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Stacey: For Aboriginal people the Darling River
has been the centre of their existence for over 40,000 years.
Aboriginal people depended on the river for food, shelter, medicines, trade and ceremonies.
Although land and water has changed dramatically in the last two hundred years,
a strong spiritual connection continues to this day.
There are some key places where aboriginal people meet to trade, feast and hold ceremonies.
One of these places is Brewarrina and it was here that aboriginal people built a series of fish traps.
They're estimated to be over 40,000 years old and one of the oldest manmade structures left in the world.
Bradley: I've lived here all my life, on this river. It means everything to me, yeah.
The fish traps, they're one of the oldest manmade structures in the world,
which were built by our people to catch fish.
All fish swim upstream and they built like a half a circle, there what you see,
and they swim up into them and our people used to catch them
with their hands or with spears, yeah.
So that practice is still used today by our people
but not so much with spears they usually catch them with their hands.
They mean everything to our people and, you know like,
it's like a spiritual contact we have with this place.
You know like I walk down here every day looking at it.
You know because I work just up here
and I live across the river and they're important, yeah.
Like they're important because they're old and like our ancestors built them
and sure they're important to us, yeah.
Back then it was like a shopping centre, like they'll get all their food from around here.
So if they didn't get fish, they'd rather get kangaroos, they'd rather get emus from around here,
yeah and the plants along the river would have, you know,
they would've probably provided, you know like medicine for our people, yeah.
It's our main food source, you know we've -
well naturally people need water to live and naturally people,
all people in this area love fish.
There's - we get the Murray Cod and we get the Yellow Belly
and even in the picture that we've got in a museum there's Silver Fish there too.
Fish is an important part of their diet and if you have a look at it,
a lot of our elders back then were pretty trim, you know. Exactly like me, yeah.
Our people always said the river and the fish traps and this,
you know like a lot of our real old elders told me that.
They said that no one owns them they're for all the different tribes that come here, yeah.
You know like we treasure these rocks, you know we love it.
We've got that spiritual connection with our land and especially this place, yeah.
This area means everything to me, yeah. It's like a marriage type thing you know.
It's probably better you know, like it's - I love my place and I love this, you know, yeah.
I'm passionate about my town and my people and my fish traps, yeah.
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