Aboriginal Australian TraditionsSacred Site
Bunjil's Shelter
A rock shelter in the Black Range near Stawell, Victoria, on Djab Wurrung Country, holding the only known rock painting of Bunjil.
About Bunjil's Shelter
Bunjil in the rock
Bunjil's Shelter, in the Black Range Scenic Reserve about ten kilometres south of Stawell in western Victoria, holds a painting of a figure understood as Bunjil, with two dogs, the only rock painting of Bunjil known. The site is on Djab Wurrung Country and is significant to the Djab Wurrung and other Kulin and neighbouring peoples; Bunjil is also said to have sheltered in the Gariwerd (Grampians) region.
Protection
The painting is protected behind a grille, and the site is managed as a heritage place. Visitors are asked to treat it with respect. Research on the painting has considered its age and the way it has been retouched over time, but its meaning is for its custodians to explain.
Part of a wider landscape
Bunjil's Shelter lies near Gariwerd, a region rich in rock art sites managed with Traditional Owners, and near the Brambuk cultural centre at Halls Gap, where Aboriginal communities of the region share aspects of their culture with visitors.
On the map
Bunjil's Shelter among other places of the Aboriginal Australian Traditions.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Rock Art Research, 'Bunyip, Bunjil and mother-in-law avoidance'
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.