FROM THE ARCHIVES | CAN.ORG
2 min
Righting Wrongs
Aunty Doolann Leisha Eatts
Respected Whadjuk Ballardong Elder Doolann Leisha Eatts has a story to tell, a story she has been waiting most of her life to share. Sadly Aunty Doolann passed away before this book went to print, but she was determined her story would be shared.
It was one she heard as a child, passed down to her by her grandmother. A terrifying, eyewitness account of a massacre that started in Kings Park and ended at Lake Monger, or Galup as it is traditionally known.
These places are celebrated as jewels in Perth's tourist crown. Few know the hidden, darker history of these sites.
"My grandmother told me about Kings Park. She was a little girl. One day her sister and brother were looking for bird eggs and they saw this boat coming down the river.
"The boat had four things on the back. They didn't know what they were, but their mother told them they were horses and that the white people rode them."
Days later, they realised what the horses were for. They heard them galloping towards their camp. Doolann's great-grandparents grabbed the children and fled.
The Red Coats were shooting all of the Aboriginal people. Some were killed, others wounded. Doolann's family just kept running and hid in thick bushland.
After the attack in Kings Park, the survivors moved down to Lake Monger. Then the horses came again. At sundown. The Red Coats on horseback.
"Everyone started to run and sing out, ‘Gert, gert, koorliny!" They were running everywhere. And all the young people ran into the lake because they were cornered. And again. So many shot. So much wounded. One Aboriginal man tried to spear one of the troopers. They shot his face off. He was running with his face shot off.
"My grandmother used to cry when she told us that story. We'd cry with her."
Doolann remembers a time when she was staying at St John of God Hospital in Subiaco. She was in a room, overlooking Galup – Lake Monger.
As soon as she turned the light off to go to sleep, she could hear screaming and shouting and crying.
"It was that bad, I couldn't ignore it. It was tormenting me. I talked to my grandma so many times. I slept with her in the mia mia and she used to tell me stories about the slaughter."
She had a vision. Her grandmother showed her what happened. She knew this was a message that she must tell this story. As painful as it is, she shares these memories with others, because these massacres must be included as part of our state's history.
Aunty Doolann's dream is that one day a memorial will be erected at Lake Monger. A long overdue act of truth-telling, in remembrance of the Whadjuk families who were killed during colonisation.
Written by Michelle White
Produced by Community Arts Network during the Ngaluk Waangkiny project.
can.org.au/ngaluk-waangkiny
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