Yah pulingina Meena yah pulingina neena melythina.

Greetings! It is always a great pleasure to welcome you onto the land of the ancestors. Poatina is built on the ancestral lands that belonged to the Stoney Creek Nation. This nation was made up of at least three extended clans whose territories were defined by rivers and surrounding foothills in the hinterland. The clans were the Tyerenoterpanner, Leetermaireener and Panninher peoples who lived on the wide inland plains and beside the river margins for thousands of generations. They sat beside campfires under the Milky Way and retold timeless stories of their Coming into Being, their social and spiritual relationships with the land, sea, sky, waterways and the laws that governed their lifeworld. The ebb and flow of many seasons were marked by the flowering of trees, the movement of migrating birds, changing weather and although there is much that has been recorded and remembered, I grieve for what we have lost.

The people lived on their Country that spanned the area from the west side of the Tamar River to these foothills below the Big River Nation where the wildfires are presently raging.

Today, from the deepest valleys of my heart, I honour and pay my respects to the memory of the Stoney Creek Nation peoples. As far as we know, there are no living descendants who belong to this nation, therefore as a present day custodian, and on behalf of the voices of those who are now silent, and with permission of Aboriginal Elders and community members present, I welcome you to their lands.

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To our fantastic Poatina community and those of you who are visiting this place, I thank you for your sensitivity and respect of Aboriginal land and the acknowledgement of Terra Populous that reaffirms this country was indeed a land of many people.

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Aunty Patsy Cameron

January 2019