[GIPPSLAND] Aboriginal natives of Victoria hop gathering.

[Melbourne : Anglo-Australasian Photo. Co., 1877]. From Caire’s photographic portfolio Views of Victoria (no. 50). Albumen print photograph, 150 x 205 mm, laid down on original card mount, 245 x 300 mm, recto with printed caption beneath image: Aboriginal natives of Victoria hop gathering; verso with series title and number, followed by a paragraph of printed text: ‘The growth of Hops has of late years occupied the attention of farmers in most of the colonies, and with the most encouraging results. It has been introduced with considerable success on most of the Aboriginal Stations in Victoria. Our illustration represents a group of Natives gathering Hops on the Station at Bairnsdale, in Gipps Land‘. A strong print with rich tonal range; sparse foxing to the mount.

Following the great success achieved by the Aboriginal community on the Coranderrk Reserve near Healesville, east of Melbourne, market gardening and hop growing were experimented with on other Aboriginal reserves and missions. This important photograph by Nicholas Caire shows Gunaikurnai men and women in their hop garden within the Lake Tyers reserve in far east Gippsland.

Copies of this image are held in the collections of the National Library of Australia and the State Library of Victoria.