Saving Our Burial Ground Wainellingup (Wallcliffe House Estate)
Introductory note:
Indigenous Australian Matriarch, Vivian Brockman Webb, pleads with developers not to build their hotel on the ancient Wardandi burial ground known as Wainellingup or "Dying Place". For years the voices of the traditional owners have been ignored. Wainellingup had been a burial ground for thousands of years. All this changed when European settlers arrived and stole the burial ground to build Wallcliffe House.
Today developers want to build a boutique hotel using Wallcliffe House, and dig into the sands of the Wardandi burial ground to add more buildings. British settler, Alfred Bussell, knew the land was a burial ground when he chose to build his new home. The Indigenous name was rejected because the meaning of Wainellingup, or "Dying place", was unacceptable for the Bussell family home.
We'll call our house Wallcliffe after the big cliff at the mouth of the river. I don't fancy the native name Wainelynup. Dying Place does not exactly betoken a happy home.
(Terry, F., They Came to the Margaret, 1978, p. 45)
Vivian Brockman Webb, Sovereign Elder, Queen of Dordenup Wardandi — Salt Water People
My country is Matriarchal Dordenup Wardandi in the south west region of Western Australia. Our borders extend from the Capel River, original name Doungup, to the north. Our country extends south to Nannup and Augusta, original name Talanup.
My family has an unbroken lineage, we retain our cultural knowledge and heritage passed on by Elders and Ancestors passed.
We have a deep spiritual connection with the land and the sea. Our ancestors have lived here for about 48,000 years. We have strong bonds between people, land, lore, and environment.
Only two families are left in the Dordenup Wardandi area.
Our birth-right is to take care of Country. Cleaning the land and taking care of the bush. To keep the land as pristine as possible. We have a birth-right to Country and are caretakers of this land.
We see the destruction all around the world. We need to know that our land is going to be taken care of. We must improve our environment and not see it damaged, and not destroy it.
The Wallcliffe Caves, Margaret River and Wallcliffe House areas are all one interconnected burial place. To protect our Dreaming we must put up boundaries that can not be touched and should never be touched. We need to keep our knowledge, stories, cultural practices, smoking rituals and other ceremonies that go on before, during and after burials, which have happened at this site.
Wallciffe Caves and the immediate walkable area
When the people were aging they would know when their time was coming (to die), they would asked to be left in the caves known as Wainellingup. The family would continue to follow the traditional pathways in search of food. While those too old and sick to follow would stay in the shelter of the caves area. Having only a few people stay in the caves area would not exhaust the available food around Margaret River. They lit fires in the caves. Within a close radius of the caves they would bury people. They would shelter in the caves. A large amount of black on the walls of the caves can be seen and this is the smoke from the fires. The family would leave them with food and water. Once they passed over the families would come back and collect the bodies and bury them. They would bury them within an estimated quarter of a mile area from the caves. This includes the land where Wallcliffe House now stands. The families would bury relatives near where they were camping around the dying place. Wooditch brought his father-in-law to the caves for burial. The name of Margaret River is Wooditchup, named after Wooditch who made the river with his stick. Nearby is the place of Milyannup, the wife of Wooditch, and daughter of Ngungargoot.
The Creation of Wooditchup (Margaret River)
Wooditch and Milyan fell in love, but this made her father furious because she had been promised to the brother of Wooditch. The old man, Ngungaroot, refused to allow Wooditch to make Milyan his wife. Wooditch would not take no for an answer, and waited for his chance to take Milyan. One day Ngungargoot and Milyan travelled to Kalkardup country. Once there the old man fell asleep in the middle of the day. Wooditch had used his powerful stick to make Ngungaroot slumber so he could call to Milyan and ask her to run away with him. She ran away with Wooditch, but Ngungaroot did not sleep for long enough, and was quickly following the tracks made by his daughter. Seeing the old man was gaining on them, Wooditch put his beard in his mouth, said some words, and placed his powerful stick upon the ground where he commanded a big river to run between him and Ngungaroot. The old man could do nothing to cross the great river. When Wooditch reached the ocean he created the opening for the river to flow freely into the sea. Safe from Ngungaroot, the couple decided they were very hungry and would go to the reefs to spear groper. After some time the rushing waters of the river calmed and Ngungaroot was able to cross to the other side. The old man was about to take back Milyan when Wooditch turned him into a groper using his stick. Ngungaroot disappeared into a big pool of water near the reef. With the father now helpless the couple returned to the beach to make a fire to roast their fish. Wooditch continued to fish and speared a big groper which had been swimming close to shore. He placed the groper next to them while they cooked the other fish. Milyan kept bursting into tears because she had lost her father, and Wooditch began to feel sorry he had turned Ngangaroot into a groper. He said to Milyan that if the groper on the beach was once her father then he wished to turn the fish back into a human. While Wooditch was wishing for this the groper turned back into Ngangaroot. The old man was now tired of being angry with Milyan and Wooditch and accepted the couple were married. The couple were very happy for many years and lived in the place called Milyanup.
When Ngangaroot became very old they went back to Wooditchup (Margaret River) and lived by the river that Wooditch had made. After they had been there some time Ngngaroot went to a cave and died (Wallcliffe caves). This place is called Wainellingup, or the place where the old man died.
Burial rituals at the caves and vicinity
Burial rituals initially took place within the caves at Wainellingup, and then proceeded to the local area around Wallcliffe for burial and further ceremonies. The limestone caves are not suitable for burial in the ground. There is not enough land for burial immediately around the caves. Ceremonies took place around the caves and then the remains were buried in the local area including underneath Wallcliffe House.
Remains were buried in the soft sand that forms the general river foreshore area. So many generations of ancestors were buried in this area the size is equal to that of a large modern cemetery in Western Australia. We have been here for 48,000 years. Even if three of our people died a year, over 10,000 years this is 30,000 people that are buried under Wallcliffe House and the surrounding area.
Burial markers
One of our practices after burial was to plant a tree and alter this sapling to mark the site. We did not use tombstones the way Karrakatta Cemetery in Perth uses marble. How the trees were modified gives information about who is buried there. Trees are modified for many different purposes. We did not have a written language. We did not need one. We would modify the environment and this gave us all the information we needed. This was the practice of our old people. So that hundreds of years later future generations would recognise these burial sites, sometimes marked by stones, as they are long surviving markers for such sites. The women had skills that were passed from one generation to the next. The wife would mark her husband’s tree. The men were taught how to alter a tree to mark his wife’s burial. We have traditions which have been passed down from one generation to the next going back thousands of years. This knowledge is passed down so the markers will be easily identified by generations to come. There were thousands of these modified trees, with some still remaining. The Christmas tree (mungant) is also known as the “old man’s dying tree”. It is forbidden to go under the canopy or pick the flowers.
When a family member passed great sorrow was felt. Ceremony was held which lasted for days and moved through distinct phases. The first stage was preparing for death. When a person was dying, here in Dordenup, the body or the dying were taken to Wainellingup, “the dying place”. In the caves they held smoking ceremonies. This was to help the consciousness (spirit) we call jangur to travel on the spirit pathway, to the west - Koranup. Their journey to the afterlife through the stars was just beginning. After burial a small Mia (hut) was built at the the head of the grave. Eight black spears were placed by the side of the grave. Three spears were placed down each side, and two were placed at the bottom. Inside the graves they would place the belongings of the deceased, kylies, merros, spears and personal items. Once ceremony had been held in the caves, in accordance with lore, the remains were brought to the burial site. A large corroboree ground in our area is situated on the opposite side of the river. This river is Wooditchup Bilya (Margaret River), the two different areas were used to separate the consciousness (spirit) from the living. The dead stayed on the other side of the river and away from the living, so the consciousness could enter upon the spiritual pathway (war) to Koranup.
The remains of the Dordenup Wardandi on Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) must come home. Their consciousness has been separated from their homeland by the ocean and they need to enter the spiritual pathway to Koranup. Their remains must be brought back home so they can rest in peace. All the remains on Wadjemup need to be repatriated back to where they belong.
The Millennium Circle
The millennium circle is a half circle made of mounds, and is part of the burial process. It is a place of great worship and ceremony. A millennium circle is on Dordenup Wardandi country and Wadjemup has another one. Millennium circles are located behind a number of graves. White shaved spears were placed around in a half circle; this represents the living coming together for "Sorry Business”.
Wallcliffe House Earthworks
I was on site to witness trucks taking up soil and transporting it away. They are removing the evidence of burial so they can say nothing of the burials remain. It takes knowledge of our culture to recognise grave goods, fragments of our art and tools. When possessions have been in the earth for hundreds of years some decompose and fragment, making them more challenging to identify as cultural. There needs to be a study of the soil based on knowing what to look for.
One body was taken by the museum. This was the father-in-law of Wooditch. He was released by the museum. Unfortunately, he was reburied in an unsuitable location. He was buried in an undisclosed area out in the forrest, in the Valley of the Giants. The museum failed to bring him back to where he belongs.
Filumena Terry née Bussell (1876-1944) — was the daughter of Alfred Bussell (1814-1882)
Filumena Terry documented that the Wallcliffe House area was used for burial. She retold the Dreaming story in the Sunday Times newspaper on 11 August 1929. The piece was titled, “Corrianne The Beautiful”, where she recalled the pile of stones which marks the place of Medinite. In 1929 Terry stated, “Medinite’s grave is near Wallcliffe House, Margaret River marked by a pile of stones”. In the book titled, “An Attempt To Eat The Moon”, by Deborah Buller-Murphy (also a descendant of Alfred Bussell) in a retelling of the same story states, “Corrianne and Medinite were buried side by side at Wallcliffe, where a pile of stones marks their graves”.
Corrianne and the white hovea (hovea elliptica alba), named after the Karri forests of Western Australia
Corrianne Gnwirrie means Corrianne the beautiful. She was loved by young Medinite but could not marry him because she was promised to an old man called Datton, who was half blind. Heart broken, Medinite would sing loves songs to Corrianne in such a low tone that only she could hear them. Corrianne knew she could not marry Medinite so she would look away. She would weave wild flowers in her hair to make a headdress, and pretend she had not heard Medinite. Corrianne became thin and sick because she knew that soon she would be taken to Datton’s mia. One day Corrianne walked far away from the camp where she believed she was alone and cried out, “Medinite, my heart is sick; I wish I could die.” She heard some noises in the bushes and discovered she was being spied upon by Babon. He was a trouble maker and she knew he would tell Datton she was in love with Medinite. That night Corrianne was dragged away to old Datton’s mia. Medinite was so heart broken that he could not eat and soon died. When Corrianne died she was buried next to Medinite and the two were finally together.
Their place of burial is at Wallcliffe, and a pile of stones marked, or still marks, where they are buried. In, “An Attempt To Eat The Moon”, published in 1958, Deborah Buller-Murphy writes in the present tense to recall the burial places of Corrianne and Medinite. “Corrianne and Medinite were buried side by side at Wallcliffe, where a pile of stones marks their graves. Around it every year the Hovea bears rare white blooms…- not blue as one sees them everywhere else, but always quite white”.
The white hovea is special for this area. It is different to the much more common blue hovea that is found in other parts of Western Australia.
These burial stones have been used to mark the area for many generations. Each generation knew the story of Corrianne and Medinite and talked about the stones.
No Voice
In trying to protect the burial ground from being turned into a hotel I have faced being ignored, not having a voice, not being heard, told to see somebody else, and then somebody else again.
Lied to. All of a sudden the goal posts are shifted. Finding it hard to get any information or direction, I approached the Shire and Government departments, I have seen them all. Aboriginal Affairs Department as well. I have to find private funding to get supporting professional work done. The developers have a bottomless bank account to spend on whatever they want to. It has been a David and Goliath struggle from day one.
We will need to go to the UN for this to be sorted out as we are not confident we will get satisfaction in Australia.
Country was never ceded
Wainellingup was never ceded to the colonial authorities. It is our sacred burial ground and the Dreaming and significance has never been extinguished. It was taken from us during the period known as the killing times. The white settlers arrived around 200 years ago. One of these were the Bussell family who believed they could take and use Wardandi land without permission or compensation.
The Bussell brothers
Almost 200 years ago the settlers arrived on Dordenup Wardandi country. The names of the Bussell brothers were John Garret, Lenox, Charles, Joseph Vernon and Alfred Pickmore. It was Alfred who built his home known as Wallcliffe House on our burial ground. The Bussell family took part in several massacres.
On 27 June 1837, Alfred Bussell, two Chapman brothers, a (unnamed) corporal, Moloney and Constable Elijah Dawson were led by Bobingroot to where a stolen calf would be. The events that took place on this day led to the Yulojoogarup massacre, near Sabina River which killed men, women and children and at least nine were dead and two injured (E.O.G. Shann, Cattle Chosen, chapter 7). Alfred Bussell was involved in a massacre on 30 July 1837 with his brothers, Lenox and Charles and the Chapman family where at least 6 Wardandi were shot and killed near the estuary. According to the diary of Bessie Bussell, “Three women, one man and one boy are known to be dead, but more are supposed to be dying” (Cattle Chosen, Relations with the natives). The Europeans recorded that at least 14 Wardandi people were killed at Cattle Chosen in 1837 (Cattle Chosen). Cattle Chosen was the first European farm in the Vasse district and was established in 1834 by John Bussell and his younger brothers.
There were repeated violent actions between the settlers and the Wardandi throughout the killing times. When our people were killed their remains were taken to Wainellingup for ceremony and burial in the near vicinity of the caves. Wherever they died their consciousness had to travel along the deep underground waterways and caves to Wooditchup, and keep following the sun across the sea to Koranup.
In 1841 was the Wonnerup massacre. This action was lead by Resident Magistrate Captain John Molloy, John Bussell, and involved Alfred Bussell. A group of European men undertook several punitive expeditions in early 1841. On 25 February five Wardandi people were shot after being tracked through the sandhills by the settlers. The settlers pursued our people up to Lake Minninup, shooting several Wardandi, but were not satisfied. Finally on the sandbar near Lake Minninup, many more Wardandi were killed by the settlers. This is known as the Wonnerup massacre. Our oral history says hundreds of people were killed. Even the European records of the events are scathing of the massacre. The historian Warren Bert Kimberly, writing in 1897, described it as, ”one of the most blood thirsty deeds ever committed by Englishmen” (W.B. Kimberly, History of West Australia, 1897, page 116).
The historian James Battye, as editor of the celebratory cyclopedia on the European conquest of Western Australia, found the events to describe an atrocity:
“In 1841 there occurred an incident which, if true, can only be described as an act of atrocious cruelty and savagery on the part of some of the early settlers in the south-west. Early in the year a settler at Wonnerup, George Layman, offered some indignity to a native, in return for which he was on the first convenient opportunity speared through the heart. An avenging party under Captain Molloy set out and, it is said, ultimately succeeded in surrounding the whole body of natives on an open sand patch, whereupon they proceeded to shoot the unfortunate aborigines in cold blood, not stopping till the adult males had all been accounted for” (J. Battye, The Cyclopedia of Western Australia, 1912, page 125).
By 1842 the law had somewhat caught up with Charles Bussell. He was a criminal who had tortured, for information, a seven year old terrified Indigenous girl by holding a gun to her stomach. When Bussell killed the child he ended up in the Quarter Sessions for July that year. His lawyer, by the name of Mr Landor, assisted Bussell to plead guilty and to make a statement to the court on his behalf. In his defence Charles Bussell admitted to shooting the child…”in the very same room that Mrs J. Bussell and her child were sitting, either of whom might have lost their lives by the same occurrence.” The court accepted Bussell’s excuse that he had not checked if the gun was loaded or not before he tortured the little girl. Her death was found to be “purely accidental”. The news report left the girl a nameless victim. After Charles Bussell pleaded guilty to the indictment for manslaughter and was fined one shilling (10 cents). (Inquirer, Wednesday 13 July 1842, page 4)
Charles Bussell had been a danger to everyone around him - even other members of the Bussell family.
It is said that the name of the seven year old girl Bussell killed was Cumangoot. (Bernice Barry, Georgiana Molloy: The Mind That Shines, 2016, page 294)
Alfred Bussell, with the help of his family, took land where our ancestors are buried to build his house and farm on it. We never lost our cultural connection to this place, our Dreaming, Song Lines and the pathways for ourselves and our ancestors. We never gave it to anyone. The burial ground of our ancestors was taken away, from us, by Alfred Bussell at gunpoint.
Wallcliffe House can never divorce itself from the actions of Alfred Bussell, his brothers, or from the period known as the killing times. As Wallcliffe House was built by a perpetrator of the Wonnerup massacre, Alfred Bussell, his home becomes bonded into one history. I question the wisdom of using his former home for international tourism when he has too much controversy attached to him. Also of using our burial ground to build a resort, and how all of this will make Western Australia appear before the rest of the world.
Large 45-room hotel
The waterways will be disturbed by building 45 rooms — a large development. Petrochemicals and tar to make the roads will go into the waterways. Waterways need looking after. The chemicals will change the river.
The cave close to Wallcliffe House is the ceremony cave. It is a part of a much larger burial site. The cave system is large and extensive. Heavy machinery will damage the cave system. A cave system exists underneath Wallcliffe House. The Bussell family diarised after-shocks at this site which were felt for many years after they completed their house in 1865. Frances Louisa nee Bussell wrote in her diary on 9 May 1882: "Last night at nine o' clock, just as we were going to bed, we felt an earthquake, the worst one we ever had. It alarmed us very much. I was nearly going to take Mena in my arms and go to the haystack for the night, but I lay awake all night and we did not feel another shock" (Gillian Lilleyman, Pioneer Daughter, 2018, page 153).
The commercial operations of the hotel will blight the significance of the area. We will be cut off from the land and our ancestors. It will be forced from us and our kids. Future generations will be denied knowledge of the burial site and to visit our ancestors. Nothing to pass on to our kids. We will have nothing but a fancy hotel for rich people. This will unceasingly rankle, and every generation of the Dordenup Wardandi will resent that our sacred burial ground is being used for a hotel.
The area to be saved is a small piece of land. Developers have a lot of money. They could buy land anywhere. Why put up such a fight just to get their way? When it comes to money it is always at the expense of the majority. The rich are doing what they want to do. A rich minority is being supported to do what they want. The sacred significance of this land and 48,000 years of history does not matter to them.
Dreaming and the spirit waterways
When the body passes away, the consciousness needs to travel. Spirits travel on the underground rivers and streams and the water of the Margaret River. The spirit travels deep underground, under homes, parks, roads, to reach Wooditchup. The spirit has to travel to Koranup - the after life. The spirit needs to follow the sun. When a person dies, they have to travel back into the west; has to go out to sea following the sun. It must travel to the Mirrawirrawalkaby - Milkyway. Spiritual energy never dies. Consciousness has to travel. It never dies. The old people would want to pass near where they are going to be buried so the family would not have to travel too far. They would be left with food and water and stay in the Wallcliffe caves for shelter. They would walk down to the river for water and walk around the general area of the caves for extra foods, fruits, berries, medicine, roots and grubs. If they had the energy, they would hunt small creatures, until they became too weak.
A human’s right to look after Country
Boranup is the place of the first bora where all the creatures met up to decide who would look after this land. Humans came last with not much to offer, no medicinal purposes, no fur, no feathers. So they decided we would be the caretakers. The human right is to be the caretaker. This is the human right for those born on Country. For those living on Country, I would like you to support us.
We realise Australia has irrevocably changed - we are not after peoples’ houses. What we need is for our ancient burial ground to be respected by not building a hotel on the land our ancestors were buried in.
Source: Saving Our Burial Ground Wainellingup (Wallcliffe House Estate)
