Dezerae Miller

We have a yarning table set up in the clinic waiting room - a safe place to talk, listen and learn about elder abuse prevention, healing, and strengthening our community.

East Perth Clinic

9 am to 12 pm

Mother says family's wait for maintenance on overcrowded rental 'breaks us' Delays in maintenance repairs, including mould removal, are forcing families to sleep on mattresses in living rooms, adding to overcrowding pressures in remote homes.

Cultural safety is foundational to wellbeing.

It means children are in an environment that is spiritually, socially, and emotionally safe, where their identity and lived experiences are respected and never challenged.

Read our submission to the Joint Standing Committee inquiry on racism - it highlights the importance of culturally safe, rights-based systems that genuinely listen to children and respond to harm early.

Following the death of a 22-year-old man on the Mitchell Freeway last weekend while attempting to put petrol in his vehicle, Main Roads wants to remind you how to stay safe if your car breaks down.

If you break down on a major road in Perth, you should move your vehicle to an emergency lane or the side of the road if you can. Then remain in your car with your seat belt on, turn your hazard lights on and call Main Roads on 138 138 for further advice.

"Don't get out of the vehicle, we'll try and get a resource out to you as soon as possible," Alex Hendrick, Real Time Traffic Operations Manager at Main Roads, told Mark Gibson on 102.5 ABC Perth.

If you find yourself obstructing traffic, Main Roads can help relocate your vehicle to a safer location. There is no cost for this 'safety' tow. From there, you can arrange further towing services to take your vehicle to another location.

"We do operate 24-7 and within the metropolitan area we've got quite good CCTV coverage so we're able to look at where people are, assess what's going on and try and get the resources assigned on a priority basis."

Main Roads manages the state's arterial road network, including the freeways, highways and major roads.

"Anything sort of over 70km an hour is more likely going to be one of our roads. But if you're unsure, still call 138 138… At worst, we'll try and put you in touch with the local council or try and give some guidance."

Mr Hendrick also recommends checking whether your insurance company offers free roadside assistance and saving that information in your phone.

As winter arrives, he says now is the time to maintain your vehicle.

"Check your tyres, if you have had engine problems, just go get it checked out because changing weather can affect things."

Kaya Babbingur

According to Robert Menli Lyon and his informant Yagan, Whadjuk Noongar country was under the command of a number of Noongar leaders. He called them ‘chiefs’ or ‘Kings’ which they were not, at least not in the sense that those words were defined by the British. They were Elders or Birdiyergur (bosses) perhaps.

This is the map that was derived from Menli Lyon’s information and part of an article published in 1897 that brought Menli Lyon’s information to a new generation of occupants.

It’s interesting to note that Beeliar and Beeloo and probably Boorloo are all iterations of ‘Bilya’ … river.

*****

West Australian 10 July 1897

THE OLD SWAN RIVER SETTLEMENT
ABORIGINAL NAMING SYSTEM

There are probably few living in the colony at the present time who have any idea of how rich in Aboriginal names is its earliest settled part.

It is proposed in this article to give some account of these old names, the material having been obtained from an old number of one of the direct predecessors of this journal, namely The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal in several of its earlier numbmers published in the year 1888

Mr. R. M. Lyon, a resident ot the settlement, and a most enthusiastic student of Aboriginal language, topography and lore, published a series of articles dealing with his favourite subject in The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal.

It is from one of the series, published on the 29th April, 1833, that the WEST AUSTRALIAN is able to give the following information.

The article dealt with the native names of places, lying more particularly within the points traversed by the settlement of the day.

The divisions lying within that settlement each had its native leader. The first of these was Mooro, the district which had for its leader a very humane and well disposed man named Yellowgonga, who seems to have been one of the most powerful men in the region.

The Noongar language supplied the names of the places in Perth, and its vicinity.

Mooro, says Mr Lyons is bounded on the west by the sea, Melville Water and the Swan River on the south, Ellensbrook on the East and Gyngoorda (Bannister River) on the north.

The capital was named Galup, (Monger's Lake) to which place Yellowgonga moved after the formation of the settlement.

Originally the camp of Yellowgonga, bearing the name of Byarbrup stood at the west end of the town, opposite the springs (Kennedy’s Fountain), as you descend from Mt. Eliza, by which means he was able to maintain excellent watch and ward over the land and river. On this very spot the 63rd Regiment pitched their tents, when they arrived to take possession.

The position was an important one to Yellagonga. In the first place it was convenient for hunting and fishing, upon which his people depended for subsistence, though afterwards it became the very place where he held out his hand to beg for a crust of bread, points out Mr. Lyon.

In the next place, it gave him the command of the flats on the south, the only place where his territories could be easily invaded from that point, the river hardly being fordable anywhere else. The name of the springs opposite the camp at the west end of the town was Goodinup, and those at the east end, in front of the property of Captain Roe (the Surveyor-General and father of the present Sheriff, Mr. J. B. Roe), were named Dyeedyallalup, the latter it appears deriving its name from the large quantity of clay there. Dyeedyallalup meant "place of clay."

There is some little difficulty in exactly fixing the extent of the Mooro country, as the localities mentioned by Lyons do not appear on the map in the positions he assigned them, this, of course, being due to his having to rely so largely upon verbal description, but it would Appear that Yellagonga was a leader in Perth and a large slice of the Swan district, at the least.

"Beeloo, the district of Munday," continues Lyon, is bounded by the Canning on the south, by Melville water on the west, by the Swan and Ellensbrook on the north. The eastern boundary of this district I cannot accurately define," he adds regretfully. We are informed with delightful vagueness that several of the hills were numbered in his territories, and that his headquarters were at Warerup. [This could be Wurerup, right on the banks of the Bilya at Middle Swan.]

A search of the maps of today does not disclose the locality of the capital by that name, but it is described as the gorge of the Swan, and comprehending the several estates of Celson, Belvoir, Baskerville, Brookmount, and Henley Park, as well as several other stations in the immediate vicinity. "It may be remarked that the lower part of Munday’s, district, near where the two waters meet, forms a sort of neutral or common ground on which all the Communities to the north and south of the river occasionally meet," says Mr. Lyon with his usual indefiniteness, when he touches the land question.

Possibly, he refers to the meeting of the waters at Bull's Creek, which the Canning natives of a generation or two back used to describe as “any blackfellow's ground."

Certainly what is known as the Canning, and a good deal of the country lying to the east, was included in this, as well as a part of East Perth.

The next leader’s area is much easier to define. "Beerliar,, the district of Midgegooroo, is bounded by Melville water and Canning on the north, by the mountains on the east, by the sea on the west, and by a line due east from Mangles Bay on the south."

This is Fremantle, the head-quarters of Midgegooroo with Mandyanup situated "somewhere" in Gandoo This is believed to have been in the vicinity of Point Walter, which would give Midgegooroo the same facilities of outlook as Mt. Eliza gave Yellowgonga.

“Here I ought to observe," says Mr, Lyons, "That Yagan is not the chief, but being the son of Midgegooroo, is greatly distinguished as a patriot and warrior.

" The District of Banyowla, leader of the Murray people, comes next, and is bounded on the west by the sea, on the east by the mountains, on the north by Beeliar, and on the south by a line paralIel to the northern boundary. Banyowla possesses both banks of the Murray."

" The next leader is Dygan, and next to him Beenan, whose districts probably extend as far as Cape Leeuwin." Mr. Lyons had no information concerning these places beyond that.

“To the north of Yellagonga is Waylo, chief of the people on the Boora, commonly called Lennard's Brook.

To the north, and next to Waylo is Byerman, chief on the Bookal and Mooler." Concerning Bookal and Mooler, which wore two lakes lying north of the Gyngoorda, Mr. Lyons says, "I am greatly puzzled about these two waters. I once took them for rivers.

That such lakes or sheels of water do exist is
beyond all doubt, but where to place them is difficult. The geographical ideas and terms of the Perth and Fremantle communities, as well as their conceptions of distance and magnitude are so different from ours that the relative situations and places are not easily ascertained."

To the eastward, we are told, "and somewhere in the hills on the way to York," was a chief ef the name of Dysolon, whom Mr. Lyons thought might be leader of the Avon, near Mt. Mackie. The Noongar name of the Avon was Gogulger.

“Still further to the east was Wailabong, chief of the district called Bargoo.

These seem to have been the chief places known to early settlers by their native names. We are told that Yellagonga, was most distinguished of all the leaders "for his humane, peaceable disposition, and with this he coupled great martial courage.

When he was angry no warrior, not even Yagan, dared stand before him. To him the settlers
were greatly indebted for the protection of their lives and property.

Kaya Babbingur

The Noongar people of Boorloo traditionally lit their land-care bushfires primarily during Birak (the first summer season, roughly December to January). Traditional fire management was based on close observation of the environment rather than a fixed calendar.

(Reference, WA natural Resources Management using publicly available cultural information and references shared by Noongar knowledge holders.)

The fires described in the following article took place around the traditional time of burning.

I don’t believe the Noongar people would have lit uncontrolled fires carelessly as is hinted at in the article… as if the cooking of every meal resulted in a bushfire.

******

Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal 23 February 1833

THE ABORIGINAL FIRES
The fires kindled by the Aboriginal people, in different parts of the country, have spread with alarming rapidity, and presented a grand and interesting spectacle.

The Country, on the banks of Melville water, on Sunday last, from Mr. A. Butler’s, [Attadale/ Applecross area] to Point Walter, was one continued blaze, and was as splendid a scene, as could well be imagined.

The extent of this fire gave rise to a report, that both Mr. Butler's premises, and those at the point, were destroyed; but it is perfectly unfounded. The windows of the latter place were broken, possibly by the Aboriginal people, but no further injury has been sustained.

We are persuaded the origin of these fires is not at all to be attributed, to any malicious intent on the part of the Aboriginal people; they resort to their accustomed practice of lighting a fire in the bush, for the purpose of cooking, and from the bush being highly inflamable at this season, it extends with resistless violence.

Mr. Lennard’s farm on the Swan, had a narrow escape a few days ago, but from the ground around the house being well cleared, the flames were, with some exertion subdued without any injury to his property.

On Monday night, a similar fire extending its ravages over Mount Eliza, Lieutenant Carew most promptly ordered out the military, and hurried to the spot; by their exertions, assisted by some active volunteers, all apprehensions of danger were allayed.