Butchulla Warriors’ Memorial wins reconciliation award
An Australian-first memorial created for a Queensland park, to honour Indigenous lives lost during settlement, has won a major reconciliation award.
Fraser Coast
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A Maryborough memorial honouring the indigenous lives lost during settlement has been awarded a prestigious award.
The Butchulla Warriors’ Memorial, which was installed in Queens Park last year, has won the community section of the Queensland Reconciliation Awards.
Butchulla Men’s Business Association, led by Glen Miller, was recognised with the overall Premier’s Reconciliation Award.
It was Butchulla elder Glen Miller’s moving speech at the opening of the Gallipoli to Armistice memorial that first got the ball rolling, years after he had first started talking about a memorial to the lives lost at settlement.
The Chronicle stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr Miller as he continued to campaign for funds to turn the memorial into a reality.
Like many of its type around Australia, the Maryborough Cenotaph erected in November 1922 by public subscription as a memorial to the fallen of the First World War, pays homage to Indigenous men and women who gave their lives in international conflict.
But it has taken 235 years to recognise Aboriginal men who died defending their country at home, during conflicts that arose from European settlement which began in 1788.
This was put right in Maryborough’s Queens Park on April 22, 2023, when what is believed to be the first memorial to Aboriginal men who died defending their country was unveiled.
Conceived by Mr Miller, a descendant of the Wondunna mob on K’gari, the memorial has three warrior shields with bullet holes as its centrepiece.
The story boards help paint a picture of the first unequal confrontations between Aboriginal men carrying spears and European settlers packing guns.
The acknowledgment on monuments in almost every town in Australia of Aboriginal men who joined the armed services and fought defending Australia in overseas conflicts alongside their European comrades, are now matched by a memorial to those who gave their lives defending their homeland – at home.
Tens of thousands of dollars were raised by the community and then matched by the Fraser Coast Regional Council to make the memorial a reality, with Olds Engineering, the creative energy of Mr Miller and Robert Olds and two young apprentices bringing the project to fruition.
In August 2021, David Moon from the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia took aim at three wooden Butchulla shields to put authentic musket holes into them.
At the time, Mr Miller said it might be the first time in two centuries indigenous shields had been fired upon.
Those shields would be used to craft the metal replicas installed in Queens Park.
When it was unveiled, Mr Miller said the monument was not about apportioning blame or trying to make anyone feel guilty about what happened in the past.
“It is simply about recognising that conflict happened here on Butchulla country, the same as it did right across Australia, and that despite being at a disadvantage, Aboriginal men laid down their lives in resistance for their respective traditional lands,” he said.
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