page_title: Budj Bim
section_title: Historic and cultural significance
hierarchical_section_title: Budj Bim / Historic and cultural significance
caption_attribution_description: English: Lake Surprise, Budj Bim ‐ Mt Eccles National Park, Victoria, Australia
context_page_description: Budj Bim, also known as Mount Eccles, is a dormant volcano near Macarthur in southwestern Victoria, Australia. It lies within the geologically-defined area known as the Newer Volcanics Province, which is the youngest volcanic area in Australia and stretches from western Victoria to south-eastern South Australia.
  It is situated within the Budj Bim National Park. Budj Bim is the Gunditjmara name, meaning "High Head". The roughly conical peak rises 178 metres. The peak is a scoria hill that was thrown up beside a group of three overlapping volcanic craters that now contain Lake Surprise. A line of smaller craters and scoria cones runs to the southeast. Lava flows extend to form a shield volcano and are fed by several lava channels, or "lava canals" as they are known locally. This lava flow, known as the Tyrendarra lava flow, changed the drainage pattern of the region, and created large wetlands.
  Large areas to the west and south-west of the mountain have been heritage-listed. The Budj Bim heritage areas include the Tyrendarra Indigenous Protected Area, the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape, and the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape.
context_section_description: The volcano itself and the surrounding lava flows are of great historic and cultural significance. The creation story of the local Gunditjmara people is based on the eruption of the volcano more than 30,000 years ago. It was via this event that an ancestral creator-being known as Budj Bim was revealed.
  The Tyrendarra lava flow changed the drainage pattern of the region, and created large wetlands. From some thousands of years before European settlement (one of five eel trap systems at Lake Condah has been carbon dated to 6,600 years old), the Gunditjmara people developed a system of aquaculture which channelled the water of the Darlot Creek into adjacent lowlying areas trapping short-finned eels and other fish in a series of weirs, dams and channels. The discovery of these large-scale farming techniques and manipulation of the landscape, highlighted in Bruce Pascoe's best-selling book Dark Emu in 2014, shows that the Indigenous inhabitants were not only hunter gatherers, but cultivators and farmers.
  Many Gundjitmara people were moved into Lake Condah Mission, which later became a government-run Aboriginal reserve, which separated "half-caste" children from their parents, who became part of the Stolen Generations.
caption: Lake Surprise, Budj Bim National Park
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