Ancient Aboriginal tradition celebrating bunya nuts revived after 120 years 🌲🌰

An ancient Aboriginal tradition celebrating the harvest of the spiky, football-sized bunya cone is being revived on the Sunshine Coast — more than 120 years after the last traditional gathering.

For thousands of years, Aboriginal people on the east coast of Australia gathered to celebrate the harvest of cones from the bunya tree, araucaria bidwillii, which can grow to 50 metres high and produce cones that can weigh up to 10 kilograms.

These contain dozens of nutritious kernels, or nuts, that are high in protein and can taste similar to chestnuts or potatoes.

The bunya feasts traditionally held in the Blackall Ranges region of the Sunshine Coast, would attract thousands of people from as far afield as Victoria and Western Queensland and would involve corroborees, trading, sharing food, arranging marriages and resolving issues of law.

The last traditional gathering is believed to have been held around 1900.

The practice ended with white settlement and subsequent displacement of many Aboriginal people and the felling of Bunya trees for their timber.

The tradition has been brought back to life by Kabi Kabi elder, Aunty Beverly Hand, who re-established a new Bunya gathering in 2007 during summer, when the bunyas were in season and ripe.

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