The Jebribillum Bora Park (also known as Jebbribillum) is located on the south eastern corner of the Gold Coast Highway and 6th Avenue in

Burleigh Heads, Queensland Burleigh Heads is a suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. In the , Burleigh Heads had a population of 10,077 people. Geography Burleigh Head is a cape () jutting into the Coral Sea at the northern mouth of Tallebudgera Cre ...

, Australia. It contains one of the last intact bora rings on the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

, which is protected by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984, and the first Queensland War Memorial specifically dedicated to Indigenous service men and women, which is protected by the Gold Coast Local Heritage Register.

Bora ring

John Appel John George Appel (1859–1929) was an Australian politician, lawyer, and farmer. He served from 1908 to 1929 as a delegate for the electoral district of Albert and from 1909 to 1915 as the Secretary of Mine and Public Works and Home Secretar ...

, the grandson of a missionary, played a key role in the preservation of the bora ring from attempts at destruction. It was gazetted as a reserve (Reserve 782) by the

Nerang Shire Council The Shire of Nerang was a local government area in South East Queensland, Australia. The shire existed as a local government entity from 1879 until 1949. History On 11 November 1879, the Nerang Division was created as one of 74 divisions withi ...

in 1913 in order to stop the site from being divided into housing allotments. The bora ring survived further attempts to destroy it in 1929 and 1941. Later proposals to construct a sports ground or cattle compound on the site did not proceed, but the request of the

Returned and Services League of Australia The Returned and Services League of Australia (RSL) is a support organisation for people who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force. Mission The RSL's mission is to ensure that programs are in place for the well-being, care ...

to erect a small hall beside the bora ring was approved and did go ahead. By the 1950s, an earlier rail fence surrounding the bora ring was in poor repair, and the

Lands Department The Lands Department is a government department under the Development Bureau responsible for all land matters in Hong Kong. Established in 1982, it comprises three functional offices: the Lands Administration Office, the Survey and Mapping Off ...

reported that little remained of the site. In 1954, both the Queensland Naturalists' Club and the Queensland Anthropological Society formally refuted the claims of the Lands Department and publicly reported in newspapers on the bora ring's good state of preservation. They strongly lobbied its custodians, the local government, to protect what was increasingly seen as an irreplaceable and significant site. Their lobbying was successful, and the local government agreed to preserve the site. In 1962 reclamation work of the bora ring was undertaken by the Burleigh Heads

Lions Club The International Association of Lions Clubs, more commonly known as Lions Clubs International, is an international non-political service organization established originally in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , ...

. They constructed a gateway, a protective fence decorated with boomerangs encircling the site and a memorial cairn in the centre of the ring. A ceremony, which included five

corroboree A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the l ...

s performed by 35

Indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

who travelled from

Cherbourg Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...

, took place at the conclusion of the twelve-month project, when the bora ring was re-entrusted to the care of the

Gold Coast City Council The City of Gold Coast is the local government area spanning the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and surrounding areas. With a population of 606,774 it is the second most populous local government area in Australia (City of Brisbane being the ...

to be preserved.

Bora Memorial Rock

The Bora Memorial Rock was installed beside the bora ring in 1991 and has a special association with the

Yugambeh people The Yugambeh ( ''(see alternative spellings)'', also known as the Minyangbal ( , are an Aboriginal Australian people of south-east Queensland and the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, their territory lies between the Logan and Tweed river ...

. It is dedicated to Indigenous men and women who served in Australian wars between 1914 and 1991. The rock for the memorial was brought from

Tambourine Mountain Tamborine Mountain is a plateau and locality in the Scenic Rim Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , Tamborine Mountain had a population of 7,506 people. Geography The plateau is a , . The name is from the of Yugumbir language of the Wanger ...

, and the artwork of tribal totems was designed and painted with local

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

by Marshall Bell in consultation with the Kombumerri Aboriginal Corporation.

References

External links

* State Library of Queensland: Black Diggers Memorial Day digital story, 2009 {{coord, -28.07704, 153.44606, type:landmark_region:AU-QLD, display=title, name=Jebribillum Bora Park Australian Aboriginal culture Parks in Queensland Gold Coast Local Heritage Register Burleigh Heads, Queensland