Nyungar Tradition : Glimpses Of Aborigines Of South West .

A14A14AxiiElijah Quartermaine senior (12), William C. A. Quartermaine (12), c. 1888Louise Quartermaine (12), Nellie Quartermaine (12),c. 1905Quartermaine womenEmily ‘Emma’ Rodney (12), Eva Rodney (12), EthelWard, 1927Vera Diamond, Eva Rodney (12), 1920sHenry Rodney (12), Emily Rodney (12), 1920sSpencer Riley (13A), Len Keen (6), c. 1920Joyce Rodd nCe Eades, Les Eades (13A)Fred Coyne (13C), Elsie Coyne nCe Eades (13A), LesEades (13A), c. 1954Corporal A. P. FarmerEmily Farmer nCe Coyne with Martha and Phoebe Farmer(all 13B), 1890sEva Ross nCe Farmer (13B), Dolly Wheeler, Emily KeennCe Farmer (13B), 1920sBertha Loo nCe Coyne (13C), Elizabeth Daniels nCe Coyne(13C), Margaret Coyne nee Davidson (13C), c. 1915Bertha Loo nee Coyne (13C), c. 1945Violet Eades nCe Coyne (13C), 1920sViolet Eades nee Coyne (13C), Lilly Collins nCe Coyne(13C), 1940sJack Coyne (13C), Garry Coyne, late 1940sKath Michael nCe Moore, Mary Hill nCe Mindemarra(13C), 1940sHenry Edward Harris (14A), Emily Harris nee Bartlett(14A), 1924Keith Harris, Henry Edward Harris, Edward Harris,1930sGrace McKenzie nCe Jacobs (14A), Willie Jacobs 0170171171173173Marlene Jacobs nCe Ugle (4A)14B Rosie Gentle, Bob Allen, c. 1921 [Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Perth]17 Annie Stokes nee Newell (1 1A), Tommy Buddah (17)17 Betty Cook nCe Cameron (17)18A Edna Winmar nCe Kickett (18A), Alta Winmar nCe Kickett(18A), Linda Garlett nCe Kickett (18A), 1930s18A Douglas Kickett (18A), Molly ?18A Thomas ‘Tom’ ‘Yombich’ Kickett (18A), Mary KickettnCe Fleay (18A), 1930s18A Lilla Mourish nCe Kipping with children18A Alice Kickett nCe Ryder (14C), Gladys Blurton nCe Kickett(18A), Grace Kickett nCe Ryder (14C), 1930s18A Morris Kickett, Richard Kickett, Andrew Kickett, withJoe Kickett (18A), 1960s18B Mary Yarran (18B), Mantel Winmar (18B), 1930s18B Fred Winmar (18B), Miss Weir, Julia Winmar nCe Phillips(18B), 1930s18B Minnie Winmar nee Phillips (18B), Charlie Winmar(18B)18B Percy Winmar (18B), 194518B Bevan Winmar (1 8B), Ruth Winmar nCe Hansen (3), JohnWinmar (18B), Lucy Winmar nCe Hansen (3), 1930s19 Frances Mingal, Mary Elizabeth Tainan (19), JudithButler, Mary Helen or Ellen Tainan (19), Cecilia Yaky,186720A Wilfred John Regan (20A)20A Jack Regan (20A), c. 192020A Sarah ?, Clarrie Regan (20A)20A Jack Regan and friend, 1930s20A Ernie Regan (20A)20B Beaufort Dinah (20B), 189191191191191191193

ILLUSTRATIONS20B George Dinah (20B), 1950s20B Sikh pedlar20B Lena ‘Jibung’ Dinah, Steve Dinah, ‘King’ BeaufortDinah, Nora Rumah Dinah (all 20B), c. 190020B Bella Kelly nCe Colbung (10B), Alice Bolton (20B), JeffreyHart nCe Dyer, c. 195020B Sonny Khan with his uncle Khan21 Samuel Morrison (21), c. 191421 Wilfred Morrison (21), Hoppy Brittain21 Arthur Edward Morrison (21), 19452 1 Samuel Morrison, William Morrison, Olive Morrison,Nelly Morrison nCe Orchid, Jane Morrison, ArthurEdward Morrison (all 21), Charlie ‘Bullfrog’ Innal(8D), c. 192022A The Invincibles: Paul Jater, Patrick Yapo (19A), JohnWalley (22A), Benedict Cuper (14C), Anthony Nelabut,Aleck Wanola, Felix Jackamarra (26), James Egan,John Blurton (9A), H. B. Lefroy, Frederick Yrbel,Joseph Nogolgot, early 1880s22A Martin and Julia Walley (22A)22B Sam Isaacs (22B), c. 190022B Mona Farrell nee Isaacs (22B), c. 193022B Dolly Nettup nCe Isaacs (22B), Mona Farrell nCe Isaacs22B22B22B22B22B22CBertha Isaacs (22B), c. 1920Bertha Isaacs (22B), early 1920sJim Isaacs (22B), early 1920sJohn Isaacs (22B), early 1920sJohn Isaacs (22B), Rosie Isaacs nee Harris (22C), c. 1935Rosie Strachan nee Harris (22C), Billy Strachan (22C),Mary and Agnes Strachan22C Isobel Bropho nCe Leyland (22C), 197619319419419519519719719719719919920 1202202202202203203203205206Rosie Harris nCe HillEdith Anderson (22C), c. 1915Edith Anderson (22C), Gladys Anderson, 1917-18Timothy Harris (22C), ?Eva Frances Prosser nCe Wattling(27), Norman Harris, Gladys Anderson, Edith HarrisnCe Anderson (22C), c. 192822c Gladys Anderson, Rosie Harris nCe Hill, Edith Harris nCeAnderson (22C), c. 1928MaitlandNettup and company in corroboree, 19292323 Liza Hill (23), c. 188523 Joe Nettup (23), early 1900s25 Harold Sonny McEvoy (25), 197825 Rodney, Simon and Joe Williams (all 25), Patrick Coyne(13B), c. 1920HaroldWillaway (3 l), Florence Willaway nCe Ryder31(14C), 194034 Harry Henry Charles Phillips (34) with his seven sons,c. 194034 Donkey teamsters at Paynes Find, 1930s34 Laura Gertrude Phillips nCe Leeder (34), Aden Walley,Russell Lewis Phillips (34), 193834 Doreen Grace Phillips nee Holmes (34), Albert MervynPhillips, Cecil Joseph Phillips (34), Cecily PandoraPhillips, Garry Basil Phillips, Geoffrey Phillips, 195034 A soldier friend with Alice Mary Holmes nCe Williams(34) and Thomas Joseph Holmes (34), c. 193922c22c22c22c20720820820920921 121 121 121521522723 123 123 1232232FIGURESGalliput’s map of a native encampment (SRP Vol. 15, Morganto Hay) [Buttye Library]Lucy Chucky to H. C. Prinsep (ADF 1907, 186)1124xiii

Map of George Long’s land, Margaret River (ADF 1907, 35)Charles Ponan to E. Pechelle (ADF 1907, 357)Paul Piramino to Prinsep (ADF 1902, 253)Arthur Julbert Harris to Pechelle (ADF 1907, 747)People at New Norica Mission to Prinsep (ADF 1906, 307)James Mippy to Amy Mippy (ADF 1906, 979)Ellensbrook List of Inmates, 1902 (ADF 1902, 117)Returns of the New Norcia Mission to the Aborigines Department, 1899 (ADF 1899, 118)Annaline Penny and Nickolas Armir to Lucy Morden (ADF1901, 84)One Interested to Spratt (ADF 1901, 84)Emily Pious to Prinsep (ADF 1903, 12)Mr Pious to Prinsep (ADF 1903, 12)James Cooper to Prinsep (ADF 1902, 36)Mrs Cooper to Prinsep (ADF 1902, 153)David Nannup to Prinsep (ADF 1898, 630)William Hart to Prinsep (ADF 1902, 552)Edwin Turner to the Attorney General (ADF 1906, 640)Certificate of Citizenship of Lily Hayward nCe Underwood,1952Honourable Discharge papers of Lewis ‘Beaky’ CollardBenedict Abdul’s 50 sterling bond (ADF 1906, 307)Certificate of Citizenship of Beaufort Dinah, FAMILY TREES1A Hansen/Adams1B Cornwall/Jones/Hansen/Riley2A Garlett2B Bennell/McGuire2C Bennell/Davisxiv84868890942D Hayden/Humphries/ Jackson/Ninyette2E Pindown/Garlett/FlowerYarran/Bolton34A Narkle4B Ugle5A Williams/Burchill5B Underwood6Hayward/Keen7A Harris/Wilkes7B Harris/Phillips8A Penny/Mourish/Edgil/Pickett8B Woods/Coyne8B cont. Woods/McGlade8C Woods8D Woods/Innal9A Blurton/Shaw9B Fitzgerald/Collard/Bennell/Reidy10A Krakouer/Smith/Punch1OB Colbung10c Hansen/Parfitt/Humes/Gillespie/Hill11A Newell/Calgaret/Lombadgie/Woggagie/Mears/Domber11B Newell/Cockie/Hart11c Calgaret/Gri ffin/Abdullah11D Cockles/Flower12 Quartermaine/Rodney13A Eades/Riley13B Coyne/Farmer13C Coyne/Davidson/Mindemarr a14A Warren/Bartlett/ Jacobs14B Gentle/Wyatt14C Ryder/Egan/Farrell/Neberong15 72174176178

lips/Holmes212213214216218220222223224228230xv

PREFACEThis book has come about as a result of my involvement in the SouthWest Aboriginal Studies project (SWAS) of the Western AustralianCollege of Advanced Education, Mount Lawley Campus. This was aspecial research project which set out to record the tradition andhistory of Aborigines of the south-western region of Western Australia. The project started in 1977 when limited funding was obtainedthrough the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. This enabled theemployment of an academic research assistant, and an active programme was undertaken involving archival and library research. Aswell, a total of sixteen Aboriginal people from the south-west wereemployed to record oral family history including genealogies, or familytrees. This resulted in the compilation of several genealogies basedmainly on the research assistants’ own families.As the work of the research assistants was pieced together, thenumber of family trees was built up in an ad hoc fashion. In Augustand September 1978 these trees, together with a range of historicaldocuments and photographs relating to Aborigines in the south-westregion, were put on public display at Mount Lawley College. The principal aim of this display was to further interest Aboriginal people inrecording their own past, as well as to show to Aborigines and thegeneral public the type of work SWAS was engaged in.The SWAS display generated a great deal of interest among Aboriginal people in the Perth metropolitan area. This in turn resulted in anexplosion of the amount of material collected up to that time as altera-tions and corrections, additions and at times totally new trees, wereadded to the collection. Many people visited the display several times,bringing relatives and friends to see it, and contributing photographsand recounting anecdotes about various ancestors.In response to requests from Aborigines to take the display to thesouth-west for the benefit of those people who had not seen it in Perth,a tour of three regional centres-Albany, Narrogin and Bunbury-wasmade in November 1978. Once again, the display generated a great dealof interest among Aborigines.In response to requests from Aboriginal people and others for thismaterial to be published in some form, and in keeping with the aims ofthe SWAS project, the family trees have now been re-drawn to incorporate additional information, and this book has been prepared.Academic findings are often couched in more technical terms thanwill be found here, for example the more correct term ‘genealogy’ hasbeen replaced with the expression ‘family tree’. The reason for this is tomake the text readily understandable and familiar to readers who maynot be accustomed to academic works. It is hoped that, through thispublication, more Aboriginal people will become involved in recordingtheir own past and in particular their own family trees, and in this waysupplement this work which is only a glimpse of a tradition.LOISTILBROOKxvii

A CKNO WLEDGEMENTSI would like to acknowledge the Aboriginal Arts Board for assistingfinancially with this publication. Mount Lawley College of AdvancedEducation, and in particular the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (now both subsumed under the umbrella of the Western Australian College), are also gratefully acknowledged for their contribution inmany ways, through the SWAS project, to this publication. BattyeLibrary is acknowledged for permission to copy documents and photographs from their collection and for their cooperation and assistance.The Old Jail Museum, Albany, is also acknowledged for permission tophotograph some of their collection.I would like to thank academic research assistant Anna Haebich forher contribution both to the SWAS project and to this publication. Inparticular, I wish to thank her for her work with the other researchassistants and the people who visited the SWAS display, and her help inpreparing the family trees. I would like to thank Professor R. M.Berndt of the Anthropology Department, University of WesternAustralia, for reading the manuscript and for his help and advice. Iwould like to acknowledge the contribution of photographer JeffLovell. I am also indebted to P. Biskup for his work Not Slaves: NotCitizens which is a sound reference on the area.Special thanks are extended to all the Aboriginal people who contributed information and photographs throughout the SWAS displayand display tour, and who gave their support to the project in manyways. Also, to all the other people who have assisted in ways toonumerous to list.Last but not least, I would like to thank the SWAS project itself. Thefollowing is a listing of all the people who have worked on the SWASproject and whose efforts have contributed directly or indirectlytowards this publication:Eddie BennellVi ChittyJanice ChongGodfrey ColbungLex CollardToni CreedLeisha EattsAlicia FrisinaAnna HaebichCherry HaywardKayleen HaywardBill HumesJean LewisB. Moreen McGladePhyllis McGuireLyn NarkleMoira RadloffClarrie UgleJoanna Wrightxix

THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCESABBRE VIATIONSThe information in the first part of the work has been drawn from therecords of the Colonial Secretary’s Office, Correspondence Received(CSR); the files of the Aborigines Department (ADF); accounts ofearly explorers and others; and Aboriginal oral history collected by theSWAS project. Early written records consistently list Aboriginal namesin a variety of spellings, with the nett result that while some people arereferred to by several names (or spellings of a name), the same spellingmay be used in reference to a number of different people. Hence, it isoften very hard to establish continuity of personalities over time.The letters reproduced have been selected because they expressqualities of the writer or attitudes of the day which throw light on thesituation of the Aborigines within the period. There has been a conscious effort to document the positive contribution and quality of theAboriginal personalities mentioned, and to illustrate the effect of legislation and circumstance upon their daily lives. As far as possible, thetranscripts of letters retain the original style of the writer, althoughspellings and punctuation have occasionally been corrected or added inorder to obtain the sense of the letter. However, these documents represent only a small fraction of the people and many personalities, outstanding for their personal courage and individual contribution,remain unrecorded and unsung.Colonial Secretary’s Office, Letters Received. This abbreviationis followed by the year in which the correspondence is written,the volume in which it is bound, and the page number whereapplicable, e.g. CSR 1834, Vol. 31/10.ADF Aborigines Department Files. This abbreviation is followed bythe year in which the correspondence is filed, and the filenumber, e.g. ADF 1906,558.SRP Swan River Papers, Public Record Office London, compiled byAlice J. Mayes. This abbreviation is followed by the volume inwhich the document is bound, the names of the correspondents,and the date of correspondence, e.g. SRP Vol. 14, Morgan toHay 8/3/1832.xxCSRThe above three sources are all housed in the Battye Library of WestAustralian History.

PART INYUNGARS OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 1829-1914AN OVER VIEW

1. INTRODUCTIONPrior to British colonization and settlement at Albany in 1826 and theSwan River Colony in 1829, the south-western portion of Western Australia was occupied by several Aboriginal tribal groups. The termNyungar (Nyungah, Noongah) translates as ‘man’ or ‘person’ and itrefers to the languages spoken throughout the area which have come tobe known collectively by this name. The area over which the Nyungarlanguage was spoken extends from the coast south of Geraldton in anare south-eastwards, ending at the Great Australian Bight east ofEsperance. I The Nyungars of today count many of these Aboriginesamong their ancestors.It is estimated that there were around six thousand Aborigines in theregion in 1829,2 with a denser population along the coastal plain andfewer people living in the less favourable areas. James Stirling, the firstgovernor of the Swan River Colony, calculated that there was roughlyone person per square mile for the colony in 1832,’ however, for thelush Perth area for the same period, recent estimates of one person perfour square miles have been made.4 Early records indicate that therewere several semi-nomadic tribal units, made up of a number ofsmaller, locally based groups with strong ties to the tract of country inwhich they lived. Here, they fished, captured game, and gatheredseasonal fruit and root vegetables. As well, they tended to all the otheraspects of daily life ranging from the dramas of birth, death, illnessand marriage, to everyday tasks such as spinning possum fur intostring and preparing kangaroo skins to be sewn together to makewarm, waterproof cloaks. The men hunted large animals such askangaroo, while the women caught small animals and gathered fruitand vegetables. Both men and women joined in fishing, and many oftheir food quests were shared ventures.According to the season, the whole camp moved from one area toanother, where particular foods or water were available. Meetings withthe members of other tribes were sometimes organized to coincide withthese shifts. Many of the tasks associated with moving camp fell to thewomen, like gathering up the household goods and building huts at thenew site. The men were kept busy, too, with hunting, tool making, andattending to spiritual matters, although the women also played anactive and influential role here.When the members of various groups came into contact, both menand women joined in the excitement of meeting others and exchanginggossip, and participating in the festivities. Goods such as hard stones tobe used as axe heads were traded from one area to another, and information was passed between groups; sometimes elopements occurredand old grievances were settled. At times violent fighting broke out between members of different groups which lasted until both sides feltthat some balance of justice had been achieved and peace was restored.At other times of the year larger groupings fragmented into smallfamily units and ranged within the area to which they held particularrights of access. This was generally in the winter months of July andAugust when game was scarce and large gatherings of people could notbe supported.On occupation of Western Australia the British government declaredthe native inhabitants to be British subjects, with the full rights andresponsibilities that this implied. The Aborigines were to adopt thecustoms and beliefs of their colonizers, and it was hoped that theywould provide a handy source of labour for the spreading settlement.Few settlers gave much thought to the dispossession that Aborigineswere facing as their lands were occupied and their accustomed foodsources disrupted, although some explorers, for example Sir GeorgeGrey and E. J. Eyre, wrote of their plight.’In practice, the place in the colony allotted to Aborigines was alimited one. The nature of the work available was mostly seasonal, inresponse to the demands of the agricultural economy. At those timeswhen work was not available, Aborigines were expected to maintainthemselves by their traditional skills of hunting and gathering, and soretain much of their practical knowledge if not their tribal law and3

customs. In reality, this was impossible because British colonizationstruck at the core of Aboriginal economy, destroying or depletingtraditional resources and creating a dependency on introduced goods asthe only alternative to starvation.In the first seventy or so years of the colony large numbers of Aborigines died as a result of introduced illnesses including measles, influenza and a wasting disease that affected young and old alike. Deathsoccurred, too, in

13A Fred Coyne (13C), Elsie Coyne nCe Eades (13A), Les Eades (13A), c. 1954 13B Corporal A. P. Farmer 13B Emily Farmer nCe Coyne with Martha and Phoebe Farmer (all 13B), 1890s 13B Eva Ross nCe Farmer (13B), Dolly Wheeler, Emily Keen nCe Farmer (13B), 1920s 13C Bertha Loo nCe Coyne