The Jebribillum Bora Park (also known as Jebbribillum) is located on the south eastern corner of the

Gold Coast Highway Gold Coast Highway links the coastal suburbs of the Gold Coast in south eastern Queensland such as Miami, Mermaid Beach, Tugun, Bilinga and across the border of New South Wales to the Tweed Heads suburb of Tweed Heads West. At in length, ...

and 6th Avenue in

Burleigh Heads, Queensland Burleigh Heads is a coastal suburb in the City of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. In the , Burleigh Heads had a population of 10,572 people. Geography Burleigh Head is a cape () jutting into the Coral Sea at the northern mouth of Tallebud ...

, Australia. It contains one of the last intact bora rings on the Gold Coast, which is protected by the

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 The ''Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984'' (Cth), is an Act passed by the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia to enable the Commonwealth Government to intervene and, where necessary, preserve and protect ...

, 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, 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 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, also known as RSL, RSL Australia and the RSLA, is an independent support organisation for people who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force. History The League was formed in ...

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 Lands Administration O ...

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 Lions Clubs International, is an international service organization, currently headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. , it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members (including the youth wing Leo clubs, Leo) in more than 200 ge ...

. 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 ...

s performed by 35

Indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

who travelled from

Cherbourg Cherbourg is a former Communes of France, commune and Subprefectures in France, subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French departments of France, department of Manche. It was merged into the com ...

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

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 ( ), or Nganduwal ( ), are an Aboriginal Australian people of South East Queensland and the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, their territory lies between the L ...

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

ochre Ochre ( ; , ), iron 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 colou ...

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