The Mooro are a

Nyungar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the so ...

Aboriginal clan, a subgroup of the

Whadjuk Whadjuk, alternatively Witjari, are Noongar (Aboriginal Australian) people of the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain. Name The ethnonym appears to derive from ''whad'', the Whadjuk word for "no". Countr ...

. Their territory stretches from the Swan River in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

north to the

Moore River Moore River is a river in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. Geography The headwaters of the Moore River lie in the Perenjori, Carnamah and Dalwallinu Shires. The river then drains southwards through Moora, flows westerly before j ...

beyond the northern limits of metropolitan Perth and east to

Ellen Brook Ellen Brook is an ephemeral stream which runs from south of Gingin to the Swan River in Western Australia. Overview The headwaters of Ellen Brook start south of Gingin, in the Wheatbelt region. From there, Ellen Brook travels south, gener ...

. Evidence of Aboriginal occupation of the

Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geol ...

extends back more than 40,000 years. Prior to colonisation and during first contact, the Mooro clan traversed the lakes and wetlands running parallel to the coast, including

Yanchep Yanchep is an outer coastal suburb of Perth, Western Australia, north of the Perth CBD. It is a part of the City of Wanneroo local government area. Originally a small crayfishing settlement, it was developed by entrepreneur Alan Bond in the 1 ...

Neerabup Lake The Wanneroo wetlands are a series of wetlands, swamps and lakes that occur on the Swan Coastal Plain of Perth, Western Australia. They are linked very closely to the Gnangara Mound. They are in part, incorporated into the Yellagonga Regional ...

Lake Joondalup Lake Joondalup is a medium-sized freshwater lake in Perth, Western Australia. It is in the Perth northern suburbs of Joondalup, Wanneroo, and Edgewater. It is a nature reserve and part of the Yellagonga Regional Park. Description Lake Joondal ...

, and as far south as

Lake Monger Lake Monger ( nys, Keiermulu) is a large urban wetland on the Swan Coastal Plain in suburban Perth, Western Australia nestled between the suburbs of Leederville, Wembley and Glendalough. Located less than from the city of Perth and situated ...

. The region was a key food and water source, where wild fowl, fish, frogs, freshwater

tortoise Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a turtle shell, shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, ...

s and a range of

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...

s could be captured. The coastal region to the west yielded

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

and limestone suitable for making stone tools. They moved with the seasons, seeking higher ground further east in winter, then returning in late spring and setting fire to the bushland to capture game such as wallabies, kangaroos and possums; their main camp was at Mount Eliza in what is now Kings Park. At the time of European settlement,

Yellagonga Yellagonga (d. 1843) 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 ...

, the uncle of

Yagan Yagan (; – 11 July 1833) 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 ...

, was the leader of the Mooro group. Initially, relations were friendly, and a number of explorers such as

Robert Menli Lyon Robert Menli Lyon (born Robert Milne; 1789–1874) was a pioneering Western Australian settler who became one of the earliest outspoken advocates for Indigenous Australian rights and welfare in the colony. He published the first information on the ...

and

George Grey Sir George Grey, KCB (14 April 1812 – 19 September 1898) was a British soldier, explorer, colonial administrator and writer. He served in a succession of governing positions: Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Go ...

reported on favourable encounters with groups of Mooro.

John Butler John Butler may refer to: Arts and entertainment *John "Picayune" Butler (died 1864), American performer *John Butler (artist) (1890–1976), American artist * John Butler (author) (born 1937), British author and YouTuber *John Butler (born 1954), ...

, a Swan River settler who in March 1834 went north to search for cattle pasture, reported that "the natives were those Wanneroo men who frequent Perth in company with the Yellagonga tribe – they were friendly towards us but we were cautious in letting them see our bread". However, competing demands for resources and cultural misunderstandings resulted in conflict. By the late 1830s, having been largely removed or restricted from the lands on which they had been self-sufficient, and decimated by European diseases and conflict with settlers, the traditional lifestyle had gone into demise. A census by Francis Armstrong (1836 C.S.O. 58:163) counted 28 Mooro. Within less than twenty years, the community had basically disintegrated, with the remaining people exiled to permanent waterholes on the outskirts of Perth.

References

{{Reflist Noongar Swan Coastal Plain