Taungurung country is much of Central Victoria, Australia – from Kilmore in the West to Mt Beauty in the north and Mt Macedon in the south.
When Taungurung country was settled and people were forced into missions, “we lost everything,” Aunty Lee says.
“We lost the the kinship system, our ceremonies, and our language.”
Aunty Lee built on the efforts of previous language workers, and with the help of the Victorian Corporation for Aboriginal Languages, made the first Taungurung dictionary. It took four years to make and Aunty Lee says that during that time, “I don’t think my mind stopped.”
“It became my passion. I would get up at 3.30 in the morning and do it. I was doing it seven days a week.”
Read more about how the dictionary was made on the ABC Open website, now archived on the Web Internet Archive.
Storyboard – Filming – Sound – Editing: Jane Curtis
