![Noongar1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Noongar1.jpg)
The Bindjareb, Binjareb, Pindjarup or Pinjareb are an Indigenous
Noongar
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 ...
people that occupy part of the
South West
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
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 ...
.
Name
It is not clear if ''Pindjarup'' is the historically correct
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
for the tribe. After their disappearance, the only sources for them came from Kaneang informants. The word itself may reflect a
lexeme
A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken ...
''pinjar''/''benjar'' meaning ''wetlands'' or ''swamps'', which would yield the idea that the Pindjarup were "people of the wetlands".
Country
Pindjarup tribal estates extended over an estimated , taking in
Pinjarra,
Harvey
Harvey, Harveys or Harvey's may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Harvey'' (play), a 1944 play by Mary Chase about a man befriended by an invisible anthropomorphic rabbit
* Harvey Awards ("Harveys"), one of the most important awards ...
and the
Leschenault Estuary
Leschenault Estuary is an estuarine lagoon that lies to the north of Bunbury, Western Australia.
It had in the past met the Indian Ocean at the Leschenault Inlet, but that has been altered by harbour works for Bunbury, and the creation of The Cu ...
. They were also present on
Murray River's lower reaches.
Social organization and lifestyle
As a people of the wetlands, the Pindjarup were famed for their fish-traps, and a seasonal cycle of six seasons, making full use of the environmental resources from the coastal estuaries and sand-dunes, through the interior lakes and wetlands to the more fertile soils of the Darling Scarp foothills and ridgelines. Western
long-necked tortoises,
black swan
The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon c ...
s,
ducks
Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form t ...
, and
migratory birds
Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by ...
formed an important part of their diet.
History of European settlement
The lands of the Pindjarup were first explored by Europeans in 1829, when Lieutenant P. N. Preston and Dr
Alexander Collie
Dr Alexander Collie (2 June 1793 – 8 November 1835) was a Scottish surgeon and botanist who journeyed to Western Australia in 1829, where he was an explorer and Colonial Surgeon.
Early life
Collie was born in Insch in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on ...
took the British naval vessel
HMS ''Sulphur'' to explore the mouths of the
Peel Inlet
The Peel-Harvey Estuarine System ( nys, Djilba) is a natural estuarine system that lies roughly parallel to the coast of Western Australia and south of the town of Mandurah.
The strip of land between the Indian Ocean and the estuarine system ca ...
, the
Serpentine and
Murray
Murray may refer to:
Businesses
* Murray (bicycle company), an American manufacturer of low-cost bicycles
* Murrays, an Australian bus company
* Murray International Trust, a Scottish investment trust
* D. & W. Murray Limited, an Australian who ...
Rivers, and the Leschenault Inlet. The Pindjarup killed one of the exploring party, George MacKenzie, a 19-year-old, in 1830. Two years later, after a soldier was wounded on the Murray, the British sent a punitive expedition which shot five Pindjarup dead, and left many others wounded.
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 ...
, a second cousin of the future British Prime Minister,
Sir Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer ...
, had been given some of land, part of it covering Pindjarup territory, as his personal domain. The Pindjarup were in dispute also with 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 ...
of the
Swan River. In December 1833 the former's claim to have rights to perform their ceremonies and make kinship visits to the northern area were recognized at a
corroboree
A corroboree is a generic word for a meeting of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It may be a sacred ceremony, a festive celebration, or of a warlike character. A word coined by the first British settlers in the Sydney area from a word in the l ...
and the Pindjarup resumed their visits to kin. The Whadjuk themselves had had numerous conflicts with the British settlers, who had occupied land on which one of their basic foods, yams, grew. The British authorities themselves were drawn into taking sides when intertribal conflicts arose. Around February of the following year clashes took place with settlers after their clan dingoes attacked livestock near Perth. In a standoff, the Pindjarup leader
Calyute
Calyute (''Floruit, fl.'' 1833–1840), also known as Kalyute, Galyute or Wongir, was an Indigenous Australian resistance leader who was involved in a number of reprisal attacks with white settlers and members of other tribes in the early days of ...
distinguished himself by keeping his spear pressed to a soldier who had, in turn, held his musket at Calyute's chest. The Whadjuk, who had come to some terms of agreement over co-existence with the intruders, and the Pindjarup fell out with regard to the way to handle the settlers, especially after a duel between Calyte and a Whadjuk man, Yaloo, in which both suffered wounds.
In April 1834 Calyute raided George Shenton's windmill, pinned its owner down after luring him out with an offer of baked
damper
A damper is a device that deadens, restrains, or depresses. It may refer to:
Music
* Damper pedal, a device that mutes musical tones, particularly in stringed instruments
* A mute for various brass instruments
Structure
* Damper (flow), a mechan ...
, and hauled off a substantial quantity, , of flour. His identity and that of many others in the raiding band, was passed on to the settler authorities by Whadjuk people. A detachment managed to capture Calyute, who was bayoneted, together with two other men, Yedong and Monang, some days later, and he was flogged with 60 lashes in Perth's main street, and then imprisoned for a year, being released on 10 June 1834.
On Yedong's release he organized an ambush on the 24 July on what Peel regarded as his property, killing a private, Hugh Nesbit and wounding a former soldier, having lured them into a trap after promising them help in retrieving a lost horse. Nesbit's death was attributed to a man called ''Noonar''. The wounded man managed, though speared three times, to make his way back to safety. The military unit at
Governor Stirling
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
's disposition had received reinforcements that doubled their numbers by September 1833 and he also created a Mounted Police unit, mainly from discharged soldiers. On 25 October, Stirling led troops, and accompanied by Peel, down into Pindjarup lands, not only to exact retribution for Nesbit's death, but also to enable Peel to resume, unthreatened, the Pindjarup lands the Crown had bestowed on him.
Massacre of Pinjarra
What ensued was almost immediately referred to as the "Battle of Pinjarra", a name retained by historical memory in West Australia until recently. Historians now consider it to have been a massacre of the Indigenous people. Stirling's military contingent consisted of 25 men who came across a Pindjarup camp of from 70 to 80 people. Tactics had some positioned on either side of the river and others advancing on an front, with a forward party pressing on horseback into the camp. At least five Pindjarup were shot dead immediately, and the rest fled riverwards, where the men, women and children, came under fire. One British soldier was speared in the arm, and Captain Ellis, the Superintendent of the Mounted Police, was mortally wounded. Stirling's official report stated that 14 Pindjarup had been killed, though modern estimates run as high as 50.
Events after 1834
By 1836 a permanent military settlement was established in Pinjarra, and further land grants to settlers occurred with little overt resistance from Aboriginal people, who sought employment in the
pastoral industry which was established in the area. By 1838 a road through Pindjarup lands connected Pinjarra to
Bunbury.
Pindjarup people survived the conflict, but their cultural identity was weakened through policies of successive
Protectors of Aborigines
The role of Protector of Aborigines was first established in South Australia in 1836.
The role became established in other parts of Australia pursuant to a recommendation contained in the ''Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Abori ...
in Western Australia, particularly
Henry Prinsep
Henry Thoby Prinsep (15 July 1793 – 11 February 1878) was an English official of the Indian Civil Service, and historian of India. In later life he entered politics, and was a significant figure of the cultural circles of London.
Early life
Pr ...
and
A. O. Neville, who sought to "breed out" the Aboriginal race through
miscegenation
Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
with whites. Successive outbreaks of measles and other illnesses also took their toll on the successive demoralisation of these people. Nevertheless, since the 1930s the number of Aboriginal people in Pindjarup lands has increased, though most now identify themselves by the language group
Noongar
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 ...
, rather than Pindjarup.
From the 1940s to the 1970s up to 500 Aboriginal people, including many of Pindjarup heritage, were incarcerated at the
Roelands Aboriginal Mission
Roelands Aboriginal Mission, also known as Roelands Native Mission or simply Roelands Mission, was a farm property used to house Aboriginal children from the Stolen Generations.
Peter Albany Bell, following his retirement in 1928, purchased i ...
, most of whom were taken from their families as a part 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 miss ...
policies of that era.
Alternative names
* Pinjarra (
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
)
* Penjarra
* Pidjain
* Peejine
* Murray tribe
* South West tribe
* Banyowla
* Bangoula (personal name)
* Banyoula
* Kuriwongi (language name)
* Yaberoo ("northerners" applied to people around
Wonnerup)
See also
*
List of massacres of Indigenous Australians
Numerous clashes involving Indigenous people (on the continent "Australia") occurred during and after a wave of mass immigration of Europeans into the continent, which began in the late 18th century and lasted until the early 20th century. The ...
*
List of Indigenous Australian group names
This list of Australian Aboriginal group names includes names and collective designations which have been applied, either currently or in the past, to groups of Aboriginal Australians. The list does not include Torres Strait Islander peoples, wh ...
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{Aboriginal peoples of Western Australia
Noongar
Swan Coastal Plain