20 Facts About Noongar

Noongar are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast.

Contemporary Noongar speak Australian Aboriginal English laced with Noongar words and occasionally inflected by its grammar.

Endonym of the Noongar comes from a word originally meaning "man" or "person".

At the time of European settlement it is believed that the peoples of what became the Noongar community spoke thirteen dialects, of which five still have speakers with some living knowledge of their respective versions of the language.

Noongar peoples have six seasons whose time frame is defined by specific observable changes to the environment, with a dry period varying from as few as three to as many as eleven months.

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Generally, Noongar made a living by hunting and trapping a variety of game, including kangaroos, possums and wallabies; for people close to the coastal zone or riverine systems, spear-fishing or culling fish in traps was customary.

Conversely, the Noongar saw the settlers' livestock as fair game to replace the dwindling stocks of native animals shot indiscriminately by settlers.

Noongar's father was caught, and killed without trial by a military firing squad.

Noongar's corpse was decapitated and the head sent to England for display in fairgrounds.

Many country Noongar people have developed long-standing relationships with non-Noongar farmers, and continue to hunt kangaroo and gather bush tucker as well as to teach their children stories about the land.

In Perth, the Noongar believe that the Darling Scarp is said to represent the body of a Wagyl, a snakelike Dreamtime creature that is a common deity in Noongar culture, that meandered over the land creating rivers, waterways, and lakes.

In 2006, Noongar culture was showcased as part of the Perth International Arts Festival.

Noongar people occupied and maintained the Mediterranean climate lands of the south-west ecoregion of Western Australia, and made sustainable use of seven biogeographic regions of their territory, namely;.

The Noongar territory happens to conform closely with the south-west Indian Ocean Drainage Region, and the use of these water resources played a very important seasonal part in their culture.

Noongar thus have a close connection with the earth and, as a consequence, they divided the year into six distinct seasons that corresponded with moving to different habitats and feeding patterns based on seasonal foods.

Importantly, Justice Wilcox found the Noongar community constituted a united society which had continued to exist despite the disruption resulting from mixed marriage and people being forced off their land and dispersed to other areas as a result of white settlement and later Government policies.

Since the Noongar are largely urbanised or concentrated in major regional towns, studies have shown that the direct economic impact of the Noongar community on the WA economy was estimated to range between five and seven hundred million dollars per year.

The report that was produced after this gathering stated that Noongar men have a life expectancy of 20 years less than non-Aboriginal men, and go to hospital three times more often.

Noongar still have large extended families and many families have difficulty accessing available structures of sheltered housing in Western Australia.

Noongar themselves are tackling their own issues, for example, the Noongar Patrol, which is an Aboriginal Advancement Council initiative.