Aboriginal heritage under threat
DEPUCH is a ‘punishment’ island covered in extraordinary rock art and Aboriginal legend. Described as WA’s ‘Uluru at sea’, Depuch Island is located just 3km off the historic ghost town of Balla Balla between Karratha and Port Hedland. You can walk there at low tide.
On Google Earth, the 1200ha island looks remarkably similar to Uluru (Ayer’s Rock). Ngarluma, Garijarra and Yindjibarndi believe the 5km by 3km oblong-shaped volcanic block was left over from the creation of Uluru by spirit men, Maralga.
The sacred ‘sister’ site is banned to Aboriginal women and uninitiated men who warn people not to travel to the island because of the dark spirits guarding their culture, including the thousands of petroglyphs created by Indigenous people over millennia.
Surprisingly, the island is not included in the proposed World Heritage List nomination of the Burrup peninsula rock art just 100km away.
Nearly 13km in circumference and 155m high, each step on Depuch’s collapsing surface is a risky venture. Depuch is no tourist picnic, but the rock art is out of this world.
‘Spirit’ men with exaggerated genitalia and in elaborate headdress, copulating couples, ceremonial dances, hunting scenes, wildlife, early European ship visits and ‘graffiti’. (HMS Beagle visited Depuch in 1840 and left three inscriptions, two of which were photographed by StreetWise).
‘Ile Depuch’ was first charted by French explorers in 1801, but surprisingly missed the rock art in the short time they had here.
It was not until 1840, when Beagle captain John Wickham visited Depuch looking for water, that the first images were recorded and published in Europe.
In 1958, Australian anthropologist Frederick McCarthy said, “the great variety of human and spirit figures and the many excellent figures of animals, warrant its being denoted as one of the most artistically interesting sites of naturalistic engravings in Australia”.
In the early 1960s, visiting WA Museum scientists described Depuch as a, “repository of Australian prehistory no less significant than such world-renowned prehistoric art galleries as the caves of Lascaux in the Dordogne and Altamira in northern Spain”.
These important studies are not cited among nearly 50 references in the World heritage List nomination prepared by the State and Federal governments and Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation.
Depuch was originally considered but rejected, “on the grounds of its exceptional Aboriginal heritage”, as a deepwater port.
Ironically, the port proposal was moved to Dampier Archipelago. The Museum said at the time the best of the threatened Depuch rock art should be moved to Roebourne in the event the project went ahead.
Then WA Education and Native Welfare Minister Edgar Lewis stating on December 23, 1964: “Now, we have an accurate statement of the island in its context as one of the most remarkable native art sites in existence and of which we, as Western Australians, can be justly proud.”
In a repeat of history, NZ company Todd Corporation has proposed to revive the port plans after the McGowan Government ratified in 2017 a State Agreement to build a 62km rail line from its Balla Balla mine to the coast.
Read more about ‘Uluru’s Dark Sister’ in the latest edition of StreetWise.
