Water

The Waters of Victoria: Spirit, Flow, and Law of Country

(MLA Educational Series — History, Culture, and Country)

For the First Peoples of Victoria, water is not a resource — it is a living ancestor, a being that sustains, teaches, and remembers. Rivers, creeks, lakes, and rain are all expressions of one spiritual system — the Law of Flow, linking sky to soil, mountain to sea, and human to spirit. Across Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri, Gunditjmara, Taungurung, and Gunaikurnai Country, water holds story, ceremony, and identity. It carries the breath of creation, the songs of ancestors, and the responsibility of care for generations yet to come (Clarke, 2007; Broome, 2005).

Water in Indigenous Cosmology

In Indigenous cosmology, water represents the spirit of continuity — the eternal cycle of movement between sky, land, and sea. It connects the elements: the rain from sky feeds rivers, rivers nourish land, and the ocean breathes back clouds to the sky. This cycle is mirrored in human life: birth, sustenance, and return.

• Ancestral Waters: Many creation stories describe life emerging from water — pools, springs, or rain brought by ancestral beings (Berndt & Berndt, 1989).

• Law and Cleansing: Water purifies and renews. Ceremonies for healing and mourning often include washing in rivers or sprinkling sacred water.

• Movement and Songlines: Rivers and creeks are songlines — pathways of ancestral travel where stories, plants, and languages flow together.

• Guardianship: Each body of water has a guardian spirit; caring for water means maintaining relationship and reciprocity (Clarke, 1997).

Water is thus both physical and spiritual, always in motion, always alive.

Wadawurrung and Kulin Nations’ Water Stories

For the Wadawurrung people, water law is central to identity and Country. The Barwon River (Parwan/Barwon) and Lake Connewarre are sacred arteries of Wadawurrung land — storied landscapes where ancestral beings dwell (Clark, 1990). These waters carried life, trade, and ceremony between inland clans and coastal camps, guided by the rise and fall of the moon and tides.

Wadawurrung oral histories speak of Marrang, the Spirit of the Water — a being of balance who watches over flow, fertility, and truth. When water is polluted or hoarded, Marrang withdraws her spirit, bringing drought as reminder of responsibility.

Within the Kulin Nations, water connects all five groups — Woiwurrung, Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung, and Wadawurrung — through river systems feeding into Port Phillip and Western Port Bays. Ceremonies along these waterways honoured the seasonal migrations of fish and eels, the return of waterbirds, and the renewal of Country after summer burns (Barwick, 2000).

At the confluence of rivers — such as the Merri Creek or Werribee — water symbolised unity and kinship, gathering people as the waters gather.

Rain and Sky Spirits

Rain was understood as the returning voice of the sky, completing the great cycle between heaven and earth.

• Sky Beings: In some southeastern stories, rain is brought by the ancestral Rainbow Serpent, who bridges the worlds and carries the waters of creation (Howitt, 1904; Clarke, 2011).

• Ceremonial Renewal: Smoke and water ceremonies were held to call or thank the rain — uniting song, rhythm, and evaporation as metaphors of exchange between spirit and sky.

• Balance and Warning: Heavy rains or droughts were read as messages — reflections of imbalance in human behaviour or neglect of cultural law.

Rain was never just weather; it was communication — the earth speaking back to those who listen.

Water and Ecological Knowledge

Indigenous peoples across Victoria managed and read the waters of Country with scientific precision grounded in observation and respect.

• Eel Migrations: The Gunditjmara engineered sophisticated aquaculture systems at Budj Bim, using channels and weirs to farm eels — practices aligned with seasonal rainfall and lunar cycles (UNESCO, 2019).

• Wetland Management: Across Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri Country, controlled burns maintained reedbeds, ensuring fresh water flow and bird breeding grounds.

• Springs and Wells: Freshwater springs were protected as living beings — covered with bark or stone to prevent contamination.

• Tidal Knowledge: Coastal communities observed lunar tides, using them for timing shellfish collection and ceremonial crossings (Clarke, 2007).

Water literacy — knowing how rivers move, when fish breed, how rainfall shifts — was a language of sustainability refined over tens of millennia.

The Physics and Spirit of Water

Indigenous understanding of water integrates physical observation with spiritual insight.

• Evaporation and Cycle: The rising of water into clouds was understood as spirit travelling — the same water returning transformed.

• Flow and Resistance: The force of rivers symbolised strength and persistence; the stillness of pools reflected meditation and clarity.

• Sound and Presence: The sound of water — trickle, ripple, surge — was seen as Country speaking in different voices.

• Energy and Healing: Moving water was believed to absorb and release spiritual energy, cleansing body and place alike.

Modern hydrology and traditional lore meet in this same truth: water is dynamic connection, not possession.

Water Across Australia and the World

Throughout Australia, water holds sacred and ecological meaning:

• Gunaikurnai (Gippsland): The ancestor Larn created the rivers by dragging his tail across the land, forming Lake Tyers and Snowy River valleys.

• Yolŋu (Arnhem Land): Water songs honour Barama, the creator of law who emerged from a spring, establishing order and ceremony.

• Arrernte (Central Australia): Sacred soakages and claypans mark the journeys of water serpents who maintain fertility across desert Country.

Internationally, similar reverence appears in every ancient culture:

• Māori (Aotearoa/New Zealand): Water, or wai, carries mauri — the life essence of all things; rivers and lakes are recognised as living ancestors with legal personhood.

• Hinduism (India): The River Ganga is a goddess whose waters cleanse karma and sustain both body and spirit.

• Ancient Egypt: The Nile’s flooding was the heartbeat of creation, celebrated as the union of sky and earth.

These parallels reveal a universal philosophy: that water is not property but relationship — the flow of creation through time and space.

Ceremony and Law of Water

In Victoria, water ceremonies were integral to birth, death, and renewal:

• Birth and Naming: Infants were introduced to Country through washing in river water, symbolising belonging and protection (Atkinson, 2002).

• Healing and Purification: Sick or grieving people were cleansed in streams or sprinkled with sacred water by Elders.

• Death and Spirit Return: The deceased were farewelled beside rivers, their spirits carried along ancestral waterways to the sea of stars.

• Fire and Water Balance: Many ceremonies balanced fire (life-force) with water (restoration), acknowledging the need for both energy and stillness in Country.

Such practices reinforced the Law of Care — that water, like spirit, must be shared, honoured, and kept clean.

Impact of Colonisation

Colonisation caused catastrophic disruption to Indigenous water systems and spiritual relationships:

• Dam Construction: Dams and irrigation altered sacred waterways, blocking eel migrations and drying wetlands (Broome, 2005).

• Pollution and Depletion: Mining and farming polluted rivers, turning sites of ceremony into industrial drains.

• Displacement: Communities were removed from riverbanks and coasts, severing their connection to ancestral waters.

• Cultural Suppression: Water rituals were banned or dismissed as superstition under mission rule (AIATSIS, 2000).

These impacts were not only environmental but spiritual — a silencing of the flowing voice of Country.

Revival and Continuity

Today, water law and ceremony are being revived across Victoria through partnership, education, and cultural restoration.

• Wadawurrung and Barwon River Restoration: Joint management programs now integrate cultural protocols and ecological rehabilitation.

• Budj Bim Reconnection: Gunditjmara Elders have restored traditional aquaculture channels and water flow under UNESCO World Heritage protection.

• Water Rights and Recognition: The Aboriginal Water Policy (Vic, 2022) acknowledges Indigenous custodianship and allocates cultural water flows.

• Ceremonies of Renewal: Festivals, storytelling, and replanting along waterways reawaken the living relationship between people and the waters of Country.

Through these acts, water once again moves in two ways — physically through the land, spiritually through memory and renewal.

Conclusion

For the First Peoples of Victoria, water is Country’s lifeblood — a flowing story of spirit, survival, and reciprocity.
It connects mountain to ocean, sky to soil, ancestor to descendant.
Every river, spring, and raindrop is alive with Law — reminding us that care for water is care for self, community, and future.
Though colonisation disrupted this relationship, its revival signals a return to balance — where water is once again recognised as the voice of Country.
To walk beside the river, to listen to the rain, is to hear the oldest story of all: that everything flows, and nothing stands alone.

References

AIATSIS (2000). Settlement: A History of Australian Indigenous Housing and Culture. Canberra: AIATSIS.
Atkinson, J. (2002). Trauma Trails: Recreating Songlines. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.
Barwick, L. (2000). ‘Song, Chants and Indigenous Musical Heritage in Victoria.’ Aboriginal History, 24(1), pp. 173–194.
Berndt, R.M. & Berndt, C.H. (1989). The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia. Ringwood: Penguin.
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clark, I.D. (1990). Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Melbourne: Monash Publications.
Clarke, P.A. (1997). ‘The Indigenous Cosmic Landscape of Southern South Australia.’ Records of the South Australian Museum, 29(2), pp. 125–145.
Clarke, P.A. (2007). Aboriginal People and Their Plants. Kenthurst: Rosenberg Publishing.
Clarke, P.A. (2011). Indigenous Plant Collectors: Botanists and Australian Indigenous People in the Nineteenth Century. Kenthurst: Rosenberg Publishing.
Howitt, A.W. (1904). The Native Tribes of South-East Australia. London: Macmillan.
Norris, R.P. & Hamacher, D.W. (2011). ‘The Astronomy of Aboriginal Australia.’ The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Cosmology, Oxford University Press.
UNESCO (2019). Budj Bim Cultural Landscape: World Heritage Listing. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Victorian Government (2022). Aboriginal Water Policy Framework and Guidelines. Melbourne: Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 September 2025)

MLA

Sharing the truth of Indigenous and colonial history through film, education, land, and community.
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Copyright MLA – 2025

Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.