Whadjuk - Contact History

Contact History

The Whadjuk peoples bore the brunt of European colonisation, as the cities of Perth and Fremantle were built in their territory.

No doubt Whadjuk peoples 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 (Noongar = Goonininup). As Aboriginal women had been earlier seized by European seal hunters, Yellagonga subsequently moved his encampment to what is now Lake Monger (Noongar = Kallup).

The Whadjuk people were divided by the Swan River into four principal groups:

• The Mooro - led by Yellagonga, were north of the Swan River
• The Beeliar - led by Midgegooro — his brother-in-law, were south of the Swan River and west of the Canning River
• The Belloo led by Munday — were in the region from the Canning to the Helena Rivers.
• Weeip's area to the east.

Only four Europeans contributed to our modern understanding of Whadjuk Noongar language and culture.

• Robert Menli Lyon befriended the Aboriginal resistance fighter Yagan, when the latter was exiled to Carnac Island.
• Francis Armstrong took early efforts to befriend Aboriginal people (being known to them as "Pranji Djanga"), but later in life became very authoritarian and bitter in his dealings with them.
• George Fletcher Moore rapidly came to understand the Whadjuk dialect of the Nyungar language, and later came to serve as magistrate in legal cases in which Whadjuk people were involved.
• Lieutenant George Grey took great efforts to learn the Whadjuk tongue, and was recognised by the Yellagonga's Whadjuk group as being the returned dead son (i.e. Djanga) of an Aboriginal woman, before going on to a distinguished political career in South Australia and New Zealand.

European settlers were called "Djanga", by the Whadjuk people, a term referring to spirits of the dead. This seems to have been an attempt to fit the Europeans into the social structure of the Moongar peoples but it seems to have been reinforced by the following principal factors:

• Europeans came from the direction of the settling sun, where Kuranyup, the land of the dead was supposed to reside.
• Europeans were white-skinned, illustrating the deathly pallor of people after death.
• Europeans seemed to have flakey discoloured skins, which they shed and changed on different occasions.
• Europeans (in the 19th century when bathing and washing clothes was rarer) smelled bad and often had rotting teeth.
• Europeans were dangerous to associate with, as infectious diseases to which Europeans had some genetic resistance, were fatal to many Aboriginal people.

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.

With the loss of fenced and alienated lands, Aboriginal people lost access to important seasonal foods, and did not understand private ownership, 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,.

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, being recovered by Ken Colbung in 1997.

Following the Battle of Pinjarra, 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 natives 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 strongarm tactics to protect themselves from Aboriginal "reprisals". In 1887 a 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).

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.