Whadjuk, alternatively Witjari, are Noongar (Aboriginal Australian) people of the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain.
Whadjuk, alternatively Witjari, are Noongar (Aboriginal Australian) people of the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain.
The ethnonym appears to derive from whad, the Whadjuk word for "no". [lower-alpha 1]
The traditional tribal territory of the Whadjuk, in Norman Tindale's estimate, takes in some 6,700 square kilometres (2,600 sq mi) of land, from the Swan River, together with its eastern and northern tributaries. Its hinterland extension runs to Mount Helena and a little beyond. It includes Kalamunda on the Darling Scarp and Armadale. It encompasses the Victoria Plains to the north, the area south of Toodyay and reaches eastwards as far as York and a little beyond. Its southern coastal frontier extends to the vicinity of Pinjarra. [1] Their northern neighbours are the Yued, the Balardong people lay to their east, and the Pindjarup on their southern coastal flank.
The Whadjuk formed part of the Noongar language group, with their own distinctive dialect. Culturally they were divided into two matrilineal moieties:
Moieties were endogamous, and children took the moiety of their mother. Each moiety also contained two "sections" (or "skins"): in the case of the Manitjmat, these were Didarruk and Tondarup and for the Wardungmat, they were Nagarnook and Ballarruk. [2] [3]
The Whadjuk also preserved many stories of the Wagyl, a water-python held to be responsible for most of the water features around Perth. This may have been a cultural memory of an extinct Madtsoiidae python-like serpent, a water dwelling ambush predator, part of the extinct megafauna of Australia that disappeared between 40,000 and 20,000 years ago.[ citation needed ]
Coastal dwelling Whadjuk have an oral tradition describing the separation of Rottnest from the mainland, which occurred between 12,000 and 8,000 BCE, technically a post-glacial Flandrian transgression. [lower-alpha 2]
Like other Noongar peoples, the Whadjuk seem to have moved more inland in the wetter weather of winter, returning to the coast as interior seasonal lakes dried up. [5] [6] The Whadjuk, like many Noongar people, divided the year into six seasons. [5]
These seasons were roughly divided (rather than by specific date) and Whadjuk took account of environmental signals such as the spring call of the motorbike frog, in marking seasons. For example, the onset of Kambarang, or the flowering of the Western Australian Christmas tree showing the onset of Bunuru.
Whadjuk used high quality red ochre in ceremonies, which they obtained from the site now occupied by Perth Railway Station and which they traded with people to the east. [9] By repute it was traded as far as Uluru.[ citation needed ] Prior to the colonisation it was used to colour hair, which was worn long (in a style similar to dreadlocks). Quartz from the Darling Scarp was also traded with Balardong groups for the making of spears.[ citation needed ]
The Whadjuk people bore the brunt of the European colonisation, as the cities of Perth and Fremantle were built in their territory.
No doubt Whadjuk people had been familiar with Dutch explorers like Vlamingh, and the occasional visit of whalers to the coast, before the arrival of settlers under the command of Governor James Stirling. After a near disaster at Garden Island, a long-boat under the command of Captain (later Lieutenant Governor) Irwin was dispatched and met with Yellagonga and his family at Crawley, on the coast of what is now the University of Western Australia or by Mount Eliza. As Aboriginal women had been earlier seized by European seal hunters, Yellagonga subsequently moved his encampment to what is now Lake Monger. [10] [9] [11]
With the alienation from their lands due to settlers claiming land and fencing it off, Aboriginal people lost access to important seasonal foods, they did not understand or accept private ownership of their lands, which led to spearing of stock and digging in food gardens. Reprisals led to a cycle of increased violence on both sides. The first attempted Aboriginal massacre was the "Battle for Perth" when there was an attempt to surround and capture Aboriginal people who had retreated into Lake Monger. The area was cordoned, but the hunted people escaped. Once Lake Monger was settled by the Monger family, Yellagonga moved to Lake Joondalup. In 1834 this Wanneroo area was explored by John Butler, and in 1838 by George Grey. With the lands seized for settlement in 1843, Yellagonga was reduced to begging for survival, and shortly thereafter he accidentally drowned. [12]
The situation for Midgegooroo was even more precarious. Violence flared when it was said 200 "savages" were going to attack the ferry from Fremantle, and citizens armed themselves and rushed to the site to find nothing but a bemused ferryman. A Tasmanian settler shot one of the local Aboriginal men and Yagan, Midgegooroo's son and Yellagonga's nephew, speared a white in revenge. Yagan was arrested and sent to Carnac Island in the care of Robert Lyon who claimed he was a freedom fighter. Yagan escaped from the island in a boat, and waged a guerrilla campaign on both sides of the river. He was eventually killed by one of two European boys he had befriended and his head was smoked and sent to England, finally being recovered and returned home by Ken Colbung in 1997.
Following the Pinjarra massacre, Whadjuk Aboriginal people became totally dispirited, and were reduced to dependent status, settling at their site at Mount Eliza for handouts under the authority of Francis Armstrong. An Anglican school was established for a number of years at Ellenbrook, but was never very successful and was greatly underfunded.
Relations between the settlers and the Noongar people had deteriorated badly in the final years of Stirling's reign, with settlers shooting at Aboriginal people indiscriminately for the spearing of stock, leading to payback killings of settlers. Stirling's response was to attempt to subdue the Aboriginal people through harsh punishment. When Stirling retired he was replaced as Governor by John Hutt, 1 January 1839, who rather than adopting Stirling's vindictive vengeful policies against "Aborigines", tried protecting their rights and educating them. This ran foul of frontier settlers intent on seizing Aboriginal lands without compensation, who felt they needed strong-arm tactics to protect themselves from Aboriginal "reprisals". In 1887 an Aboriginal reserve for the remaining Whadjuk people was established near Lake Gnangara, one of a whole series of wetlands which may have, within the memory of Aboriginal people here, been a series of caves along an underground river whose roof fell in. This reserve was re-established in 1975. In addition to the "feeding station" at Mount Eliza, under the control of Francis Armstrong, first "Protector of Aborigines". Hutt also tried to establish an Aboriginal yeomanry by giving Aboriginal "settlers" grants of government land. The lands chosen for this venture were marginal and Aboriginal people were expected to make improvements without giving them access to needed bank finance, so the scheme quickly collapsed. Aboriginal campsites were temporarily established at many metropolitan locations including Ellenbrook, Jolimont, Welshpool and Allawah Grove. These sites however were frequently moved at the discretion of European authorities once an alternative use was found for the land (as happened at Karrakatta Cemetery, the Swanbourne Rifle Range and Perth Airport).
In 1893 the granting of self-government to Western Australia, specifically excluded provision for Aboriginal Affairs, which remained vested in the British crown. The state's constitution also stated that 1% of government expenditures had to be for the benefit of Aboriginal people, [13] a condition that has never been met. The Premier John Forrest unilaterally took control in Aboriginal Affairs, without an amendment to the constitution in 1896. As of 2016, Aboriginal people number 3% of the state's population, but number 50% of the women in Bandyup Women's Prison and of youth in detention in Western Australia. Many are imprisoned for the non-payment of fines incurred for minor offences. The number of Noongar youth in incarceration exceeds the number in school or formal training.
Daisy Bates claimed she interviewed the last fully initiated Whadjuk Noongar people in 1907, reporting on informants Fanny Balbel and Joobaitj, who had preserved in oral tradition the Aboriginal viewpoints of the coming of the Europeans. Fanny had been born on the Aboriginal sacred site that underlies St George's Cathedral, while Joobaitj's sacred lands were near the current youth hostel at Mundaring Weir.
The Whadjuk people were divided by the Swan and Canning Rivers into four residence groups, each with its own territory: [9]
Several Europeans in particular contributed to modern understanding of Whadjuk Noongar language and culture.
European settlers were initially called Djanga – a term referring to spirits of the dead – by the Whadjuk. This belief incorporated Europeans into the social structure of the Noongar peoples and was reinforced by several factors. To the Whadjuk, the settlers resembled dead people because they:
Work by Neville Green in his book Broken Spears has shown how Aboriginal culture could not explain the high death rates associated with European infections, and believed that Aboriginal sorcery was involved, leading to rising numbers of reprisal spearing and killings within the Aboriginal community. Coupled with the declining birth rates, these factors led to a collapsing population in those areas nearby European settlement. In addition to white killings and massacres in Fremantle and elsewhere, the arrival of Europeans saw many deaths from diseases to which Aboriginal people had no resistance. These were interpreted as sorcery within traditional culture and led to "pay-back" vendettas, which increased mortality of those in closest contact with Europeans. [17] [ citation needed ]
The Noongar are Aboriginal Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. There are 14 different groups in the Noongar cultural bloc: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wadandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari. The Noongar people refer to their land as Noongar boodja.
Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation after Thomas Smedley, another of Butler's servants, shot at a group of Noongar people stealing potatoes and fowls, killing one of them. The government offered a bounty for Yagan's capture, dead or alive, and a young settler, William Keats, shot and killed him. He is considered a legendary figure by the Noongar.
Heirisson Island is an island in the Swan River in Western Australia at the eastern end of Perth Water, between the suburbs of East Perth and Victoria Park. It occupies an area of 285600 m2, and is connected to the two foreshores by The Causeway and the under-construction Causeway Pedestrian and Cyclist Bridges. The next upstream island is Kuljak Island, then Ron Courtney Island, with no islands in the Swan River downstream between Heirisson Island and the Indian Ocean other than the artificial islet in Elizabeth Quay.
Wembley is a western suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the Town of Cambridge. Its postcode is 6014.
Beeliar is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Cockburn. The name refers to the Beeliar people, a group of Aboriginal Australians who had land rights over the southern half of Perth's metropolitan area. The suburb contains the Thomsons Lake Nature Reserve.
Midgegooroo was an Aboriginal Australian elder of the Nyungar nation, who played a key role in Aboriginal resistance to white settlement in the area of Perth, Western Australia. Everything documented about Midgegooroo is mediated through the eyes of the colonisers, some of whom, notably G.F. Moore, Robert Menli Lyon and Francis Armstrong, derived their information from discussions with contemporary Noongar people, in particular the son of Midgegooroo, Yagan. Largely due to his exploits in opposing colonisation and his relationship with Lyon and Moore, Yagan has a much sharper historical profile than his father. Midgegooroo was executed by firing squad and without trial under the authority of Lieutenant Governor Frederick Irwin in 1833.
Lake Monger is a large urban wetland on the Swan Coastal Plain in suburban Perth, Western Australia nestled between the suburbs of Leederville, Wembley and Glendalough.
The Bindjareb, Binjareb, Pindjarup or Pinjareb are an Indigenous Noongar people that occupy part of the South West of Western Australia.
Perth is the capital city of Western Australia. It was established by Britain as the Swan River Colony in 1829. The area had been explored by Europeans as early as 1697, and occupied by the Indigenous Whadjuk Noongar people for millennia.
The Pinjarra massacre, also known as the Battle of Pinjarra, occurred on 28 October 1834 in Pinjarra, Western Australia when a group of Binjareb Noongar people were attacked by a detachment of 25 soldiers, police, and settlers led by Governor James Stirling. According to Stirling, "about 60 or 70" of the Binjareb people were present at the camp and John Roe, who also participated, estimated about 70–80. This roughly agrees with an estimate of 70 by an unidentified eyewitness. The attack at Pinjarra was in response to sustained aggression by the Binjarebs, including robberies and murder of settlers and members of other Nyungar tribes.
Calyute, also known as Kalyute, Galyute or Wongir, was an Indigenous Australian resistance leader who was involved in a number of reprisal attacks with white settlers and members of other tribes in the early days of the Swan River Colony, in Western Australia. He was a member of the Pindjarup people from around the Murray River area south of Perth. Calyute's family included two brothers, Woodan and Yanmar, two wives, Mindup and Yamup, and two sons, Ninia and Monang.
The Mooro are a Nyungar Aboriginal clan, a subgroup of the Whadjuk. Their territory stretches from the Swan River in Perth north to the Moore River beyond the northern limits of metropolitan Perth and east to Ellen Brook. Evidence of Aboriginal occupation of the Swan Coastal Plain extends back more than 40,000 years.
The Beeliar Wetlands is a wetland located in the southwest portion of Western Australia. It is made up of two chains of lakes and wetlands that run parallel to the west coast of Australia. They are situated on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Darling Escarpment and the Indian Ocean. Beeliar was the name given to the area by the Aboriginal people that lived and hunted in the area.
Noongar is an Australian Aboriginal language or dialect continuum, spoken by some members of the Noongar community and others. It is taught actively in Australia, including at schools, universities and through public broadcasting. The country of the Noongar people is the southwest corner of Western Australia. Within that region, many Noongar words have been adopted into English, particularly names of plants and animals.
Yellagonga was a leader of the Whadjuk Noongar on the north side of the Swan River. Colonists saw Yellagonga as the owner of this area. However, land rights were also traced through women of the group. Yellagonga could hunt on wetlands north of Perth because of his wife Yingani's connections to that country.
This is a timeline of Aboriginal history of Western Australia.
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Mineng, also spelled Minang or Minanga or Mirnong, are an indigenous Noongar people of southern Western Australia.
Fanny Balbuk (1840–1907), also known as Yooreel, was a prominent Whadjuk woman who lived in Perth, Western Australia during the early years of the Swan River Colony. She is remembered for her commitment to Aboriginal land rights, and for her hostile reactions to the buildings, fences, and homes erected as Perth increased in size and encroached on land that she still considered belonged to her people.
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