WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

outside the stations. Stock supplied much needed food for Europeans but also for
Aboriginal people denied access to their traditional land and resources. From 1892,
police and settler recruits were granted greater discretionary powers to disperse
Aboriginal people and life outside the stations became increasingly difficult and
dangerous. Spearing of cattle became a criminal offence and gaol terms for cattle theft
were increased. In 1893, power was given to pastoralists to adjudicate on cases
involving their own stock (Broome 2010).
The Devonian Reef: Bunuba Country
The limestone complexes of the Devonian Reef provided a natural barrier to the
rolling advance of European occupation north of the Fitzroy River valley to the
rangelands beyond. Hicks, a member of Alexander Forrest's 1879 expedition, wrote
about the mountainous region saying that it seemed to 'completely shut us in with
bold, high, ranges.' Forrest named them the Oscar and Napier Range and the King
Leopold Range and the party could not find a pass through them (Edwards 1991).
Windjana Gorge, a natural passage through the impenetrable Napier Range to the
grassy rangelands beyond, was the scene of perhaps the best known confrontation
between the Bunuba and the Western Australian authorities. [see further discussion on
the Battle of Windjana under criterion (h) Jandamarra: a powerful magic man and a
clever military strategist].
The near vertical walls of the gorge, with their convoluted limestone faces and
jumbled limestone blocks provided protection and avenues of escape for the Bunuba
fighters during the Battle of Windjana. A chimney known as Marli allowed access to
the top of the range, and from there a path led to a natural spring called Limalwurru
(Playford et al. 2009). The extremely rugged nature of the limestone landscape made
it very difficult, if not impossible, to give chase on horseback.
Windjana Gorge was an important place to Bunuba people as a permanent source of
water. Even during the middle of the dry season, the Lennard River still retained some
large pools. The largest of these is located near the west entrance, around a large
fallen block, known as Bandangnan (Rainbow Serpent) who is said to have created
the gorge bringing spirits of the children to the waterhole. The permanent water of
Windjana Gorge also made it a particularly important pass for watering stock; its
control was critical to the rolling frontier moving forward.
Bunuba and other Aboriginal resistance to moving frontier of European settlement
Conflict between Europeans and Aboriginal people was endemic on the frontier of
European settlement (Reynolds 1976). As the wave of European settlement moved
south and north from the Sydney colony it took many forms from passive resistance
through to large-scale violent action, and was highly influenced by the terrain on
which it occurred. (Reynolds 1982; Pedersen and Woorunmurra 1995; Grassby and
Hill 1988; Connor 2002). The Bunuba resistance would not have been as successful
without the impenetrable fortress-like qualities of their traditional country. The
limestone landscape of the Napier and Oscar Ranges provided the Bunuba with a
refuge from which to defend their country and a fortress to attack would-be settlers
and the police.
118