of the final act of dispossession of an Aboriginal clan, the Konongwootong gundidj, from its ancestral lands by squatters in the earliest phase of settlement in the Western District. The burial ground is of particular archaeological significance as physical evidence of the massacre which took place on the site in 1840.

Group