Bunya Mountains Aboriginal Corporation
Shannon is member of the Wakka Wakka Nation. This country is represented by several clan groups and encompasses the traditional land and waters that surround the Bunya Mountains region of Southeast Queensland, Australia.
The Bunya Mountains held immense cultural and spiritual significance for Aboriginal people for thousands of years. They were a central gathering place for various tribes, particularly when the Bunya Pine trees produced their abundant fruit, roughly every three years. These gatherings were known as “Bunya Festivals”; and involved strengthening alliances via kinship, partaking in ceremonies, dispute settlement, and trade of resources and of course feasting upon the bounty of the Bunyas.
Many aboriginal tribes traversed vast distances, from all over Southeast and Western Queensland and Northern New South Wales would have been represented at the Bunya Festival, with estimates suggesting more than 3000 individuals participated.
Shannon is a Ranger Coordinator for the Bunya Peoples Aboriginal Corporation, who are guided by the Aspirational caring for country plan “Bonye Burru” published by a council of elders in 2009 of Traditional Custodians connected to the Bunya Mountains region. The Corporation “Looks after Country” using traditional land management practices particularly “Right Fire” cultural fire that has been used by indigenous people for thousands of years.
The three pictures below where taken in April 2025 when I met Shannon for the first time at the Bunya Mountains, where we walked through the forest and talked about his work and his interesting family history.
Shannon’s Dutch Heritage
Shannon’s grandfather Johannes Daniel Bauwens was born in Rotterdam op 24 May 1918, He was a tailor/ a cook, and ballroom dancer. He married Henriette Maria Maartje Weltevrede Boezaart , born 13 February 1923, in Rotterdam. She died on 25 January 2008 in Brisbane.
They went through the German bombardment of their city on May 14, 1940.
On 21 March 1940 a son was born named Johannes Daniel Pieter Bauwens.
During the war Johannes SR. was separated from his family and send to Germany as a forced labourer.
After the war Johannes SR. emigrated to Australia, in 1954 he arrived at the Wacol Migration Centre (former Camp Columbia) in Brisbane.
He also was an active member of the early Dutch community in Brisbane.
A few years later he established a hostel at Wilston in Brisbane, then the Pasadena venue in Alderley, Brisbane he then sold this he then started an Aboriginal hostel” Jodaro” at Newmarket.
Their son Johannes Jr. joined his father in 1956 then at the age of 16 and worked as a cook at the hostel.
In 1961 John Jr. married a Wakka Wakka women Sandra Ann Tobane. Born 10/02/1945 – died 04/01/2020 They had meet each other at the famous “Cloudland” ballroom in Breakfast Creek in Brisbane.
In the 1960’s , Johannes and Sandra went out to work in the mustering camps in central QLD, he worked as a cook, in the camps and hotels, also working on the railways, farm work, timber mills, and dabbled in opal and gemstone fossicking.
Shannon was born on 18 March 1978, second born Twin, in Brisbane.
Shannon’s Aboriginal Heritage
Sandra’s grandmother was removed from her land, (the Darring Downs side of the Bunyas) and brought to the Taroom mission, where she married Billy Tobane (from the Roma District, Goongari/Mandandanji) had several children one of whom was Shannon’s Grand Mother Phylis, the Taroom mission closed down, and all were marched to the Woorabinda Mission Centre in Central Queensland, where Shannon’s mother was born.
