The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Thursday 5 January 1933, page 29 BARRIERS OF SPEARS. The Ousting Of The Bibbulmun. a law, at least a knowledge of it should it cannot be rightly said have caused them to hold their hands- m ALTHOUGHthat the Swan River Settlement was the early stages of the troubles with the pioneered in blood, England did in natives. It is probable that had not the time pay in lives for her first act of aggression by the native* been .umpire to the western half of the Aus punished by the indiscriminate slaughter tralian continent. Unmolested at first, of members of the offending tribe, the early the colonists who came to found years of bloodshed and fear that followed a new State were shortly opposed by the might, have been avoided. Bibbulmun tieopl* of who the South-West, Be that as it may, the first pages of for untold centuries had roamed and Western Australia's history were stained land. hunted over the Seeing themselves with much innocent blood and many a gradually but surely being dispossessed stirring chapter was written' before the soil, from the their 'kalleeps,' or home chronicle of events became a more sober fires, their hunting grounds and their tale. The 'natives, in the end, suffered rivers, lakes and lagoons passing from the heavier penalty. Many of them paid into them the control of the white men, for their crimes with their lives, many the aboriginal savages commenced to harry more were unjustly slaughtered, and at middle of the newcomers, and from the length the tribes of the South-West were of 1830, just a year after the foundation driven from their haunts, .so that to-day settler the Colony, until 1840, settler after they are but homeless outcasts in the fell and clubs. So victim to their spears land of the whites, or are segregated with frequent and numerous did the outrages their half-caste brothers and sisters in times the despairing set ' become that at the native settlements— a sad end to a tlers seriously considered abandoning the race that, however low in type, deserved Colony altogether. Along the Swan, the ? better fate. and the rivers, at Perth, Canning Murray STONE-AGE SURVIVALS. Guildford, York and Leschenault settlera, were interesting BoldierB and even women and children^ were They an people, these lie of cruelly done to death. Their graves Bibbulmun the South-West whom the first settlers scattered wide over the area first held found along the shores if by the colonists. the Swan and in the country to the To what extent the price paid in human south. Differing only in local peculiarities blood for the possession of this State may from their fellows scattered over the be charged to the settlers themselves, for length and breadth of the Australian con their failure to understand the primitive tinent, they are of a race as interesting 'any laws of their savage neighbours and for as on the face of the earth. Their their harshness in exacting the lives of origin is shrouded in mystery, .their in the aborigines in payment for petty thefts tricate tribal laws but imperfectly under committed and for insolent threats Btood by white 'men, and the uncanny uttered, must remain a matter for con power of superstition,! over, their lives a for jecture. It is certain that every murder matter never-ending wonder on the of civilised observers. For of a white man perpetrated by the natives part years after their existence first was claimed by them to have been, an act became known of retaliation for the killing of one of few troubled to learn much about them; their number by whites, and if innocent not many seriously attempted to learn their language, victims fell it was but in keeping with and to this day few have mastered it. degree, ? native custom sanctioned by time and Primitive to a in and practice. A life for a life had always nomadic habit possessing only the skill been the native law, and the aborigines rudest in arts and crafts, they are in short a prehistoric race cut off for of this country never held it necessary thousands, millions, of that the actual killer should be the one perhaps years from the influences affected to pay the price. While Britons could that the develop not have been expected to tolerate such ment of the peoples of the other conti nents—people of the old Stone a law, at least a knowledge of it should Age per National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32585326 per haps, who became isolated from their a theory, with its sombre imagery, has fellows before the dawn of civilisation. much to commend it, unsatisfactory as Certainly wood and stone are the only ethnologists may regard it. substances that they have ever turned HAPPY SAVAGES. to their own use. Being what they are Whatever their origin, the Bibbulmun they have left practically nothing to were certainly, the owners of every acre serve as a guide to their early history, of land in the south-western portion of though some of their customs, such as the State before the white man came. those of circumcision and the practice of For untold centuries they had lived out burying their dead with their faces to their unchanging lives in the vast land, the sun, their totem worship and their doubtless happy enough in their *tvagery, clan distinctions within the tribes, have hunting the plains, spearing fish in the given slender clues for ethnologists to rivers and finding an abundance of frod work on. The mystery of their past has throughout the year. Although they built not, however, yet been solved. The re no permanent abodes, contenting them cent discovery of replicas of their kylies, ' selves with the rudest of temporary 'mia- or boomerangs, in Egypt has given mias,' or shrub and bark shelters. v-Jien ethnologists fresh food for thought, but they were not lying out under ta-? stars, all ia yet conjecture. Unlike most native they were nomads only within the limits races, they do not even possess tradi of their own tribal territories, and within tions of origin, and at the rate they limits edible-root supply, every are those every disappearing from the earth it ap swamp where the wildfowl nested, every pears likely that the secret of their ances favourite haunt of the kangaroo and the try will die with them, although many and every watering place, was known learned inquirers are working hard to emu other, e solve the puzzle. to some tribal group or and garded as the peculiar property of that was THEORIES a particular food OF ORIGIN. group. Wherever plentiful it was the totem food of the Ethnologists agree that the first abori claiming that territory as ite own. ginal race migrated to Australia from the group Every group amongst the Bibbulmun north, aeons ago, when Australia was still food, or 'bo- to people had its own totem joined Asia, when Tasmania was a (elder brothers) as they called part of the Mainland, and when Central rung-gur' that 'bo-rung-gur.' meaning, as Australia was a fertile, it and verdant plain. it' it. did, life to the group who possessed They agree, too, that later a second migra ' mystically related a regarded as being tion of race higher in type than the was In the of the flimple first followed from the north, intermixing to the group. eyes those it endowed with spirit quali with who had preceded them ages savages was before, but failing to reach Tasmania, ties. When the season arrived that saw then had which by become separated from a group's 'bo-rung-gur' ready for the eat the Mainland by Bass Strait. Whence ing, neighbouring groups were invited to offering. those migrants came and the manner of share in the plenty that was is still their coining a profound mystery, When that particular food was out of theories are it was though numerous. It a said season, the group whose totem-food that the first pure, but lower-grade, stock accepted the hospitality another group available. became extinct when the last Tasnianian whose totem-food was then hospitality, for died, after the coming of the white man, Every group could accept it offer and it is a fact that the hybrid people the time would come when could who are the aborigines of the Mainland hospitality in return. Thus did the Bibbul of highly to-day are fust following their Tasmanian nun groups have a sense property forebears 'winytch,' the abiding-place developed. Deprived of the source of to __ with of their dead. their food* they would be utterly The Bibbulmun people of the South out possessions, and as they undoubtedly one could not West of this State have offered bad a strong group pride and ictl-pt without theory as to their origin. They told the food from their neighbours in an return the hospitality settlers of 100 years ago, according to being able to was to deprive account published in 'The Perth Gazette' season, an invasion that of November 5, 1836, that their ancestors them of their totem-food supplies would their whole social system came to this land from over the sea on inevitably upset certainly bitterly resented. the backs of crows in the 'jang-ga-nyit- ind would be Bibbulmun had nothing ting,' or cold time of long As sym For centuries the ago. fell, bolic of the obscurity of their origin such to fear.