NYUNGAH CIRCLE OF ELDERS
c/o PO GUILDFORD WESTERN AUSTRALIA
T: 08 9377 3550, 08 9279 6706 F:08 9377 3559
The Last of the Nyungah Elders who are standing to Save and Protect our Ancient Religion and Culture and Sacred Beliefs in the Land and not take money to sell our Sacredness
11.10.1999
To all Members of the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee
CORRECTIONS (1 - 37) TO EDDIE MCDONALD'S MAY 1999 REPORT ON PYRTON
FOR YOUR ATTENTION AND CONSIDERATION
Page i
1. Eddie McDonald says: The Ministry of Justice had already been consulting with the Swan Valley Nyungah Community and other stakeholders in the surrounding community
Correction: We were only part of the public consultation with white residents and organisations. We were never asked to consult on ethnographic, cultural and religious issues by the Ministry of Justice. The Minister for Justice Mr Foss said on 24.8.98 that the Ethnographic Study would not be done by Ministry of Justice.
2. Eddie McDonald says: (The Ministry of Justice) continued with the responsibility for that task (ie consultation)
Correction: They never did have or take responsibility OR CONSULT.
3. Eddie McDonald says: ...methodological difficulties ... These include impact of cultural revitalisation and cultural invention .
Correction: McDonald does not have respect or understand the deeprootedness of our culture, how it is in everything, and how it is hidden from the white man because he has no respect. In other words Eddie McDonald is saying we are making it up.
Page ii
4. Eddie McDonald says: There is no apparent way to reconcile the divergent views.
Correction: Some people don t have deeprooted cultural knowledge of a site. We have lived with it all our lives.
5. Eddie McDonald says: ... no specific heritage places or values of that site have been identified by the Aboriginal consultants that would be directly impacted by the proposed refurbishment and reuse of the existing Pyrton buildings.
Correction: This shows that Eddie McDonald takes no account of spiritual values and the impact of refurbishment and reuse of the buildings as a prison on the Spirits there, on the Religious Beliefs, and on the passing on our Culture to our children.
page iii
6. Eddie McDonald says: ... these "sacred" places have continued to be held in particular reverence by Nyungars ... and indeed the reverence they are held in may have been amplified over the years ...
Correction: That is not right for an anthropologist to suggest or question Nyungah people's Beliefs, saying 'amplified'. It is his job to report properly, and it is the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee's job to consider the seriousness and deeprootedness of our Cultural and Religious Beliefs.
7. Eddie McDonald says: ...the proposals to refurbish and reuse three of the existing Pyrton buildings could proceed without impacting directly on any specific places of Aboriginal heritage value in respect of site SO1997.
Correction: McDonald does not consider the spiritual effect of a Prison on that Cultural and Spiritual area, or the effect on our children, or the effect on carrying out our Culture.
8. Eddie McDonald says: The proposed use of the Pyrton facilities will not be dramatically different from what it has been in the past.
Correction: That shows he has not listened to Nyungahs properly. There was no Aboriginal Heritage Act when Pyrton was set up in the early sixties. Also a hospital is to help people, and a prison is to punish people and this would have a very different spiritual effect and this has not been considered.
9. Eddie McDonald says: The politics of attempts to gain control over (some of the) area has also contributed to its significance.
Correction: This is wrong. This is warra what he is saying. The Sacredness and importance of the land to all Nyungah culture people led the Nyungah people to join together with the whitefellas to try to protect the Land. Nyungahs have never asked for control of the Land but to share it together with the whitefellas.
page iv
10. Eddie McDonald says: It is our view that a range of Nyungah social, political and heritage aspirations can be met whilst implementing the M of J's proposals.
Correction: Eddie McDonald is ignoring our Living Culture. It is not a heritage aspiration, or social, or political. Our Culture and our Beliefs are the Beginning and Basis of our life. We have lived with it all our lives. McDonald is wrong that a Prison can be implemented and that the Land and the Site can be protected at the same time.
11. Eddie McDonald says: It is also recommended that that any works carried out ... be preceded by a programme of .. archeological research.
Correction: Before any consent or works there should be a proper ethnographic research programme.
page v
12. Eddie McDonald says: It is recommended that the Ministry of Justice's proposed refurbishment and reuse of the three existing buildings be permitted to proceed.
Correction: It is not the anthropologists job to recommend permission to proceed. It is the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee's decision, but it is also their responsibility to protect Aboriginal Sites.
13. Eddie McDonald says: It is recommended that the Aboriginal associations with the land and the Aboriginal heritage values of the area's environs be publicly recognised.
Correction: McDonald contradicts himself. How can Aboriginal associations and Aboriginal heritage values be publicly recognised when they have a rotten core in their midst? Protection of a Living Culture is the public recognition needed, not plaques and monuments.
page 1
14. Eddie McDonald says: McDonald Hales and Associates accepted the commission to undertake the survey on condition that the Ministry continued with the responsibility of involving the SVNC in the consultative process.
Correction: This condition was not met. This did not happen and never did.
page 23
15. Eddie McDonald says: The survey was undertaken in 3 stages. 1. Archival research. 2. Identifying and contacting relevant Aboriginal consultants. 3. Interviews with the key Aboriginal consultants .
Correction: 1. Archival research is incomplete. Pat Baines records of people now dead and of research and ethnographic information of the area have never been considered, the SVNC records in many files of the area never looked at by any anthropologist, Bassendean historians Bevan and Jenny Carter's continuing research of the area has never been included as it should be in any proper Ethnographic Study.
2. Eddie McDonald did not contact many of the relevant Aboriginal consultants with knowledge and links with the area, and he contacted some people with little or no knowledge and no ties to the area. The people Eddie McDonald talked to do not live on the land and have left the homegrounds and they haven't lived on the homegrounds for the last 30 or more years. Some people have associations with the land, but they haven't been living with the Land anymore.
3. the interviews were in offices, work and at home and not on site as it should be by Aboriginal law and Elders in company together.
16. Eddie McDonald says: ..that a number of site files, including file relating to SO1997 (Bennet Brook and Eden Hill) were not examined .
Correction: The file not examined is the main file for the Sacred area.
page 24
17. Eddie McDonald says: The anthropological consultants were informed that the Ministry was continuing discussions with the SVNC, which has commenced some time prior to our commissioning .
Correction: McDonald was misinformed by Ministry of Justice who have never had discussions specifically with the SVNC.
page 41
18. Eddie McDonald says: Cultural recovery ... and cultural reinvention ....
Correction: McDonald does not understand that it was always there but it was kept in the dark from whitefellas. Our credibility is attacked.
page 41-42
19. Eddie McDonald says: We have previously noted that a "cult of the Waugal" has grown from feedback between the heritage research and contemporary cultural revitalisation. The development of the cult involves the establishment of an association of the Waugal with numerous indeed nearly all water ways and wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain. The cult has gradually spread southwards and has been strengthened by a number of social and political factors noted above
Correction: Eddie McDonald has disqualified himself by saying that. It is not a cult. It is our Original First and Foremost Culture. It is our Life. It is our Beginning. An anthropologist with that sort of attitude and that way of thinking and speaking over and above Aboriginal Elders and their rightful rights and way of living their Spiritual Dreaming should not be accepted as an anthropologist. McDonald contradicts himself also. What he means is that he didn't know about our Religious Beliefs earlier. People didn't tell him earlier. Our Religious Beliefs in this area did not come into the public eye until the Bennet Brook Gas Pipeline Issue went to the Supreme Court in 1985.
page 4320. Eddie McDonald says: The Waugal was sometimes the harbinger of wellbeing (healing) but more often of evil
Correction: They don't understand. We love our Waugal.
21. Eddie McDonald says: the current descriptions by many Nyungars of the/a Waugal being present in all watercourses, lakes and wetlands clearly differs significantly from these earlier accounts .
Correction: We have only told and we only tell the whitefellas a small part of our knowledge, not everything. It is a Living Culture.
page 44
22. Eddie McDonald says: It is interesting to note that this land was not the group's original choice for a community, the group was originally demanding land on the north of Guildford as reports in the local press at the time demonstrates.
Correction: Eddie McDonald was not at the Fringedwellers' meetings and he is incorrect. We were offered land north of Guildford on Bennett Brook and the offer was withdrawn by the Government. We always knew our homegrounds where we wanted to be again.
page 45
23. Eddie McDonald says: In that paper (he is talking about Pat Baines' writing) as in more recent rhetoric of particular Nyungar groups.....
Correction: Eddie McDonald insults Pat Baines and her research, and Aboriginal people.
24. Eddie McDonald says: The vexed problem of whether one is talking about "the Waugal" or "Waugals" remains to be untangled.
Correction: It is Eddie McDonald's understanding that needs to be untangled. The Waugal is a life force. It is our Religious Beliefs that he is talking about without understanding. Naturally he wouldn't understand it because he is not of the Land.
25. Eddie McDonald says: The leader of what was formerly the Swan Valley Fringe Dwellers and now the SVNC has been at pains to promote a particular lifestyle and a political message in this particular place.
Correction: McDonald's entire report is mainly an attack on Robert Bropho and the Swan Valley Nyungah Community. He did not talk to us. Nobody has heard us or our enthnographic information.
26. Eddie McDonald says: In the context of cultural revitalisation and ... cultural invention, of social memory is of crucial importance.
Correction: McDonald again does not respect and insults Nyungah people and their Beliefs.
page 48
27. Eddie McDonald says: None of the key spiritual features (mentioned by Pat Baines) are located within the PDA .
Correction: The area is criss-crossed with Dreaming tracks and Dreaming stories. He is attacking Pat Baines. He doesn't consider the effect of a Prison on the Sacredness, nor Nyungahs not consulted.
page 52
28. Eddie McDonald says: ... an uncritical appraisal of an area's heritage values .
Correction: Eddie McDonald ignores the Living Religious Culture and Spiritual Values when he talks about heritage values only.
page 55
29. Eddie McDonald says: ...while there were very significant sites close to the PDA such as Bennett Brook (SO2254) and Success Hill (SO2147) these will not be impacted upon by the current proposals .
Correction: They do not live with the land, the birds, the animals, the fish, the Swamp, the wind, the sun, the rain, the fire, the trees, the children. They do not know the effect of a Prison on the whole Sacred and registered land. They have gone to live in the white society.
page 57
30. Eddie McDonald says: There is no evidence to substantiate this claim (that it was Aboriginal Land or Aboriginal Reserve) .
Correction: There was an Aboriginal Reserve in the Success Hill area, and now evidence of a massacre site in the area - in 1831. (Bevan Carter's historical research).
page 60
31. Eddie McDonald says (quoting Ken Colbung ): We walked all over that bush bit then (Robert Bropho) said "This is the only piece (Success Hill), there is nothing" and that was before he got his own campsite up there. (Aboriginal Consultant #2) .
Correction: Colbung misquotes the SVNC Spokesperson. Colbung is also wrong on the dates - we went back to the Lockridge camps in 1977 and Bassendean Council was prosecuted in 1986.
page 61
32. Eddie McDonald says (quoting Fred Collard who is not from this area and has never lived here): "I have looked at that area and I've spoken to the people at the community (SVNC) and as far as I aware there is nothing in that particular area that would be interfered with by using them buildings".
Correction: We never talked to Fred Collard in 1997 about specific areas of the site. He has not cultural knowledge and he does not speak for us, and he will tell you himself what we are saying is correct.
page 62
33. Eddie McDonald says (quoting Corrie Bodney): "There is a track but there's nothing sacred, he put in his own story, he's talking about sacred trees or something". (Aboriginal consultant #3) .
Correction: All Aboriginal pads of where our Ancestors walked are sacred, and all the old marked Aboriginal trees are also sacred to Aboriginal people. All Aboriginal men and women who have left their homegrounds and are not associated with the Sacredness, then they cannot comment on Sacredness and what they don't know.
34. Eddie McDonald says (quoting Correy Bodney): "We were afraid of the Waugal, to us he was a bloody devil. We were scared of him, we didn't look up to him as a God or anything like that, we were all afraid of him."
Correction: Naturally he is afraid of the Waugal because he doesn't believe in it or respect it. He knows not what he is saying. He is like a small child. He lives by the commandments of another culture and he should be afraid of that.
page 66
35. Eddie McDonald says: In contrast, the remainder of the Aboriginal consultants participating in the present survey report that no places or Aboriginal heritage values that would be impacted upon by the Ministry's proposals for the reuse of the Pyrton buildings. All are quite aware of the extensive Nyungah use of the Pyton/Eden Hill/Lockridge area in the past. But see nothing particularly "sacred" or of contemporary cultural significance ......
Correction: No, because they have left the land and the Culture far behind. We live with it on a day to day, week to week and year to year basis.
page 66 -68
36. Eddie McDonald talks about the corroborree ground, and meeting place at West Guildford.
Correction: McDonald seems to be confused because West Guildford was Bassendean. He attacks the knowledge and research of 3 white people who have done a lot more research on this Pyrton land than he ever has - Pat Baines - anthropologist, Jenny Carter - historian, Bevan Carter - historian and as Mayor of Bassendean, with access to Bassendean Council's old records.
page 68
37. Eddie McDonald says: A number of Aboriginal people owned land ... in Eden Hill ... the land was resumed because of unpaid rates ... or compulsory purchase. Correction: It was correct that Nyungah people owned land, but again Eddie McDonald does not know the history.
THESE ARE SOME OF THE CORRECTIONS TO EDDIE MCDONALD'S REPORT. THERE ARE OTHER VERY IMPORTANT THINGS WRONG WITH IT THAT NEED TO BE PROPERLY CONSIDERED. WE ONLY SAW A COPY YESTERDAY WITH PAGES MISSING.
WE SHOULD HAVE HAD THE RIGHT TO SEE THE CASE AGAINST US, WITH ALL THE DOCUMENTS MADE AVAILABLE INCLUDING THE SECTION 18 APPLICATION.
SWAN VALLEY NYUNGAH COMMUNITY
11.10.99