Book Direct with the Owner at Yuranighs Aboriginal Grave Historic Site with Wagga Wagga Accommodation in Molong, for all your holiday and travel needs.
The gravesite of Yuranigh, Sir Thomas Mitchell’s Aboriginal assistant, is the only known site in Australia where Aboriginal and European burial practices coexist.
Located just four kilometres south of Molong and 32 kiometres north of Orange, Yuranigh's grave is a significant historical site which bears witness to important early interaction between Aboriginal and European cultures.
Yuranigh, a Wiradjuri man, accompanied early explorer and surveyor Sir Thomas Mitchell on an expedition into the tropical interior of Australia in 1846. When Yuranigh died four years later, he was buried within a circle of carved trees, according to traditional tribal custom. Out of respect, Mitchell also had a headstone placed over his grave. As a result, the gravesite contains a unique combination of Aboriginal and European burial customs that is not known of anywhere else in Australia.
Today, you can visit the peaceful cemetery and see a carved section of a trunk from one of the original burial trees, along with the original sandstone headstone donated by Mitchell, as well as a marble headstone that was later installed in 1900.
An interpretive sign explains more about the history of this site, while other signs contain diagrams of all of Yurnigh's burial tree carvings....
