Whadjuk

Whadjuk, also called Wadjuk, Whajook and Wadjug, is the name according to Norman Tindale for the Aboriginal group inhabiting the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain, and extending below Walyunga into the surrounding Jarrah Forests. The etymology is unknown but it has been suggested that it may come from Wirtj, meaning "those who went before" (i.e. ancestral ones), and implied that Tindale's informants considered all Whadjuk people were dead. The boundaries of this region are the watershed division north of Yanchep between the Swan-Avon and the Moore Rivers, in the north, the Walyunga-Gidgegannup (from Gidgie = spear, gan- = make, -up = place) region to the north east, the Canning River catchment to the south east, to the coast at Port Kennedy. This is the region of the Quindinup (from Qwenda = Bandicoot, -up = place), Cottesloe, Karrakatta (from Karra = spider, katta = hill, the location now of the Western Australian Parliament building) and Bassendean sand dune systems and intervening wetlands, out to the fertile loams of the Guildford area, and the Darling Scarp to the edge of the Wandoo region, inhabited by the Balardong people to the east. To the north, according to Tindale one finds the Juat, Yued or Yuat, and to the south, the Pindjarup or Pinjareb peoples.