The Wind in Victorian Indigenous Culture: Voice of Country and Messenger of Change
For the First Peoples of Victoria, wind was a living presence — a voice of Country, an ancestral messenger, and a guide to movement, ceremony, and weather. The wind’s direction, strength, and rhythm revealed what the land, water, and sky were saying. Across the southern Nations — including the Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri, Gunditjmara, and Taungurung — wind held both practical and spiritual meaning: it carried sound and scent across Country, signalled seasonal change, and spoke through the trees as a living language of the ancestors (Clarke, 1997; Norris & Hamacher, 2011).
Wind in Indigenous Cosmology
In Indigenous cosmology, wind is both element and spirit — a force connecting breath, voice, and life itself.
Many Aboriginal languages across southeastern Australia link the word for “wind” with the word for “spirit” or “breath,” reflecting the idea that wind is the movement of life-force through Country (Dawson, 1881; Howitt, 1904).
Ancestral Breath: Wind is described as the breath of the Creator, animating all beings and carrying songlines through the landscape.
Change and Balance: Shifting winds mark transformation — the passage between seasons or states of being.
Messenger: Wind carries messages between land and sky, ancestors and people, bringing warnings, blessings, or calls to ceremony (Clarke, 2007).
In this worldview, wind is never random — it is communication, a sacred rhythm linking human life to Country’s deeper pulse.
Names and Directions of the Wind
Victorian Indigenous groups recognised and named winds according to direction, season, and spiritual quality.
Among the Wadawurrung, Boon Wurrung, and Gunditjmara, each wind direction held a personality and purpose, much like totems or ancestral beings (Clark, 1990; Dawson, 1881).
North Winds brought warmth and fire, signalling summer’s height and abundance.
South Winds were cool and cleansing, carrying renewal and rain from the Southern Ocean.
East Winds announced dawn, beginnings, and ceremonial awakenings.
West Winds carried endings, reflection, and the voices of the departed — often seen as the path to the spirit world.
These directional winds were not only meteorological but cosmological, guiding travel, ritual, and moral law through embodied understanding of Country’s breath.
Wadawurrung, Kulin Nations, and Broader Connections
For the Wadawurrung people, wind was both physical and spiritual — the invisible presence of Bunjil, the wedge-tailed eagle creator, who controlled the air and the weather.
When people broke Law or failed to show respect for Country, Bunjil was said to release powerful winds and storms as warnings to restore balance (Clark, 1990).
The coastal winds across the Bellarine Peninsula and Corio Bay were regarded as voices of ancestral guardians, shaping dunes, guiding birds, and stirring the waters that sustained community life.
Across the Kulin Nations, wind formed part of a sacred balance between Bunjil (the Eagle, representing the sky and wind) and Waang (the Crow, representing the earth and voice).
Their stories describe how the winds were used to teach moral law and environmental respect — Bunjil commanding the winds to remind people that all life is interconnected, and that neglect of duty brings imbalance (Barwick, 2000).
Wind was thus both protector and judge — unseen yet always present.
Further north, the Wiradjuri people told of the Wind Brothers, who lived in mountain caves and released gales when angered or called upon during ceremony (Howitt, 1904).
In Yolŋu traditions of Arnhem Land, the wind-spirit Wäyin governs the monsoon seasons, bringing rain and renewal through songs sung to the southeast trade winds (Berndt & Berndt, 1989). Among the Noongar of southwest Australia, winds are woven into a six-season calendar — each wind direction marking ecological and cultural change (Clarke, 2011).
Internationally, wind carries similar cosmological meanings:
Māori (Aotearoa/New Zealand): The god Tāwhirimātea, deity of winds and storms, is both destroyer and cleanser — his breath representing renewal through struggle (Orbell, 1995).
Inuit (Arctic): Winds are spirits that guide hunters and carry the voices of ancestors across the ice.
Ancient Greece: The four Anemoi personified cardinal winds — Boreas, Notus, Eurus, and Zephyrus — reflecting the same universal idea of direction, power, and moral order.
These stories, both local and global, show how human cultures share a profound recognition of wind as the invisible teacher — the movement of spirit through the world.
Ecological Knowledge and the Winds of Country
Wind served as a natural weather and ecological indicator, informing when to hunt, burn, or travel. By observing how wind moved across water, trees, or smoke, communities could read subtle changes in pressure, temperature, and season (Clarke, 2007; Hamacher, 2012).
Fire and Wind: Controlled burns were planned around the behaviour of wind, ensuring safety and renewal of grasslands.
Migration and Seasons: Returning winds marked eel migrations, bird nesting, and plant flowering cycles (Gunditjmara traditions, UNESCO, 2019).
Water and Wind: Strong coastal winds stirred estuaries and lakes, guiding fishing practices in places such as Lake Connewarre and the Barwon River (Clark, 1990).
Healing and Cleansing: Gentle winds were used in purification ceremonies, carrying away illness and negative energy.
Such observations represented thousands of years of meteorological science encoded in story and ceremony — a partnership between human life and atmospheric rhythm.
Wind in Ceremony and Story
Wind features prominently in the songs, dances, and oral traditions of Victoria.
Ceremonial Dances: Movements imitated gusts and breezes, expressing the presence of unseen spirits.
Whistling Sounds: Instruments such as bullroarers and wind whistles reproduced the voice of ancestral winds, calling people to ceremony (Barwick, 2000).
Healing Rituals: Wind carried smoke from burning plants like cherry ballart and eucalyptus, cleansing both body and space (Clarke, 2011).
Dreaming Stories: Tales from across Victoria tell of wind spirits competing, courting, or shaping the landscape — metaphors for harmony and disruption within community and environment (Berndt & Berndt, 1989).
Wind, therefore, was not only observed but enacted — experienced through sound, motion, and ritual as a bridge between worlds.
The Physics and Metaphor of Wind
Indigenous observations of wind align with meteorological science — yet are expressed through relational understanding rather than abstraction.
Air Pressure and Flow: Communities understood how mountain ranges, ocean currents, and seasonal heat created prevailing winds — knowledge embedded in narrative, not formula (Hamacher, 2012).
Acoustics of Country: The way wind moved through different landscapes — from grasslands to caves — was recognised as the “song” of each place, later echoed in Indigenous music and instrument design.
Cycles of Motion: The constant circulation of air mirrored cycles of birth, death, and renewal; stillness was never absence, only waiting.
Thus, the physics of wind became metaphor — invisible motion revealing the unity between physical and spiritual life.
Impact of Colonisation
Colonisation disrupted the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the living breath of Country.
Clearing of Forests: Deforestation changed wind patterns, drying soil and disrupting ecological balance.
Loss of Ceremonial Sound: Suppression of song, dance, and ritual silenced the cultural expression of wind’s presence (AIATSIS, 2000).
Erosion of Knowledge: Meteorological understanding once passed through observation and oral teaching was dismissed as “superstition” by colonists.
Spiritual Displacement: Without access to sacred places of wind — coastal dunes, hills, or stone arrangements — the voices of Country were muted (Broome, 2005).
Yet, even under suppression, the wind remained a companion — a whisper of resilience and ancestral endurance.
Revival and Continuity
Today, wind continues to be reclaimed as a teacher and symbol within Victorian Indigenous cultural revival.
Language Renewal: Words for wind, breath, and spirit are being restored in Wadawurrung and Woiwurrung language programs.
Art and Music: Contemporary Indigenous artists and composers use wind instruments and soundscapes to evoke ancestral presence and Country’s living breath.
Cultural Ecology: Environmental management programs now consider traditional wind knowledge in fire planning and climate adaptation (Victorian Government, 2022).
Education and Ceremony: Smoke and wind cleansing ceremonies are reintroduced into festivals, schools, and cultural gatherings, linking past to present.
The voice of the wind — once silenced — again moves freely through Country, carrying stories of balance, respect, and renewal.
Conclusion
For the Indigenous peoples of Victoria, wind is the invisible lifeforce that binds land, water, sky, and spirit. It is both messenger and measure — the sound of ancestors breathing through the world. From the coastal gales of Wadawurrung Country to the gentle inland breezes of the plains, each wind tells a story of relationship and respect. Though colonisation sought to quiet these voices, they endure in song, ceremony, and ecological revival. To listen to the wind is to listen to Country itself — always speaking, always alive.
References
AIATSIS (2000). Settlement: A History of Australian Indigenous Housing and Culture. Canberra: AIATSIS.
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.
Dawson, J. (1881). Australian Aborigines: The Languages and Customs of Several Tribes of Aborigines in the Western District of Victoria. Melbourne: George Robertson.
Hamacher, D.W. (2012). ‘On the Astronomical Knowledge of Aboriginal Australians.’ Archaeoastronomy, 24, pp. 39–58.
Norris, R.P. & Hamacher, D.W. (2011). ‘The Astronomy of Aboriginal Australia.’ The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Cosmology, Oxford University Press.
Orbell, M. (1995). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Māori Myth and Legend. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press.
UNESCO (2019). Budj Bim Cultural Landscape: World Heritage Listing. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Victorian Government (2022). Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 – Guidelines. Melbourne: Department of Premier and Cabinet.
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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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.
