Perth Voice Interactive

FOR thousands of years before modern science confirmed the facts, Nyoongar storytellers passed down memories of a time when the mainland was linked with Wadjemup (much, much later to be named Rottnest Island). A new Perth-produced documentary Walking Together—Belonging to Country (Djena Koorliny Danjoo Boodjar-ang) explored the similarities between Aboriginal and western scientific understandings of Nyoongar country. Murdoch uni’s Glen Stasiuk (of the Minang-Wadjari Nyoongars) says he’d been familiar with the Aboriginal side of the story, but directing the film he came across the climatic, geologic and archeological understandings of the history too. “People of the Whadjuk Nyoongar knew that Wadjemup was connected to the mainland,” he says. “Geologically, it’s been proven that was correct.

“The story I heard through one family group is within a decade they witnessed literally the ocean levels rising an extraordinary amount, that within their own viewpoint the island disappeared, the former mountain that attached to the mainland then became a distant island. “That’s been carried down for 7000 years.” The old stories also told of a great canyon beneath the water off the west coast, again confirmed by modern science. Francesca Robertson, a senior research fellow at ECU’s Kurongkurl Katitjin Indigenous research centre, says there are many parallels between Nyoongar creation stories, telling of how the south-west corner of WA formed, and the realities of people adapting to what’s now known as climate change happening over thousands of years. Elder Noel Nannup and UWA flora and fauna expert Stephen Hopper likewise found a lot of common ground between the old knowledge and new research. The 40-minute documentary shows June 1 at the state theatre centre of WA along with a Q&A with the filmmakers at 12.45pm and 2.45pm. by DAVID BELL