Aboriginal Australian TraditionsBody Of Water
Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River)
The river that runs through Perth, Western Australia, whose course Whadjuk Noongar tradition attributes to the Wagyl; its resting places, including Goonininup below Kaarta Gar-up (Kings Park), are important Noongar places.
About Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River)
A Noongar river
The Derbarl Yerrigan, the Swan River, flows from the Darling Scarp through Perth to the Indian Ocean at Fremantle. For Whadjuk Noongar people it is at the heart of Country: a source of food and fresh water and a place of story. In the public Noongar telling, the Wagyl shaped the river in the Nyitting as it moved across the land. The coordinates given here mark Perth Water, in the city.
Goonininup
At the foot of Kaarta Gar-up (Mount Eliza, below Kings Park) is Goonininup, near a freshwater spring, associated with the Wagyl. From 1989 Noongar people protested the redevelopment of the Old Swan Brewery on this site; the protest became a landmark in Western Australian heritage politics.
Today
Noongar names for the river and for places along it are increasingly used in Perth, and Noongar-led tours and public art along the foreshore share aspects of the Derbarl Yerrigan's story with residents and visitors.
On the map
Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River) among other places of the Aboriginal Australian Traditions.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- City of Swan, 'Aboriginal history'
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.