Murray Gold & Aboriginal Culture

The iconic indigenous fresh water Murray Cod has been an integral part of Aboriginal culture and a food source for over 50,000 years.

Another Aboriginal name for Murray cod, goodoo, is now regularly used by some fishers and journalists. In Aboriginal mythology, the Murray cod was responsible for the formation of the Murray River and its fish (Ramsay Smith 1930; Berndt 1940). According to legend, a huge ponde (Murray cod) burst forth from the depths of the earth at the source of the Murray River, which was then only a small stream of water trickling to the southern ocean. Ponde struggled along the narrow stream digging with its head and swinging its tail making the river deep and forming all the bends, billabongs and other features of the river. Nepelle, the Great Prophet, speared it at a site now known as Lake Alexandrina and with the help of the creative hero Ngurunderi, cut it into pieces and threw the fragments into the water, naming them tarki (golden perch, Macquaria ambigua), tukkeri (bony bream, Nematalosa erebi), tinuwarre (silver perch, Bidyanus bidyanus) and all the other native fishes of the river. When they had finished, they threw the remainder back and said ‘You keep on being ponde’.