![Noongar1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Noongar1.jpg)
The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are
Aboriginal Australian
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
peoples who live in the
south-west corner of
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
, from
Geraldton
Geraldton ( Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth.
At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...
on the west coast to
Esperance on the south coast. There are 14 different Noongar groups:
Amangu
The Amangu are an indigenous Yamatji people of the mid-western region of Western Australia.
Language
Two early glossaries of some words from the Champion Bay Amangu were collected. One, by R. J. Foley, was published in a work by Augustus Old ...
,
Ballardong,
Yued
Yued (also spelt Juat, Yuat and Juet) is a region inhabited by the Yued people, one of the fourteen groups of Noongar Aboriginal Australians who have lived in the South West corner of Western Australia for approximately 40,000 years.
Europea ...
,
Kaneang
The Kaneang are an indigenous Noongar people of the south west region of Western Australia.
Country
The Kaneang traditional lands enclosed some of territory. On the Upper Blackwood River. The eastern boundary was formed by the line that runs fro ...
,
Koreng,
Mineng
Mineng, also spelled Minang or Menang or Mirnong, are an indigenous Noongar people of southern Western Australia.
Name
The ethnonym ''Minang'' is etymologized to the word for south, ''minaq,'' which means that the tribe were defined as "sout ...
,
Njakinjaki
The Njakinjaki (Nyaki Nyaki) are an indigenous Noongar people of southern Western Australia, in the Wheatbelt (Western Australia), Wheatbelt and Great Southern (Western Australia), Great Southern regions.
Country
Njakinjaki traditional territory ...
,
Njunga
The Njunga or Nyunga are an indigenous Noongar people of Western Australia.
Name
''Njunga/nyunga'' reflects a root (''njoŋa/njuŋa/njuŋar'') that signifies 'man'. They adopted the term, perhaps defensively, in response to a number of tribes w ...
,
Pibelmen
The Bibulman (Pibelmen) are an indigenous Australian people of the southwestern region of Western Australia, a subgroup of the Noongar.
Name
Their autonym may be related to the word for stingray, ''pibilum''.
Country
Pibelmen lands comprised ...
,
Pindjarup
The Bindjareb, Binjareb, Pindjarup or Pinjareb are an Indigenous Noongar people that occupy part of the South West of Western Australia.
Name
It is not clear if ''Pindjarup'' is the historically correct ethnonym for the tribe. After their dis ...
,
Wadandi
The Wadandi, also spelt Wardandi and other variants, are an Aboriginal people of south-western Western Australia, one of fourteen language groups of the Noongar peoples.
Name
There are at least three theories about the meaning of the tribal et ...
,
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 ...
,
Wiilman
Wiilman are an indigenous Noongar people from the Wheatbelt, Great Southern and South West regions of Western Australia. Variant spellings of the name include Wilman, Wilmen and Wheelman. ''Wiilman'' is the endonym.
Language
Their original lan ...
and
Wudjari
The Wudjari were an Aboriginal Australian people of the Noongar cultural group of the southern region of Western Australia.
Country
The Wudjari's traditional lands are estimated to have extended over some , encompassing the southern coastal are ...
. The Noongar people refer to their land as .
The members of the collective Noongar cultural block descend from peoples who spoke several languages and dialects that were often
mutually intelligible.; for the Ballardong nys, chungar, label=none; the Yued had two terms, nys, nitin, label=none and nys, chiargar, label=none; the Kaneang spoke of nys, iunja, label=none; the Pindjarup of nys, chinga, label=none; the Koreng of nys, nyituing, label=none; the Mineng of nys, janka, label=none; the Njakinjaki of nys, jennok, label=none, etc. What is now classed as the
Noongar language
Noongar (; also Nyungar ) 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 broadcasti ...
is a member of the large
Pama-Nyungan language family. Contemporary Noongar speak
Australian Aboriginal English (a dialect of the English language) laced with Noongar words and occasionally inflected by its grammar. Most contemporary Noongar trace their ancestry to one or more of these groups. In the
2001 Australian census
The Census in Australia, officially the Census of Population and Housing, is the national census in Australia that occurs every five years. The census collects key demographic, social and economic data from all people in Australia on census nig ...
, 21,000 persons identified as indigenous in the south-west of Western Australia.
Name
The
endonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
of the Noongar comes from a word originally meaning "man" or "person".
Language
At the time of European settlement it is believed that the peoples of what became the Noongar community spoke thirteen dialects, of which five still have speakers with some living knowledge of their respective versions of the language. No speakers use it over the complete range of everyday speaking situations, and the full resources of the language are available only to a few individuals.
Ecological context
The Noongar peoples have six
season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...
s whose time frame is defined by specific observable changes to the environment, with a dry period varying from as few as three to as many as eleven months. Tribes are spread over three different geological systems: the coastal plains, the plateau, and the plateau margins; all areas are characterized by relatively infertile soil. The north is characterized by casuarina, acacia and melaleuca thickets, the south by mulga scrubland but it also supported dense forest stands. Several rivers run to the coast and with lakes and wetlands provided the Noongar people with their distinctive food and vegetation resources.
Generally, Noongar made a living by hunting and trapping a variety of game, including kangaroos,
possums
Possum may refer to:
Animals
* Phalangeriformes, or possums, any of a number of arboreal marsupial species native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi
** Common brushtail possum (''Trichosurus vulpecula''), a common possum in Australian urban a ...
and wallabies; for people close to the coastal zone or riverine systems, spear-fishing or culling fish in traps was customary. An extensive range of
edible wild plants were also available, including yams and
wattle seeds. Nuts of the
zamia palm
''Macrozamia riedlei'', commonly known as a zamia or zamia palm, is a species of cycad in the plant family Zamiaceae. It is endemic to southwest Australia and often occurs in jarrah forests. It may only attain a height of half a metre or form an ...
, eaten during the ''Djeran'' season (April–May) required extensive treatment to remove its
toxicity
Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subst ...
, and for women it may have had a contraceptive effect. As early as 10,000
BP local people utilised
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
, replacing
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 ...
flint for spear and knife edges when the chert deposits were submerged by sea level rise during the
Flandrian transgression The Flandrian interglacial or stage is the name given by geologists and archaeologists in the British Isles to the first, and so far only, stage of the Holocene epoch (the present geological period), covering the period from around 12,000 years ago ...
.
History of contact
Before the arrival of
Europeans, the Noongar population has been variously estimated at between 6,000 and some tens of thousands.
Colonisation by the British brought both violence and new diseases, taking a heavy toll on the population. The Noongar, like many other Aboriginal peoples, saw the arrival of Europeans as the returning of deceased people, often imagining them as relatives who deserved accommodation. As they approached from the west, the newcomers were called nys, djaanga, label=none (or nys, djanak, label=none), meaning "white spirits".
![Carrolup River Native Settlement](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Carrolup_River_Native_Settlement.jpg)
Initially relations were generally cordial.
Matthew Flinders recognized the success of his three-week sojourn as due in good part to Noongar diplomacy, and Noongar rituals celebrated their reception of the newcomers in a ceremonial form. When settlement became more firmly established, however, misunderstandings over the obligations of reciprocity – some of the most productive land was being taken especially on the Upper Swan – led to sporadic clashes. An example of such misunderstandings was the Noongar land-management practice of setting fires in early summer, mistakenly seen as an act of hostility by the settlers. Conversely, the Noongar saw the settlers' livestock as fair game to replace the dwindling stocks of native animals shot indiscriminately by settlers. The only area that successfully resisted the usurpation of native land for any time was the area around the
Murray River
The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray) (Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta: ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest r ...
, which effectively blocked expansion of the tiny settlement at
Mandurah
Mandurah () is a coastal city in the Australian state of Western Australia, situated approximately south of the state capital, Perth. It is the state's second most populous city, with a population of 107,641 as of the 2021 census.
Mandurah's ...
for almost half a decade.
In June 1832 a Whadjuk leader,
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 ...
, formerly of good standing among the settler authorities and known in the colony for his handsome bearing, "tall, slender, well-fashioned..of pleasing countenance", was, together with his father
Midgegooroo
Midgegooroo (died 22 May 1833) 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 (various ...
and brother Monday, declared an outlaw after undertaking a series of food raids and a retaliatory murder. Caught and imprisoned, he escaped and was let alone, as though informally reprieved as a native version of
William Wallace
Sir William Wallace ( gd, Uilleam Uallas, ; Norman French: ; 23 August 1305) was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence.
Along with Andrew Moray, Wallace defeated an English army a ...
. His father was caught, and killed without trial by a military firing squad. Yagan himself, with a bounty on his head, was ambushed soon afterwards by an 18-year-old settler youth, after he had stopped two settlers and asked for flour. His corpse was decapitated and the head sent to England for display in fairgrounds. Yagan is now considered a Noongar hero, by many to have been one of the first indigenous
resistance fighters. Matters escalated with conflicts between the settlement of
Thomas Peel
Thomas Peel (1793 – 22 December 1865)Alexandra Hasluck,, ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Vol. 2, MUP, 1967, pp 320-322. retrieved 2009-11-04 organised and lead a consortium of the first British settlers to Western Australia. He was ...
and the Pindjarup people, resulting in the
Pinjarra massacre. Similarly struggles with
Ballardong people in the Avon Valley continued until violently suppressed by Lieutenant
Henry William St Pierre Bunbury
Colonel Henry William St Pierre Bunbury CB (2 September 1812 – 18 September 1875) was a British Army officer who served for periods in Australia, South Africa, and India.
Early life
Bunbury was the son of Lt.-Gen. Sir Henry Bunbury, 7th Baro ...
. Notwithstanding this violence, extraordinary acts of goodwill existed. In the same year, 1834, the Swan River Noongar couple, Migo and Molly Dobbin, alerted to the fact a European child had gone missing, covered in 10 hours tracking his
spoors, and saved him, at the point of death.
From August 1838 ten Aboriginal prisoners were sent to
Rottnest Island
Rottnest Island ( nys, Wadjemup), often colloquially referred to as "Rotto", is a island off the coast of Western Australia, located west of Fremantle. A sandy, low-lying island formed on a base of aeolianite limestone, Rottnest is an A-class ...
( nys, Wadjemup, possibly meaning "place across the water"). After a short period when both settlers and prisoners occupied the island, the
Colonial Secretary announced in June 1839 that the island would become a penal establishment for Aboriginal people and was officially designated as such in 1841. From that time down to 1903 when the indigenous section was closed, Rottnest Island was used as a prison to transfer Aboriginal prisoners "overseas". To "
pacify" the Aboriginal population, men were rounded up and chained for offences ranging from spearing livestock, burning the bush or digging vegetables on what had been their own land. It quickly became a "place of torment, deprivation and death", and it has been estimated that there may be as many as 369 Aboriginal graves on the island, of which five were for prisoners who had been hanged. Except for a short period between 1849 and 1855, during which the prison was closed, some 3,700 Aboriginal men and boys, many of them Noongars, but also many others from all parts of the state, were imprisoned.
A significant development for the Noongar people in the Western Australian Colony was the arrival of
Rosendo Salvado
Rosendo Salvado Rotea OSB (1 March 1814 – 29 December 1900) was a Spanish Benedictine monk, missionary, bishop, author, founder and first abbot of the Territorial Abbey of New Norcia in Western Australia.
Early life and background
Salvado was ...
in 1846. Highly cultured, very caring, practical and down to earth, Salvado dedicated his life to promoting the humane treatment of the Australian Aboriginals at the mission he created at
New Norcia
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
, the territory of the
Yued
Yued (also spelt Juat, Yuat and Juet) is a region inhabited by the Yued people, one of the fourteen groups of Noongar Aboriginal Australians who have lived in the South West corner of Western Australia for approximately 40,000 years.
Europea ...
. The
Njunga
The Njunga or Nyunga are an indigenous Noongar people of Western Australia.
Name
''Njunga/nyunga'' reflects a root (''njoŋa/njuŋa/njuŋar'') that signifies 'man'. They adopted the term, perhaps defensively, in response to a number of tribes w ...
found refuge under his roof, and he defended many persons up on charges of theft, arguing from Church doctrine that theft was not criminal if dictated by dire necessity. While intent on converting, he encouraged the Noongar to maintain their traditional culture.
From 1890 to 1958, the lives and lifestyles of Noongar people were subject to the Native Welfare Act.
By 1915 15% of Perth's Noongar had been thrust north and interned at the
Moore River Native Settlement
The Moore River Native Settlement was the name of the now defunct Aboriginal settlement and internment camp located north of Perth and west of Mogumber in Western Australia, near the headwaters of the Moore River.
History
The settlement ...
. Carrolup (later known as
Marribank
Marribank, earlier known as Carrolup, is a locality in the Shire of Kojonup, Western Australia, approximately north-west of Katanning. It was the site of one of two large native settlements for Indigenous Australians established by the offi ...
) became the home of up to one-third of the population. It is estimated that 10 to 25% of Noongar children were forcibly "adopted" during these years, in part of what has become known as the
Stolen Generations
The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church mis ...
.
Culture
![Olman Walley Noongar Performer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Olman_Walley_Noongar_Performer.jpg)
Noongar people live in many country towns throughout the south-west as well as in the major population centres of
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 ...
,
Mandurah
Mandurah () is a coastal city in the Australian state of Western Australia, situated approximately south of the state capital, Perth. It is the state's second most populous city, with a population of 107,641 as of the 2021 census.
Mandurah's ...
,
Bunbury,
Geraldton
Geraldton ( Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth.
At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...
,
Albany and
Esperance. Many country Noongar people have developed long-standing relationships with non-Noongar farmers, and continue to hunt
kangaroo
Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...
and gather
bush tucker
Bush tucker, also called bush food, is any food native to Australia and used as sustenance by Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native flora or fauna used for culinary or ...
(food) as well as to teach their children stories about the land. In a few areas in the south-west, visitors can go on
bush tucker
Bush tucker, also called bush food, is any food native to Australia and used as sustenance by Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native flora or fauna used for culinary or ...
walks, trying foods such as
kangaroo
Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern ...
,
emu
The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the genus '' Dromaius''. The emu ...
,
quandong
Quandong, quandang or quondong, is a common name for the species '' Santalum acuminatum'' (desert, sweet, Western quandong), especially its edible fruit, but may also refer to
* '' Aceratium concinnum'' (highroot quandong)
* '' Peripentadenia mea ...
jam or relish,
bush tomato
Bush tomatoes are the fruit or entire plants of certain nightshade (''Solanum'') species native to the more arid parts of Australia. While they are quite closely related to tomatoes (''Solanum lycopersicum''), they might be even closer relatives ...
es,
witchetty grub
The witchetty grub (also spelled witchety grub or witjuti grub) is a term used in Australia for the large, white, wood-eating larvae of several moths. In particular, it applies to the larvae of the cossid moth ''Endoxyla leucomochla'', which fee ...
pâté and bush honey.
The
buka is a traditional cloak of the Noongar people made of kangaroo skin.
In Perth, the Noongar believe that the
Darling Scarp
The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to t ...
is said to represent the body of a
Wagyl
The Wagyl (also written Waugal and Waagal and variants) is the Noongar manifestation of the Rainbow Serpent in Australian Aboriginal mythology, from the culture based around the south-west of Western Australia. The Noongar describe the Wagyl as ...
, a snakelike
Dreamtime
The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal mythology, Australian Aboriginal beliefs. It was originally used by Francis Ja ...
creature that is a common
deity
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greate ...
in Noongar culture, that meandered over the land creating rivers, waterways, and lakes. It is thought that the Wagyl created the
Swan River. The Wagyl has been associated with ''
Wonambi
''Wonambi'' is an extinct genus of madtsoiid snakes that lived in late Neogene to late Quaternary Australia. Species of ''Wonambi'' were constrictor snakes unrelated to Australian pythons.
Description
''Wonambi'' was a fairly large snake, ...
naracoutensis'', part of the extinct
megafauna
In terrestrial zoology, the megafauna (from Greek μέγας ''megas'' "large" and New Latin ''fauna'' "animal life") comprises the large or giant animals of an area, habitat, or geological period, extinct and/or extant. The most common threshold ...
of Australia that disappeared between 15 and 50,000 years ago.
![Swan River Map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Swan_River_Map.png)
Also in Perth,
Mount Eliza was an important site for the Noongar. It was a hunting site where kangaroos were herded and driven over the edge to provide meat for gathering clans. In this context, the "clan" is a local descent group – larger than a family but based on family links through common ancestry. At the base of Mount Eliza is a sacred site where the Wagyl is said to have rested during its journeys. This site is also the location of the former
Swan Brewery which has been a source of contention between local Noongar groups (who would like to see the land, which was reclaimed from the river in the late 19th century, "restored" to them) and the title-holders who wished to develop the site. A Noongar protest camp existed here for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Noongar culture is particularly strong with the written word. The
plays
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
of
Jack Davis are on the school syllabus in several Australian states. Davis' first full-length play ''Kullark'', a documentary on the history of Aboriginals in WA, was first produced in 1979. Other plays include: ''No Sugar, The Dreamers, Barungin: Smell the Wind, In Our Town'' and for younger audiences, ''Honey Spot'' and ''Moorli and the Leprechaun''.
Kim Scott
Kim Scott (born 18 February 1957) is an Australian novelist of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. He is a descendant of the Noongar people of Western Australia.
Biography
Scott was born in Perth in 1957 and is the eldest of four siblings with a ...
won the 2000
Miles Franklin Award for his novel ''
Benang'' and the 2011 award for ''
That Deadman Dance''.
Yirra Yaakin
describes itself as the response to the Aboriginal Community's need for positive self-enhancement through artistic expression. It is a theatre company that strives for community development and which also has the drive to create "exciting, authentic and culturally appropriate indigenous theatre".
The
Barnett government of Western Australia announced in November 2014 that, due to changes in funding arrangements with the
Abbott Federal government, it was closing 150 of 276 Aboriginal communities in remote locations. As a result, Noongars in solidarity with other Aboriginal groups established a
refugee camp on Heirisson Island. Despite police action to dismantle the camp twice in 2015, the camp continued until April 2016.
Despite such state government actions, many local governments in the southwest have developed "compacts" or "commitments" with their local Noongar communities to ensure that sites of significance are protected and that the culture is respected. At the same time, the Western Australian Barnett government, also from November 2014, had been forcing the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee to deregister 300 Aboriginal sacred sites in Western Australia. Although falling most heavily upon Pilbara and Kimberley sites this government policy also was having an impact on Noongar lands according to Ira Hayward-Jackson, Chairman of the Rottnest Island Deaths Group. The changes also removed rights of notification and appeal for traditional owners seeking to protect their heritage. A legal ruling on 1 April 2015 overturned the government's actions on some of the sites deregistered which were found to be truly sacred.
Elders are increasingly asked on formal occasions to provide a "
Welcome to Country
A Welcome to Country is a ritual or formal ceremony performed as a land acknowledgement at many events held in Australia. It is intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to the descendants of a particular Aborigina ...
", and the first steps of teaching the Noongar language in the general curriculum have been made.
In recent years there has been considerable interest in Noongar visual arts. In 2006, Noongar culture was showcased as part of the
Perth International Arts Festival. A highlight of the Festival was the unveiling of the monumental "Ngallak Koort Boodja – Our Heart Land Canvas". The canvas was commissioned for the festival by representatives of the united elders and families from across the Noongar nation. It was painted by leading Noongar artists
Shane Pickett
Shane Pickett (born 1957, Quairading, Western Australia. Died 15 January 2010, Perth, Western Australia) was one of the foremost Nyoongar artists. Combining his deep knowledge and concern for Nyoongar culture with a confident and individual style ...
,
Tjyllyungoo
Tjyllyungoo is the traditional name of the landscape painter Lance Chadd, a Noongar man from Western Australia. Tjyllyungoo's paintings are internationally recognised and held in a number of collections.
Born in 1954, he grew up in the south-west ...
, Yvonne Kickett,
Alice Warrell and
Sharyn Egan
Sharyn Egan (born 1957) is a Noongar, Nyoongar artist known for her work in painting, sculpture, weaving and . Based in Fremantle, Western Australia, Egan's works are held in the collections of the National Museum of Australia and the Berndt Mus ...
.
October 2021 saw the opening of the first Noongar opera ''Koolbardi wer Wardong''. Written by
Gina Williams
Gina Williams is an Australian singer-songwriter from Western Australia. Williams has released five studio albums and is the recipient of seven West Australian Music Industry Awards.
Early life
Williams is a Ballardong, Noongar woman, one of ...
and Guy Ghouse, the opera was performed at
His Majesty's Theatre by members of
West Australian Opera
West Australian Opera (WAO) is the principal opera company of Western Australia and is a resident company at His Majesty's Theatre, Perth.
The company formed in 1967 and works in close association with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. It pr ...
, West Australian Young Voices, Noongar Children's Choir and the Western Australian Youth Orchestra.
Noongar ecology
The Noongar people occupied and maintained the
Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
lands of the
south-west ecoregion of Western Australia, and made sustainable use of seven biogeographic regions of their territory, namely;
*
Geraldton Sandplains
Geraldton (Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth.
At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...
– Amangu and Yued
*
Swan Coastal Plain – Yued,
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 ...
,
Binjareb
The Bindjareb, Binjareb, Pindjarup or Pinjareb are an Indigenous Noongar people that occupy part of the South West of Western Australia.
Name
It is not clear if ''Pindjarup'' is the historically correct ethnonym for the tribe. After their d ...
and Wardandi
*
Avon Wheatbelt
The Avon Wheatbelt is a bioregion in Western Australia. It has an area of . It is considered part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion.
Geography
The Avon Wheatbelt bioregion is mostly a gently undulating landscape with low reli ...
– Balardong, Nyakinyaki, Wilman
*
Jarrah Forest
Jarrah forest is tall open forest in which the dominant overstory tree is ''Eucalyptus marginata'' (jarrah). The ecosystem occurs only in the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia. It is most common in the biogeographic region named i ...
– Whadjuk, Binjareb, Balardong, Wilman, Ganeang
*
Warren
A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval A ...
– Bibbulmun/Bibulmun, Mineng
*
Mallee – Wilmen, Goreng and Wudjari
*
Esperance Plains
Esperance Plains, also known as Eyre Botanical District, is a biogeographic region in southern Western Australia on the south coast between the Avon Wheatbelt and Hampton bioregions, and bordered to the north by the Mallee region. It is a pl ...
– Njunga
These seven regions have been acknowledged as a biodiversity hot-spot, having a generally greater number of
endemic species
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
than most other regions in Australia. The ecological damage done to this region through clearing, introduced species, by
feral
A feral () animal or plant is one that lives in the wild but is descended from domesticated individuals. As with an introduced species, the introduction of feral animals or plants to non-native regions may disrupt ecosystems and has, in some ...
animals and non-endemic plants is also severe, and has resulted in a high proportion of plants and animals being included in the categories of rare, threatened and endangered species. In modern times many Aboriginal men were employed intermittently as rabbiters, and
rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...
became an important part of Noongar diet in the early 20th century. The Noongar territory also happens to conform closely with the south-west Indian Ocean Drainage Region, and the use of these water resources played a very important seasonal part in their culture.
The Noongar thus have a close connection with the earth and, as a consequence, they divided the year into
six distinct seasons that corresponded with moving to different habitats and feeding patterns based on seasonal foods. They were:
* ''Birak'' (December/January)—Dry and hot. Noongar burned sections of scrubland to force animals into the open for easier hunting.
* ''Bunuru'' (February/March)—Hottest part of the year, with sparse rainfall throughout.
* ''Djeran'' (April/May)—Cooler weather begins. Fishing continued and bulbs and seeds were collected for food.
* ''Makuru'' (June/July)—Cold fronts that have until now brushed the lower south-west coast begin to cross further north. This is usually the wettest part of the year.
* ''Djilba'' (August/September)—Often the coldest part of the year, with clear, cold nights and days, or warmer, rainy and windy periods.
* ''Kambarang'' (October/November)—A definite warming trend is accompanied by longer dry periods and fewer cold fronts crossing the coast. The height of the wildflower season.
Native title
On 19 September 2006 the
Federal Court of Australia brought down a judgment which recognised
native title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...
in an area over the city of
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 ...
and its surrounds, known as ''Bennell v State of Western Australia''
006FCA 1243. An
appeal was subsequently lodged and was heard in April 2007. The remainder of the larger "Single Noongar Claim" area, covering of the south-west of Western Australia, remains outstanding, and will hinge on the outcome of this appeal process. In the interim, the Noongar people together will continue to be involved in native title negotiations with the
Government of Western Australia, and are represented by the
South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council.
Justice Wilcox's judgment is noteworthy for several reasons. It highlights Perth's wealth of post-European settlement writings which provide an insight into Aboriginal life, including laws and customs, around the time of settlement in 1829 and also into the beginning of the last century. These documents enabled Justice Wilcox to find that laws and customs governing land throughout the whole Single Noongar Claim (taking in Perth, and many other towns in the greater South West) were those of a single community. The claimants shared a language and had extensive interaction with others in the claim area.
Importantly, Justice Wilcox found the Noongar community constituted a united society which had continued to exist despite the disruption resulting from
mixed marriage and people being forced off their land and dispersed to other areas as a result of white settlement and later Government policies.
In April 2008 the Full Bench of the Federal Court upheld parts of the appeal by the Western Australian and Commonwealth governments against Justice Wilcox's judgment.
Other native title claims on Noongar lands include:
* Gnaala Karla Booja: the headwaters of the Murray and Harvey Rivers to the Indian Ocean
* The Harris Family: The coasts of the area from
Busselton to
Augusta
* The South West Boojarah: Lower course of the Blackwood and adjacent coastal areas
* Southern Noongar Wagyl Kaip: The South Coast to the Blackwood Tributaries
* The Ballardong Lands: The interior Wheatbelt.
Economics
Since the Noongar are largely urbanised or concentrated in major regional towns, studies have shown that the direct economic impact of the Noongar community on the WA economy was estimated to range between five and seven hundred million dollars per year. Exit polls of tourists leaving Western Australia have consistently shown that "lack of contact with indigenous culture" has been their greatest regret. It has been estimated that this results in the loss of many millions of dollars worth of foregone tourist revenue.
Current issues
As a consequence of the
Stolen Generations
The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen Children) were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church mis ...
and problems integrating with modern
westernised society, many difficult issues face the present day Noongar. For example, the ''Noongar Men of the SouthWest'' gathering in 1996 identified major community problems associated with
cultural dispossession such as:
* Alcohol and drugs (
chemical dependencies,
comorbidities
In medicine, comorbidity - from Latin morbus ("sickness"), co ("together"), -ity (as if - several sicknesses together) - is the presence of one or more additional conditions often co-occurring (that is, concomitant or concurrent) with a primary ...
or
dual diagnoses,
self medicating without medical supervision,
solvent sniffing)
* Diet and nutrition
* Language and culture
* Domestic violence
* Father-and-son relationships
Many of these issues are not unique to the Noongar but in many cases they are unable to receive appropriate government-agency care. The report that was produced after this gathering also stated that Noongar men have a life expectancy of 20 years less than non-Aboriginal men, and go to hospital three times more often.
The Noongar still have large extended families and many families have difficulty accessing available structures of
sheltered housing
Sheltered housing is a term covering a wide range of rented housing for older and/or disabled or other vulnerable people. In the United Kingdom most commonly it refers to grouped housing such as a block or "scheme" of flats or bungalows with a ...
in Western Australia. The Western Australian government has dedicated several areas for the purpose of building communities specifically for the Noongar people, such as the (now closed) Swan Valley Noongar Community.
The Noongar themselves are tackling their own issues, for example, the Noongar Patrol, which is an Aboriginal Advancement Council initiative. It was set up to deter Aboriginal young people from offending behaviour and reduce the likelihood of their contact with the criminal justice system. The patrol uses mediation and negotiation with indigenous youth in an attempt to curb anti-social and offending behaviour of young people who come into the city at night.
Notable Noongar people
Modern day
* Leonard Collard
* Ben Cuimermara Taylor
* Angus Wallam
* Veronica Willaway
Historical
*
Midgegooroo
Midgegooroo (died 22 May 1833) 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 (various ...
* Mokare
*
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 ...
See also
* History of Indigenous Australians
* History of Western Australia
* History wars
* Noongar kin systems
* Noongarpedia
* Prehistory of Australia
Notes
Citations
References
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Further reading
* Jennie Buchanan, Len Collard, Ingrid Cumming, David Palmer, Kim Scott, John Hartley (academic), John Hartley 2016
Kaya Wandjoo Ngala Noongarpedia.Special issue of ''Cultural Science Journal'' Vol 9, No 1.
* Green, Neville, ''Broken spears: Aborigines and Europeans in the Southwest of Australia'', Perth: Focus Education Services, 1984.
* Haebich, Anna, ''For Their Own Good: Aborigines and Government in the South West of Western Australia 1900–1940'', Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1992. .
* Douglas, Wilfrid H. ''The Aboriginal Languages of the South-West of Australia'', Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1976.
* Tindale, N.B., ''Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their Terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits and Proper Names'', 1974.
External links
*
{{Authority control
Noongar,
Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia
Native title in Australia