ANTHROPOLOGICAL REPORT WITH

PROPOSALS FOR AGREEMENT

for the proposed development by Department of Housing & Works
within the Home of the Green Bullfrog Dreaming Site,
Blackadder Road, Swanview

Report prepared for the Traditional Owners, Custodians and Keepers
by Robert Bropho, Senior Elder of the Swan River,
Swan Coastal Plains & Darling Ranges
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Our Spiritual Dreaming Report has been written out for you, the developers of the Department of Housing and Works. We ask you to accept this Report and take notice of what we are saying because we as the Traditional Owners, we are the Keepers and the Protectors of the Places of the Green Bullfrog and our Spiritual Dreaming.

As a Senior Elder expert on the Spiritual Dreaming and a Senior Elder of my Family Clan, and as one of the Traditional Owners of the Swan River & Swan Coastal Plains, we are putting together this Report.

This Knowledge is only in the Circle of the Green Bullfrog Dreaming. It cannot be used for other Sacred Sites. It is copyright to Swan Valley Nyungah Community.

I write this information down with serious concern for this particular area. It is priceless to the Nyungah Nation and the Believers of all our Spiritual Dreamings across the breadth and length of the Land.
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Contents:

Section 1 - The Home of the Green Bullfrog
Section 2 - Ancestors and History of the Land
Section 3 - Why the Land has to be Protected
Section 4 - The Planning Process
Section 5 - Spiritual Beliefs and Culture and Religion
Section 6 - Ancestors’ Remains
Section 7 - Public Open Space

1. The Home of the Green Bullfrog

The Home of the Green Bullfrog is the Sacred Hill of Swan View including the proposed development area and including Midland Cemetery all of which is the Site. The Department of Indigenous Affairs has some record of the Home of the Green Bullfrog Site on the permanent Register of Aboriginal Sites (S 3492), but we are not aware if it is recorded correctly. (DIA calls the Site ‘Green Tree Frog Area’ and it mentions ‘Mythological’,‘Skeletal material/Burial’ and ‘Artefacts/Scatter’, as well as ‘Camp’ and ‘Water Source’)

There are at least 6 other Registered Aboriginal Sites surrounding the Home of the Green Bullfrog Dreaming Site in the general area, and the Site of the Home of the Green Bullfrog itself is in the area where development is proposed. The Site registration to be correct should cover the entire hill, including the proposed development and the Cemetery. Wilgie (red ochre) has been seen in the area.

The core of the Spiritual Dreaming runs in all directions from the Hill – to the north back in the easterly direction, down the Hill in a southerly direction and down the Hill in a westerly direction. As mentioned, it is surrounded by other Sites some of which are on the DIA Register. The Pads of the Green Bullfrog Dreaming have always been used by Blackfellas. Blackadder Creek is the Pad of the Green Bullfrog going down to the Swan River. This is through the Knowledge and the Recognition through the Old People who have taught me what I am speaking about. Where the development is set to take place on the Hill at Swan View will be a destructive thing to the core of the Green Bullfrog Dreaming there, the Sacred Site.

The Old Fellas used the Area when it was Woolly Bush, Banksia, Red Gum and all the Paper Barks on the fringes, and all other plants growed there and put there by Nature. White development was dumped on top of some of the areas. Only the top of the Hill is left now - the Hill that Midland Cemetery and this proposed development are both on.


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2. Ancestors and History of the Land:

The Footprints are still there of Old Barney Indich and Old Laura Indich, Old Tommy Bropho and Old Isobel Bropho, John Coomer, Thomas Nathaniel Bropho, Harold Pickett and Maggie Pickett, Tommy Pickett, Old Reggie Mead, Old Clara Mead, Jim Indich the son of Barney Indich and Laura Indich, and Little Henry Indich, the son of Barney and Laura Indich, and Ernie Counsellor, and Betty Indich who become Binder/Dershow. Teresa Monday who was born Teresa Winmar visited the Home of the Green Bullfrog where these Blackfellas camped to stay with Barney and Laura Indich in the makeshape mia-mias on the side of the road.

These people hunted and snared kangaroos in their own Blackfella way up through the woollybush scrub to the Home of the Green Bullfrog before the housing development took place over parts of the Site. The housing development then destroyed the top surface of the ground – but the Sacredness of the Site of the Home of the Green Bullfrog is still in the ground of the the entire Hill.

The small kangaroo would come down from the hills along Jane Brook from John Forrest way, in an easterly direction. They would make their way to the Home of the Green Bullfrog amongst the Woolly Bush and the Clean White Sand where the roots of our Medicine Tree, the Red Gum Tree, look so healthy,

Descendents of these Old People who are living today are connected to this Spiritual Dreaming Belief through bloodlines. It is their human right to maintain their Beliefs, and to pass on their Beliefs to their children and children’s children from generation to generation, as it was passed on down to us here today. This sort of Spiritual Dreaming Belief, we are born into it, we live with it and we go through the process of following in the footsteps of their hunting and their Beliefs.

We watch and learn and pass it on by what has been done and taught to us, by seeing it.

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3. Why the Land has to be Protected:

The proposed development is right on the Hill of the Home of the Green Bullfrog. This Area is the Home of the Green Bullfrog Site. There are about five fully-grown Red Gum Trees to the south east side right in the front of it. Around those five are a lot of shoots which we, the Blackfellas say and believe are the children of the Red Gum Trees, who are the Mother and Father.

When you look around the whole scope of the Area where development is proposed, you will see lined Red Gum Trees, around the edges to the north, west and south.

We are on the Hill which is the Home of the Green Bullfrog and this is the Spiritual Dreaming of the Blackfellas. From here is a View in a westerly direction where the sun sets west of the Midland Area. Blackadder Creek Area has always been known as an Aboriginal Area. The Green Bullfrog Dreaming is the Blackfellas’ History there, but we don’t own the land whitefella way, we are left out.

Where the development is planned to take place, that development will destroy the Spiritual Dreaming in the Ground. It will block off that bit of Freedom for the Green Bullfrog Dreaming in his movements. All that housing developments circle around it. If you take away that Freedom there it will deprive the Spiritual Dreaming of their freedom of movement. Is this right? This Area is the last Breathing Space for Frogs and the Spiritual Dreaming. It is strongly a Site of Religious Significance.

Everything is tied in, other areas are tied in, if this is destroyed it will damage other areas of the Sacrednes of the Green Bullfrog, all the way down to the Swan River, Woodbridge Creek, the foreshores of the Swan River, the Blackadder Creek wetlands. The links, ties and conections to Blackadder Creek will be damaged. The Green Bullfrog’s survival will be threatened. That will damage us Spiritually as Nyungah people of this area. It will damage the whole Spiritual Dreaming of the Swan River and Swan Coastal Plains.

We want that area left alone. We don’t want it built over, the Home of the Green Bullfrog. The Spiritual Dreaming is underneath there. We oppose it and we want it left alone.

The whitefellas’ development has already overcrowded the sides of the Hill.

This is our Traditional Spiritual Dreaming Report that is being written out to you the Housing and Works Department. We ask you to accept this Report and take notice of what we are saying because we are the Keepers and the Protectors of the places of the Green Bullfrog and our Spiritual Dreaming.

The Government and its progress in the past have destroyed so much of the Blackfellas Spiritual Dreaming, this is the Blackfellas who are the owners and the keepers of our values in ways of Laws in our Spiritual Dreaming. We are the custodians. We are the anthropologists of our Spiritual Dreaming.

The Green Bullfrog Dreaming is Life to us, the Nyungah People of the Swan Coastal Plains. Destroy that and you will be inflicting and creating bad things to happen to us, the Swan Coastal Plains Nyungah People’s health and wellbeing of our Life, and of our children and their children’s children

The Home of the Green Bullfrog has got to be protected for the sake of our future generations.
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4. The Planning Process

We, as always, are the last ones to know and to be involved and consulted about any proposal. Everything has got to be finalised and only then will they come to the Blackfella.

All the bodies, if any, who have approved the proposed development so far have got to meet us Nyungah Elders and People with knowledge of the Area and reconsider their decisions because they have not consulted with us or taken into account our concerns and our Religious Beliefs.

It seems the Registered Sites in the area have been ignored when the planning was done.

We have not been given natural justice or the right to be heard.

We have been told that the Department of Housing and Works want to let tenders in early June without going to the Department for Indigenous Affairs or applying for Section 18 permission to damage, destroy, disturb or alter a known Aboriginal Site.

As the Spiritual Believers and the Nyungah Custodians in the past we were never consulted about the development of houses that have been built on the sides and even on part of the hill itself, the Home of the Green Bullfrog. Since the 1980’s we have often spoken and met with DIA about Blackadder Creek and the Home of the Green Bullfrog. DIA are aware of our Spiritual Concerns.

We ask all bodies to meet with Nyungah Elders and People with knowledge and love of their Spiritual Dreaming in the Area of the Home of the Green Bullfrog and understand and take into account our Sacred Beliefs and the damage this proposed development will do to Nyungah People’s human rights, and their children’s identity, sense of belonging, peace of mind, and upbringing and education

In l995 we notified all Shire Councils and Government Departments that we wanted to be informed and consulted on all future plans ahead of time concerning large Areas of Aboriginal concern. We did the same to all Councils and Local Governments and Government Departments in August, 2003. We do not understand why no authorities came and talked to us about their proposals for the Home of the Green Bullfrog first before they got so far, and we could have guided them on places where it would be safe to go ahead with development and where it would not be safe from the Spiritual and Religious point of view.

Blackadder Creek area and the Green Bullfrog Dreaming area has always been known as an Aboriginal area. That is Nyungah People’s history there. We don’t own the land, so what can we do except ask you to do the right thing?

We have been informed by a East Metropolitan Regional Councillor that there are 230,000 lots of land available for housing development in the Metropolitan Area. We say this because do not want to be told: “there is a desperate need for housing and unfortunately the Nyungah People’s Cathedral of Sacredness has to be sacrificed”.
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5. Spiritual Beliefs and Culture and Religion.

The white progress has eaten up our Reserves.

Our Spiritual Belief is what belongs to us, the Blackfellas who are the Owners and the Keepers of our Values and Beliefs and in Ways of Holding our Spiritual Dreaming.

We are the Custodians, we are the Anthropologists and we are the Directors of our Spiritual Dreaming. White anthropologists are there to represent white developers. They can only write the report in their way. The Blackfella Report has to be looked at more seriously.

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6. Ancestors’ Remains

As Gavan Jackson, the archeologist, has reported that the grass was too thick for any proper archeological survey, we propose that when it is dry we do a Blackfella burn, and then we can look properly for any remains left by our Ancestors, including any burials.

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7. Public Open Space: A Proper Solution

The Traditional Owners and Elders and Nyungah People of the Swan River & Swan Coastal Plains want that Area left alone. We don’t want this Area, the Home of the Green Bullfrog Spiritual Dreaming underneath there to be disturbed any further and built over.

It is the people and their recognition through the Green Bullfrog Dreaming, because the Green Bullfrog Dreaming lives within the many thousands if not millions of Sacred Grains of Sand that is combined together so tightly that it protects the Green Bullfrog that lives within it.

It needs the Sun to be shining down on the top of the Land. It doesn’t need the Shadow of the Whitefella Buildings to darken it.

We suggest it be Public Open Space to be looked after by the descendents of the Old People. We oppose the present plans. We want it left alone. The Home of the Green Bullfrog has got to be protected in this way. The Land in question should be handed back to the Blackfellas of the Swan Coastal Plains, which is the Nyungah People so that they can regrow the protection over it again, and bring back the animals and birds. We would work together with Blackadder Creek Catchment Group who we have worked well with in the past. Then it can be shared by both races, all races, and give breathing space to all, including the Sacred Dreaming.

Only then the Home of the Green Bullfrog and the Blackfellas of the Swan Coastal Plains can say “Protection at last! Protection at last!” which means “Safe at last! Safe at last!”, which means “Free at last!”

Swan Valley Nyungah Community