Fish Traps
Fish were an important part of the seasonal diet of Aboriginal people. They were also part of a social structure where other Aboriginal groups would be invited to camp where fish were plentiful. The Barragup Mungah was an important meeting place for the Aboriginal People of the Swan, Peel and Darling Ranges areas.[1]
Fish traps have been documented in Wilson Inlet, Broke Inlet, Oyster Harbour, King George Sound, Peel Inlet, and Wonnerup. In 1801, Captain Nicolas Thomas Baudin came ashore in Geographe Bay and described a fish trap of stakes at the entrance to Wonnerup Inlet.[2] When Lieutenant Phillip Parker King visited King George Sound in 1819, he noted that all of the creeks and inlets into King George Sound were planted with weirs for catching fish.
The Barragup Mungah, on the Serpentine River, was used by Aboriginal people within the last 100 years.
In areas where fish traps were not feasible Aboriginal people would fish at night to the light of burning torches or using fires on the shore to attract fish. The fish could then be speared or stunned with a kylie. The torch was made up of dry grass tree fronds combined with gum wrapped around with green fronds.
For further information on Fish Traps in the South West of Western Australia, reference can be made to a paper by W.C. Dix and Sara J. Meagher which has been downloaded from the WA Museum.
A paper on the Barragup Fish Weir on the Serpentine River by Martin Gibbs that has also been downloaded from the WA Museum is available here.
- ↑ https://www.noongarculture.org.au/gnaala-karla-booja/ Accessed October 9, 2019
- ↑ Anne Brearley, Ernest Hodgkin’s Swanland, University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, 2005
