THE FENCE
My moort (family) shares stories about how our clan used to pack up the karleep (camp) as the season ended. As they moved towards another campsite, they used to sing yedi (songs) along the bidi (paths).
As the colder months of Makaru and Djilba arrived, our family moved our winter camp into the kaart (hills), near the overflowing brooks. Here djildjit (fish) were always plentiful and the women found many roots, werrany (yams) and tubers planted in previous seasons now ready to harvest. There in the gullies and among the kaart (hills), springs and pinja (swamps), the yorga (women) would weave baskets, fish traps and mats from the reeds and rushes that grew in the area.
In the warmer months of Birak and Bunuru, we moved south towards the wardan (sea) and coastal plains hungry for fresh seafood and fish from the derbal bilya (river estuary). We gathered fish from the tidal pools, the pinja (swamps) and wetlands. We ate an abundance of marron (crayfish), djilgi (yabby), kooya (frogs) and yakkan (turtles) which were caught by dangling a yonga (kangaroo) tail in the water.
Having so much food at these karleep (campsites) created time for the families to socialise and perform cultural ceremonies. So much has changed since that time. Now the wedjela have arrived, our ancestors’ bidi (paths) through boodjar have become increasingly filled with obstacles. The biggest obstacle for our moort (families) is the fence. It disrupts the ebb and flow of movement that has occurred for generations.
This brown wooden construction is created by the sacrifice of the boorn (trees). It cuts across our songlines where for koora koora (long time) the old people sang to boodjar and stamped their djena (feet). This continual movement created a steady rhythm that we no longer can maintain.
It baffles us to divide the land with fences separating boodjar into private ownership. We value land and food sharing as the foundation of our sustenance and survival. Our well-worn and established bidi (paths) provided access for generations of ancestors to the traditional hunting grounds.
In the early days of the new colony, Governor Stirling himself took vast tracts of our Beeloo boodjar on the banks of the Derbal Yerrigan (Swan River) around Mandoon (Guildford). In a place he renamed Woodbridge after his town in England, he built a small wooden hut, clearing sacred boorn (trees) for his estate. He built fences to claim it as private property, shutting generations of Whadjuk men from accessing not only the hunting grounds but the important plants needed for the headpieces in the men’s ceremonies.
The fences cut through clan boundaries, sacred sites, hunting grounds, waterways and lore grounds. The wedjela have even created laws about these wooden boundaries. Governor Irwin laws now regulate more fence construction throughout the colony and town allotments, stating that punishment or imprisonment will come to any of us who walk through or camp on the colonists’ private property.
KOBOORLBAT (HUNGER)
At night when it is quiet, the darkness amplifies the children’s hungry cries, forcing the parents to take the wedjela flour to feed their moort (family). Taking their flour is necessary as it replaces the traditional kwoonert (seeds) and grains we need for our traditional mereny (damper). As sharing food is the foundational lore in our culture, theft is not understood as a crime until the wedjela law identifies it as such.
To solve this problem, the wedjela distribute flour, sugar and tea at the rations stations scattered across our boodjar (country). Distrustful stories begin to circulate about the safety of some of this flour. Stories spread quickly of settlers poisoning the flour with rat poison or lime, then generously offering it to the families as mereny (damper).
After they add the deadly strychnine poisoning the flour, they call it ‘bye-bye damper’.
I knew a woman named Banyap, who lost her first husband Kanill after eating stolen flour laced with poison from John Dibb’s property. Sadly, Banyap's two children also passed away after her husband shared this damper with them. In tears, the clan yorga (women) share with me a tragic story of little Bulbaroo, who died near Boorloo (Perth) after eating a poisoned damper.
On a warm summer’s day in Boorloo (Perth), a Whadjuk man named Kalyer cooked damper made from the flour offered by John, his farm employer. The smell of the warm bread wafted over to Bulbaroo, his two-year-old son, making him hungry. When it was ready, everyone enthusiastically bit into the soft damper. Within a second, the adults spat it out, commenting on its unusually bitter taste. But it was too late for the small-framed Bulbaroo. Malnourished from endless days of hunger, the poisoned damper immediately attacked his weakened body.
Bulbaroo’s big brown eyes opened wide, as painful spasms began to rack his body. Pain stabbed down his spine, forcing him to arch his neck and back. Agitated and scared, he climbed slowly onto Kalyer’s lap, seeking the comfort of his father’s chest. Eyes large and bloodshot, he suddenly threw his arms above his head, becoming rigid as he locked his jaw tight and his little body began to convulse.
It was at that point his mother rushed over to grab Bulbaroo into her arms and began to run towards the nearby town for help. As she ran, her heart pounded in fear, as she felt Bulbaroo’s breath becoming shallow. Wailing aloud in fear, the anxious mother suddenly felt her son go limp in her arms, as his little heart stopped beating.
She fell to the ground as if Bulbaroo’s death took all the life force from her body. Her guttural cries of grief and pain reverberated through the valley, wetting the dry, hot land with her tears. Bulbaroo’s mother then carried her son’s lifeless body to the small town of Bungarra where his little body was buried in a grave along with his family’s tears, grief and anger.
Another story about these poisoned dampers came from nearby Ballardong boodjar. Like vermin, a wedjela farmer named Woods eradicates a local Ballardong moort (family) camped near his property in the town of York.
As dawn breaks, a Ballardong family is camped near a sheep farm, owned by a wedjela invader named Woods. His farm is on their boodjar where they have camped each Djeran. Food is limited due to the presence of sheep and fences, so when they are offered some cooked mereny (damper), they trustingly and hungrily accept it from the farmer.
Around the mid-morning campfire on a sunny, clear blue-sky day in Djeran, a damper is generously shared, first offering it to the elderly bridiya (leader) and then to the hungry koolangka (children), who’ve been complaining about their empty koboorl (stomachs).
As malyarak (midday) nears, the ngaangk (sun) begins to warm boodjar (country) and the koolangka (children) begin to develop a desperate and insatiable thirst, followed by the worst unimaginable pain in their koboorl (stomach) causing them to double over. Nausea and vomiting bring no relief.
A very elderly bridiya (leader) intuitively knows immediately what’s happening and begins to walinj (weep) and wail. As they are a generous and peaceful family, already so vulnerable, it is unimaginable for them to consider this violent act.
By noon, the camp is still. Green. The only evidence that remains is the characteristic green vomit on the lips of the koolangka (children). The only sound that breaks the silence is the buzz of iridescent blue blowflies and the whispers of their spirits departing in the swirling smoke from the unkempt campfire.
WADJEMUP PRISON (ROTTNEST ISLAND)
The wedjela law upsets us. It scares us in its power to take away our freedom by imprisonment, separating us from our moort and our boodjar. Our clansmen are now being punished for breaking the wedjela law by being locked inside their new prisons.
Before I was born, the Round House prison was built in Walyalup (Fremantle) and this now overflows with prisoners. Here, my grandfather Munday was once imprisoned during the season of Birak after he’d threatened his kitj (spear) at Francis Armstrong, the official interpreter. As punishment, Munday was placed in the Round House, sharing the same prison cell as Calyute, another resistance leader from the Murray River’s Binjareb clan.
The second prison the wedjela built is on Wadjemup (Rottnest Island). This island holds spiritual significance for us because it’s near Kurannup, the place across the water where the spirits live. This island is a place for spirits, not men. The boss of the Wadjemup prison was a cruel man named Henry Vincent, known for his brutal treatment of the inmates. Our maam call this cruel boss kokobat dwert (one eye dog), because he wears a patch over the eye he lost at war. The boylyada maam (medicine men) say that he has a warra wirrin (bad spirit) in him because under Vincent, many of our maam died, including the loss of a bridiya (elder) Wanehop, after Vincent whipped him to death.
Before the island’s new buildings were constructed, our people used to be chained to the boorn (trees) at night. After that time, the maam (men) were forced to construct their prison, the Quod. They were also forced to build a hut for Vincent’s family, the lighthouse, the sea wall, the salt-house, cottages, the ‘causeway’ and eventually the Governor’s island retreat.
I continue to hear how men from clans in the djerral (north), kongal (south), boyal (east) and marawar (west) are being transported to Wadjemup (Rottnest) island. The maam begin their journey to the island wearing the metal linking chains locked around their necks, binding their maar (hands) and djena (feet). They are forced to walk shackled in chain gangs to Walyalup (Fremantle) and from here, they board a boat that transports them to the island. This boat journey over the wardan (seas) to Wadjemup (Rottnest) takes from sunrise to sunset and if the prisoners don’t row their boat fast enough, Vincent orders the guards to lash a man’s back with a whip through to the bone. When everyone is feeling exhausted and despairing, one man begins to sing a song from home to offer comfort and support.
Once on the island, Makuru kedalak (nights) are cold and one thin blanket provides little warmth from the freezing coastal winter wind gusts that tear through the cell’s open windows and door gaps. Maam share how the minditj (sickness) ravages the prisoners, leaving many dead. Stories pass that some try to attempt to escape by stealing boats. Some are successful, while others drown in the rough surf coming back into shore.
I’ve listened to the freed men’s horror stories about how Vincent chains the prisoners together during the evenings. This makes sleep impossible in overcrowded cells of seven or more men who attempt to sleep without fresh air or water. Made worse when prisoners die in chains alongside those who struggle to survive. Our well-respected leaders, elders and lawmen are forced to suffer hunger, violent punishments and hard labour on the island.
One boylyada maam (medicine man) shares a story around the karl about how he escaped from Wadjemup (Rottnest) by placing his spirit inside the wardong (crow) telling it, ‘Take me home.’
One time, a campfire voice lowers to a whisper,
In great anger, I saw Vincent grab a man named Charlie by his ear. He then proceeded to walk away, dragging him along the ground by his ear. He pulled this man’s ear so severely that he ripped half of it off.
It wasn’t just Henry Vincent the prisoners feared. His son William Vincent, the Assistant Warden, was equally as violent. My kongk (uncle) begins to walinj (cry) in the retelling of a story when William Vincent murdered his daambart (grandfather) Dehan, a senior bridiya imprisoned with him at Wadjemup. Unwell, Dehan was staying with his family in an overcrowded cell. William Vincent ordered him to move cells but he begged not to be shifted, falling to his knees begging to let him stay with his family in the cell. To cease his crying, Vincent struck two blows across Dehan’s face with a heavy metal set of keys and then proceeded to kick him on the side of his body until there was silence.
The next morning Dehan was found dead on the floor of the cell, his face swollen and bloodied where Vincent had hit him. He joined the other bodies in an unmarked grave in the nearby sandy cemetery, where no spirit receives a respectful burial.
Those who survive these atrocities come to the island shore in the evenings, before being locked and chained for the night. Sitting on the beach, listening to the waves caressing the sand, they gaze out across to the mainland, seeing the rings of campfire booyi (smoke) rise from their moort karleep (family camp). They weep and call out to their nyetingar (ancestors) to return them to their boodjar,
Ngang wayliny moortung boodjar. Ngang wayliny karla mia-karla mia.
