Aboriginal history

Place of the yellowfin whiting

Yellowfin whiting (Sillago schombergkii)

For more than 40,000 years Aboriginal people lived in the coastal areas near Derbal Yaragan or the Swan River.

At the time of European settlement, the Mooro people, part of the Whadjuk Noongar group, were custodians of the land from Yanchep through to Fremantle.

With the onset of Birak or first summer (December to January), the Mooro moved to the coast in search of fish, shellfish and cooling breezes. Mudurup Rocks, the headland at the south of Cottesloe Beach, was an important fishing site. Mudurup means ‘place of the yellowfin whiting’.

From December to March the whiting spawned in the shallow waters off the rocks and provided an abundant and reliable food source. Noel Nannup described the way the fish were caught:

“fishing [was] a communal activity where women used branches of the paperbark tree to herd the fish into one spot where the men could use gidgees to spear the fish.” [fn]Helen Curtis. Sites of Aboriginal significance: research and consultation. Mt Lawley, Apparatus, 2016. (PDF)[/fn]

Today it remains an important spiritual place for Aboriginal people and traditional stories link Mudurup Rocks to the wardung or crow. Anthropology from the Shed has more. Mudurup is a registered site under the Aboriginal Heritage Act.

Robyn Benken

Red-eyed wattle (Acacia cyclops). Ground seeds were used for making damper and juice from the leaves for treating skin problems.

Mudurup is also a place where you can see evidence of geological history. The layers of rocks at The Cove show how sea levels have varied over millennia and you can see the different layers here. As recently as 7000 years ago you could still walk to Rottnest, as shown in this map (PDF).

The local vegetation was also a rich source of food as well as medicines. Fruits, leaves and seeds from plants such as coastal pigface, quandongs and red-eyed wattle were all part of the Noongar diet and medicine chest. [fn] V. Hansen, J.Horsfall. Noongar Bush Medicine: Medicinal Plants of the South-west of Western Australia. Nedlands, UWA Publishing, 2016. [/fn] Surprisingly more than seventy original plant species still survive in Cottesloe. Cottesloe Coastcare has more about Cottesloe’s local plants here.

Robyn Benken

Kolbogo or coastal pigface (Carpobrotus virescens). The fruit provided a sweet, thirst quenching, summer food and an infusion of the crushed leaves was used to treat stomach cramps and diarrhoea.

Robyn Benken

Quandong (Santalum acuminatum). Fruits were eaten fresh or dried and the kernel cracked to release its edible nut.

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