The Swallow Project (Bareetch Churcheen)

Research for the Bareetch Churcheen Project – PDF format.

The Bareetch Story was one I knew from my grandparents and community growing up and swimming in Lake Bullen Merri. As a child I always felt her prescence at the lake and I marvelled at the distance she swam carrying a baby on her back. This recording is my version of what happened based on my research and in talking with Gundijtmara people from whom I asked permission to tell the story. I was amazed that so few people knew about it when I came back here in 2001 and even more disturbed when after gathering people together who were talented and interested in dramatising and celebrating her story and obtaining a $5000 grant from ANZ Seeds of Renewal the project was sabotaged and shut down by key figures in the Community who said they were protecting Josie Black, the wife of Niell Black whose property was the one that prospered from this massacre. The Gunditjmara people I spoke with were for moving forward in the same way as myself and this story paving the way as a Reconciliation Project. I had always related to the story personally as it inspired me to move along after a difficult divorce and the responsibilities of being a single mother.   Little was known of Bareetch Churcheen and some of the accounts vary regarding the Indigenous men who survived . To me her Courage and Perseverence and drive to get Justice for her people is inspiring for Indigenous and Non Indigenous folk everywhere and it certainly deserves to be told and that Courage to be acknowledged .

Bareetch Churcheen, courageous heroine, escapes from Mt Emu Massacre of the 1830’s gets  justice for her people. Land-breaking in it’s time! Listen by clicking on the PLAY link below (in darker blue). This is my version of events as I know them.  Copyright Annie Keil-Taggart 2020, recorded by Howlin’ Wind.