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First People, aka Aboriginal/Indigenous people/Noongar/Traditional owners

Walyalup is the Noongar (Nyoongar/Nyungar) name for what the coloniser governor Stirling called Fremantle. The people living here were and are the river-plain people, the Whadjuk. The country south of Derbal Yaragan (Swan) and Booragoon (Canning) rivers was called Beeliar. At the time of colonisation, 1829, the most prominent of the people in this country were Midgegooroo and his son Yagan. Five years later they had both been shot dead.

Collard et al. 2004:
Prior to 1829, the boodjar surrounding the Beelya (Swan River) was divided up into four sections, each owned by different family groups. The boordier, or leaders, of these boodjar divisions are relatively well known. To the north of the river on the coastal side, Yellagonga used this boodjar or land, whilst on the eastern side lay Weeip’s domain. In the southeast Nyungar boodjar around the Swan River lay Munday’s territory. Finally, in the southwest boodjar, Midgegooroo and his moort lived (Green 1984, p. 50).

Carter 1986:
In the south west of Western Australia at the time of European settlement, there were approximately thirty separate tribes and for the land centring on the Guildford area and extending for about 2000 square kilometres there was a minimum of around 450 persons. In Charles Symmons’ census of Perth Aborigines taken in 1840 he lists the names of all those then living on either side of the Swan River and acknowledges them as the ‘original owners of the land’. For the area running from Mt. Eliza to just past Broun’s farm was the land of Monday and from Bassendean to the head of the Swan was, so Symmons tells us, the province of Wiap. (Carter 1986: 16)

Williams 1984:
South of the main waterway (the Aborigines called it 'beela') lay the country of the Beeliar, a tribe which at time of settlement had Yagan and his father Midgegooroo among its leaders. (Williams 1984: 2)

Gare 2014:
About thirteen Noongar groups or tribes then lived on the plains of the Swan River. Each tribe followed seasonal hunting trends as they moved within the traditional borders of their country. Countries like Mooro, Beeliar and Walyalup spread naturally across the landscape we now know of as Perth and its suburbs. Yellagonga, Munday and Midgegooroo were their leaders.
The Noongar people of this region were called Whadjuk. ... Midgegooroo and his wife led the Walyalup Aborigines when Stirling ﬁrst brought his British gentlefolk to Fremantle. His son, Yagan, was then considered by the English as ‘not a chief’ but nonetheless ‘ranked amongst the princes of the country’. As frontier conflict mounted around the Swan River, Midgegooroo and Yagan led their people in negotiations with the colonists and in resistance to their dispossession. By 1834, though, Midgegooroo was dead - executed in Perth at a nod from Stirling [actually Irwin; Stirling was in England] while bound captive to a door - and the patriot Yagan was murdered by two white boys in his country near Fremantle. Gare 2014: 9-10.

Terminological notes (GG):
The term First Nation[s] [People] has become the accepted term now - actually during the year 2019, by my observation, replacing the earlier terms 'native', 'Aboriginal', and 'Indigenous [people]', as each successive term came to be seen as insufficiently respectful. Two points. First, the term 'First Nations people' is quite a mouthful. Second, it's inaccurate. The numbers of the first people were not large, as they lived subsistently off the land, which could not sustain large numbers. And they were not organised in anything remotely like what 'nation' usually means, but rather in small family and 'skin' (clan) groups. Estimates of all the people who lived south of the Swan and west of the Canning Rivers down to, say, Rockingham, were in the hundreds - where now hundreds of thousands of people (but not a nation) live. A third note: we've copied this term from - as usual - North America - the masters of our evolving language, as of also almost everything else.

23 February 2023:
I have just seen, for the time ever, in The Conversation, the appearance of the term 'Mob' to refer to Aboriginal people. This sounds derogatory from the start. I am aware that Aboriginal people sometimes refer to themselves as Us Mob, but that's their prerogative. I hope not to see this again. (GG)

Chris Owen 2016:
For terminology regarding Aboriginal people, ‘country’ describes land and sea areas belonging to different language groups. The complexity of Aboriginal society across the Kimberley was unknown to colonists at the time and it included up to seven different types of social organisation concerning kinship systems, marriage divisions, and classificatory ‘Sections’ also known as ‘skin names’. The prevailing assumption was that Aboriginal people lived and moved in defined areas and possessed a ‘tribal structure’ that shared a common language and culture. This perception was reflected in later anthropology and the term ‘tribes’ was used extensively up until the 1950s to describe what are now generally known as language or dialect groups that consisted of smaller ‘bands’, ‘hordes’ or clans. Aboriginal people could also often speak a variety of dialects of the same language and their identity was not fixed. For example a person may be from ‘coastal’ Warwa country but have affiliations with another location. The term ‘tribe’ is used [in his book] if quoted in a historical source. Similarly ‘mob’ was extensively utilised to describe anything from ‘tribes’ to family groups. (Every Mother's Son ...)

References and Links

Baines, Patricia 1987, The Heart of Home: The Intergenerational Transmission of a Nyungar Identity, University of Western Australia dissertation.

Bolton, G. C. 1981, 'Black and white after 1897', in Tom Stannage ed., A New History of Western Australia, UWAP: 124-180.

Bracknell, Clint 2014, 'Kooral Dwonk-katitjiny (listening to the past): Aboriginal language, songs and history in south-western Australia', Aboriginal History, Vol. 38.

Briggs, Victor 2023, Seafaring: Canoeing Ancient Songlines, Magabala. Australian Aboriginals travelled to Hawaii by canoe.

Carter, Bevan 2005, Nyungah Land: Records of Invasion and Theft of Aboriginal Land on the Swan River, 1829-1850, research by Bevan Carter and Lynda Nutter, foreword by Robert Bropho, Swan Valley Nyungah Community, Guildford.

Carter, Bevan 2014, Eden Hill Camps: Records of Racism in Australia, Nyungah Press, Bassendean.

Carter, Jennie 1986, Bassendean: A Social History 1829-1979, Bassendean Town Council.

Collard, Len, Sandra Harben, Rosemary van den Berg 2004, Nidja Beeliar Boodjar Noonookurt Nyininy: a Nyungar Interpretive History of the Use of Boodjar (Country) in the Vicinity of Murdoch University, Murdoch University.

Cook Denise 2016, 'That Was My Home': Voices from the Noongar Camps in Perth's Western Suburbs, PhD dissertation, Murdoch University.

Crawford, I. M. 1981, 'Aboriginal cultures in Western Australia', in Tom Stannage ed., A New History of Western Australia, UWAP: 3-34.

Delmege, Sharon 2000, The Fringedweller's Struggle: Cultural Politics and the Force of History, PhD dissertation, Murdoch University.

Delmege, Sharon 2014, 'From camp life to suburbia: Aboriginal housing in Perth', Australian Historical Studies, vol. 45, issue 3, September: 368-38.

Dortch, Charles & Joe Dortch 2012, 'Archaeological evidence for early human presence in the western reaches of the Greater Swan Region, WA', Fremantle Studies, 7: 51-76.

Gare, Deborah 2014, 'The female frontier: race and gender in Fremantle 1829-1839', Fremantle Studies, 8: 1-18.

Glauert, L. 1950, 'Provisional list of aboriginal place names and their meanings', Early Days, Volume 4, Part 2: 83-86 (uncorrected scan).

Green, Neville 1981, 'Aborigines and white settlers in the nineteenth century', in Tom Stannage ed., A New History of Western Australia, UWAP: 72-123.

Green, Neville 1984, Broken Spears: Aboriginals and Europeans in the Southwest of Australia, Focus Education Services, Cottesloe, WA.

Haebich, Anna 1985, Aborigines of the South West of Western Australia, PhD thesis, Murdoch University.

Haebich, Anna 1988, For Their Own Good: Aborigines and Government in the South West of Western Australia 1900 to 1940, UWA Press, Nedlands.

Haebich, Anna 2000, Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800–2000, Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

Haebich, Anna 2003, Many Voices: Reflections on Experiences of Indigenous Child Separation, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

Haebich, Anna 2004, '"Clearing the wheat belt": erasing the Indigenous presence in the southwest of Western Australia', in A. Dirk Moses ed., Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History, Berghahn Books, NY.

Haebich, Anna 2008, Spinning the Dream: Assimilation in Australia, Fremantle Press.

Haebich, Anna 2010, Murdering Stepmothers: The Execution of Martha Rendell, UWA Publishing, Nedlands.

Haebich, Anna & Steve Mickler, 2013, A Boy's Short Life: Warren Braedon/Louis Johnson, UWA Publishing.

Haebich, Anna 2018, Dancing in the Shadows: Histories of Nyungar Performance, UWA Publishing.

Hallam, Sylvia J. 1981, 'The first Western Australians', in Tom Stannage ed., A New History of Western Australia, UWAP: 35-71.

Hallam, Sylvia & Lois Tilbrook 1990, Aborigines of the Southwest Region 1829-1840, UWAP.

Hasluck, Paul 1953, Native Welfare in Australia, Brokensha.

Haynes, Bruce T. 1973, W.A. Aborigines, 1622-1972: An Extract from Themes from Western Australian History; a selection of documents and readings, History Association of Western Australia, Nedlands.

Hughes-Hallett, Debra 2010, Indigenous History of the Swan and Canning Rivers, Curtin University.

Kinnane Stephen 1996, The Coolbaroo Club, script for the documentary.

Kinnane Stephen 2003, Shadow Lines, FACP.

Lyon, Robert Menli [Robert Lyon Milne] 1833, ‘A glance at the manners and language of the Aboriginal inhabitants of Western Australia with a short vocabulary’, in two parts: Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, 30 March 1833: 51; and 20 April 1833: 63-4. Many Nyoongar names for country come from this source.

Moore, George Fletcher 1884, Diary of Ten Years Eventful Life of an Early Settler in Western Australia and also A descriptive vocabulary of the language of the aborigines, Walbrook, London. (Scan in the process of correction.) Repub. 1978 in a facsimile edition with an introduction by Tom Stannage, UWAP.

Moore, George Fletcher 1884, A descriptive vocabulary of the language of the aborigines—only.

Moore, George Fletcher 2006, The Millendon Memoirs: George Fletcher Moore's Western Australian Diaries and Letters, 1830-1841, ed. J.M.R. Cameron, Hesperion Press.

Neville, A.O. 1936, 'Relations between settlers and aborigines in Western Australia', Early Days: Volume 2, Part 19: 10-46.

Neville, A.O. 1947, Australia's Coloured Minority: Its Place in the Community, Currawong Publishing, Sydney.

Green, Neville 1981, 'Aborigines and white settlers in the nineteenth century', in Tom Stannage ed., A New History of Western Australia, UWAP.

Owen, Chris 2016, Every Mother's Son is Guilty: Policing the Kimberley Frontier of Western Australia 1882-1905, UWAP, Crawley.

Pascoe, Bruce 2014, Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture, Magabala Books, Broome.

Rodda, Jan 1993, Potential for Aboriginal Cultural and Eco Tourism Activities in Walyunga National Park near Perth, WA Dept Conservation and Land Management.

Tilbrook, Lois 1983, Nyungar Tradition: Glimpses of Aborigines of South-Western Australia 1829-1914, UWAP. [available online]

Whish-Wilson, David 2013, Perth, NewSouth, UNSW, Sydney. Mentions significant Aboriginal leaders at the time of contact.

Williams, A.E. 1984, Nedlands: From Campsite to City, City of Nedlands.

Nyungar Wardan Katitjin Bidi-Derbal Nara (People's Ocean Knowledge Trail of Cockburn Sound and Districts).

Whadjuk Walking Trails, Noongar Coastal Trail.

The banner at the top of each page and the top map (after Green, Broken Spears) on this one are borrowed, with respect and thanks, from the DerbalNara page.