Depuch Island – the future of Uluru’s ‘dark sister’

EXCLUSIVE: A proposed iron ore port at the historic Pilbara ghost town of Balla Balla between Karratha and Port Hedland threatens one of the most extraordinary collections of petroglyphs dating back to the last ice age in Australia. This special report by StreetWise Media publisher Carmelo Amalfi explores the rock art enigma that is Depuch Island, WA’s ‘Uluru at sea’.

by Carmelo Amalfi
DEPUCH Island or Womalantha, ‘place of dangerous spirits’, was created by Maralga ‘spirit men’ who threw a giant rock left over from the creation of Uluru into the ocean off the historic Pilbara ghost town of Balla Balla.
On Google Earth, the 5km by 3km oblong-shaped island just 3km off the Western Australian coast between Karratha and Port Hedland looks remarkably similar to Uluru. Sea shells separated at birth, at ‘the beginning of things’.
But it is at beach level the sister site’s beauty and cultural significance sinks in for visitors to this remote rock art-rich ‘hill’ Ngarluma, Gariyarra and Yindjibarndi people regard as a dangerous place banned to women and uninitiated men.
Named after Louis Depuch, mineralogist on French commander Nicolas Baudin’s 1800-1803 expedition, the offshore cultural treasure hosts what WA scientists describe 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”. Depuch’s carvings are out of this world. Most are concentrated at Anchor Hill, its towering rock cairn overlooking Beagle Beach, Watering Valley, Skipjack Cliffs, Jane Creek and Hunter’s Pool.
The 1500ha rock art ‘library’ also shares a European maritime heritage recorded in inscriptions left by 19th century exploration vessels including HMS Beagle whose crew in 1842 landed looking for water on, ‘that dreary heap of desolation’ (Charles Darwin was not on this Beagle voyage, having visited Australia in 1836).
Beagle’s crew inscribed details of their visit at Anchor Hill and Watering Valley and returned to Europe with images (shown here) of Aboriginal figures wearing elaborate headdress, carrying weapons, shields and boomerangs, taking part in ceremonial dances and retribution scenes and wildlife, snakes, frogs, birds, turtles, crabs, whales and sharks. More unusual works include a strange praying mantis-like creature, a group of alien-like stickmen with tiny bodies and big heads and pairs of ‘kurdaitja’ shoes or sandals showing the upper webbed covering of the feet and lacing.
But of the thousands of images carved into ‘Ile Depuch’, it is the hands of its Indigenous creators that stand out; the ancient artist’s signature preserved in stone.
A record of life and death over millennia.
WA’s ‘Uluru at sea’ emerged about 8000 to 10,000 years ago when rising sea levels created the islands of Australia. Many of the carved images and their cultural meanings can be found in largely forgotten government and academic reports and scientific studies unearthed during research for this article.
After Beagle’s visit, the island remained shrouded in mystery for nearly a century when anthropologists from Germany’s Frobenius Institute, Drs Helmut Petri, Andreas Lommel and Douglas Fox, visited Depuch and recorded thousands of petroglyphs in 1938 and 1939.
Petroglyphs include carvings made by pecking at the surface of the rock using a stone ‘chisel’. When the surface layer or patina is chipped away, the underlying lighter rock is exposed, allowing the artist to create the ‘memory’ or visual reminder of Aboriginal law and legend.
Unaware of the rock art at nearby Burrup Peninsula or Murujuga, the visiting scientists believed a ‘saltwater’ tribe created the carvings which, “surpassed in careful execution and variety and richness of groups and composition most of those elsewhere in Australia”.
So highly regarded was the rock art in the international scientific community, the WA Government abandoned plans in the early 1960s to build the first deepwater iron ore port in the North West at Depuch.
Ironically, the port was shifted 100km away to Dampier, unaware the decision to save Depuch would decades later pitch state governments against traditional custodians of Murujuga, now subject of a World Heritage List nomination.

Ghosts of Balla Balla

THE Aboriginal name for ‘a lot of mud’, Balla Balla was established in 1898 as a commercial port supplying much-needed goods to the expanding Pilbara region. Despite severe cyclone damage and loss of life at sea, it continued to be active and heavily populated as a mining centre until the 1930s, its old rail lines and cemetery now abandoned to the elements.
As early as 1908, the State Mining Engineer reported on the potential of the West Pilbara goldfields and proposed a railway from the North West coast to Marble Bar. Depuch was regarded as a, “satisfactory port for the district”, and if connected to the mainland at Balla Balla, the causeway would be built, “using the stone from the Island”.
Fortunately, the stones were left unturned and nothing occurred until the early 1960s when surveys were ordered to determine whether Depuch could be developed as a deep water port following the lifting of Commonwealth Government restrictions on WA iron ore exports.
Depuch eventually was rejected, “on the grounds of its exceptional Aboriginal heritage”. Education and Native Welfare Minister Edgar Lewis stated on December 23, 1964: “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.”
The island was subsequently declared a sanctuary for the protection of wildlife and unique rock engravings.
Scientists identified more than 5000 out of more than 7000 carvings on Depuch. Petroglyphs are ‘memory devices’ which recall songs and invocations learned during initiation. They dictate social conduct, ‘permanent visual reminders of how the Law should be followed’. Depuch Island is regarded as the resting place of an ancestral being who left the rock engravings as a sign of the ‘Law’ he carried there.
Australian Museum anthropologist Frederick McCarthy visited Depuch twice in 1958 and said the art was called ‘mani’ by the Ngarluma people, “in whose territory the island is situated”.
Though Dr McCarthy refers to Depuch as ‘Womalantha’, WA Museum scientists including zoologist Ronald Murray Berndt noted after a visit in 1962 and interviews with local Aboriginal elders that Depuch also was referred to as ‘Womala’.
“I was told that Depuch, as well as all the coastal area toward Onslow, originally belonged to the Madudunara,” he said. “Around Roebourne and further inland the Ngarluma territory extended, linking with the Kariera to the north and north-east … I prefer to rely on my Aboriginal informants’ comments in this respect, recognising that the more inland Indjibandi were drawn into the coastal area soon after European settlement in this region.”
The Karieri people once lived around the coastal and neighbouring inland area around and east of Port Hedland, including the Yule and Turner rivers.
Dr McCarthy said Depuch and the surrounding coastal region was rich in sea foods and, “so I was told, were used for seasonal hunting and fishing. But, importantly, the island possessed sacred sites, where these engravings are now located. These sites contained the spiritual essence of the natural species that were depicted”.
He added: “Some of these engravings are known as ‘bugaridjalgu’ in Ngaluma (or ‘gabugari’ in Indjibandi) or ‘Dreaming’; that is, they relate to the Creative or Formative era when the world was made, and are associated with the eternal spirit, ancestral, as well as mythical, beings. And some of these, together with their adventures, are recorded on the rock facings. Some, therefore, were suggested to be ‘very ancient’ indeed, belonging to what the Aborigines would regard as ‘the beginning of things’.”
In 1964, the WA Museum wrote to the Government stating the petroglyphs, “have been hailed as the most important collection of Aboriginal engravings in Australia”. It warned the art was, “not so much endangered by the building of the proposed harbour works as they will be by the visitors who will gain easy access to the island through them. Vandalism is clearly the main danger to the engravings. Because of the nature of the rock of the island, an individual can destroy in five minutes of thoughtlessness, or by deliberate vandalism, the enjoyment of others for many hundreds of years”.
Nearly 13km in circumference, its highest point about 160m above low water mark, Depuch lives up to its reputation as a place of ‘punishment’, its unforgiving barren landscape, steep hills and snake-infested crevices a test for any endurance hiker.
Accessible by foot at low tide, Depuch is no tourist picnic. Its broken surface threatens to crumble under your feet, dark gaps between each stone home to rock spiders and pythons: “A dropped object falls between these great blocks and the unhappy loser can hear it progressing beneath him into the very bowels of the Island.”
Cartographer Francois-Michel Ronsard, who surveyed the island during the Baudin expedition, established Depuch was volcanic, “the first geological evidence of volcanic activity on the Australian continent”.
Beagle Captain John Wickham sent his notes and reproductions of the unusual images to the Royal Geographical Society in the UK. Thirteen figures were published out of 94 recorded by Wickham.
Having found fireplaces, worked stones and twig ‘huts’, no inhabitants were found except Aboriginal people they saw on the mainland but unsuccessfully tried to make contact with. Wickham concluded: “From the vast number of specimens of the art, the natives seem to have amused themselves in this way from time immemorial; and from the very hard nature of the stone, and the accuracy with which many animals and birds are represented, they deserve great credit for patient perseverance, and for more talent and observation than is usually bestowed upon the natives of New Holland.”
Since Beagle’s visit, several Australian and overseas reports and scientific papers have been published on the rock art at Depuch at a time when permission was not required to visit the island or record and publish the petroglyphs. Today, people are warned not to visit the ‘dangerous’ island. Or publish its ‘sacred’ art.
Rock art book publisher Mike Donaldson has been unable to publish his 347-page book ‘Depuch Rock Art’ because he was told it is too ‘dangerous’ and culturally insensitive.
Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation (NAC) several years ago asked Dr Donaldson to shelve the book even though he received permission from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and WA Museum to visit and record the rock art in 2006, 2010 and 2014. NAC has never seen the book.
Dr Donaldson was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for ‘Service to the Indigenous Community of WA’, which recognises his valuable documentation of Burrup and Kimberley rock art.
Several weeks ago, Dr Donaldson showed StreetWise the publication. Illustrated by hundreds of images and detailed descriptions, the unpublished ‘manuscript’ is a record of rock art whose cultural significance will sink in once the miners move in.
In 2010, with the blessing of traditional custodians of Murujuga, Dr Donaldson published ‘Burrup Rock Art’, a 516-page book that showcases the petroglyphs of Burrup Peninsula.
NAC CEO Emil Moul told StreetWise would be prepared to meet Dr Donaldson, “put him in front of the right people and there shouldn’t be a problem. Any sacred images can be removed”.
Dr Donaldson said he was delighted and would contact NAC: “Depuch is a wonderful island full of wonderful artwork.”
He said Depuch was used for ceremonies by different neighbouring groups, not just Ngarluma. “We know very little about the ethnographic story of Depuch. Initiation ceremonies were held there, but no one lived on the island.”
He said Depuch contains thousands of petroglyphs including those depicting ‘retribution’ scenes unique to the island. They show groups of 20 to 40 people gathered in a circle around a figure they are punishing with spears. He has identified at least 10 sites with retribution scenes.

Murujuga, Juukan, Womalantha

THE abundance of petroglyphs at Murujuga, just 100km west of Womalantha, represents, “the transition of an arid maritime cultural landscape through time”. And though profound in number and age, it is not the only sacred Aboriginal rock art site in the Pilbara.
The 2021 federal inquiry into the destruction of 46,000-year-old Juukan cave shelters, about 60km north-west of Tom Price, highlights the cultural sensitivity of and need to protect important sites in WA, and Australia, including Murujuga, whose rock art-rich landscape has been nominated to join the World Heritage List of ‘special’ places next to WA’s only World Heritage-listed site at Shark Bay, the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge and Great Wall of China.
The tentative list submission for Murujuga includes nearly 50 references supporting its nomination. However, there is no mention of the many Australian and overseas studies of Depuch dating back to the late 1930s when scientists first warned against disturbing the remote island.
After his visit in 1958, Dr McCarthy published, ‘The Rock Engravings of Depuch island, North-west Australia’, with detailed descriptions of the extraordinary rock art. His work is referred to by Robert Bednarik, professor at the International Center for Rock Art Dating in Shijiazhuang, China, in a 2002 journal article, ‘The Survival of the Murujuga (Burrup) Petroglyphs’.
Surprisingly, there is no mention in the nomination of the WA Museum visits to and early reports of Depuch’s rock art, including the 88-page ‘Special Publication No.2 – Depuch Island’, published in 1964 with detailed descriptions and images which ultimately helped curb plans to build a new industrial port at Depuch.
Dr 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”. He said the depiction of the figures on Depuch compared closely with those found elsewhere in Australian rock art including in the Kimberley and western Arnhem Land.
Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, which is preparing the proposed World Heritage nomination with the State and Federal governments, said it wanted Depuch included but could get no ‘traction’ with NAC. Depuch’s absence from the Murujuga nomination is significant.
If Depuch is so special, its rock art acclaimed by Australian and international scientists since the early 1800s, why is it not included in the nomination to ensure its future protection?
Would including Depuch inside the proposed Murujuga boundary interfere with revived plans to industrialise the Balla Balla coast.
What agreements were made with traditional custodians under the State Agreement the McGowan Government ratified in 2017?
NAC has not responded to requests for a comment.

Burrup 2.0?

IN 2017, WA Premier Mark McGowan ratified a State Agreement signed by former premier Colin Barnett with NZ company Todd Mining to build a new iron ore port at Balla Balla and 162km rail line linked to an inland mine owned by ASX-listed Flinders Mines.
Todd Mining has a 59 per cent interest in Flinders, whose minority shareholders NZ media reports have renewed their long-running battle with Todd and lodged a formal request for the Australian Securities and Investment Commission to investigate Flinders following years of rejected takeovers, unsuccessful delisting attempts and defamation threats.
“Chinese Government will own 50% in the next biggest iron ore project in Australia, it will be a $6 billion infrastructure project for exchange of 50 per cent ownership in Flinders Mines,” they warned in an online petition to former Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
“We the shareholders/Australians are worried and have had enough of the sale of Australian resources, land and businesses. No more China ownership of Australia. Stop the sale of Flinders Mines to China Government-owned CSCEC, China State Construction Engineering Corporation.”
The rocky relationship subsided in early 2020 when Flinders gained shareholder approval to progress the project.
A Flinders spokesman told StreetWise, “the Balla Balla project remains very much live”.
Business sources in NZ said work at Balla Balla could begin within the next year once Todd resolved outstanding issues with the minority Flinders shareholders. However, it is understood Todd is considering scaling down the project from its original design.
Part of a $7 billion project to export one billion tonnes of iron ore over 20 years, they said Todd planned to stretch the life of the project over 50 years and instead of building a new port and rail line would use existing infrastructure in Port Hedland and Karratha to access and process its prized iron ore tenement in the ‘short term’.
Once the ‘Railway Agreement 2017 Bill’ was signed, Todd Mining declared the proposed Balla Balla Infrastructure (BBI) project opposite Depuch was a, “new and independent gateway to the iron ore rich province of the Pilbara in WA”.
According to its website, the BBI Group majority owned by Todd Corporation, is, “in the process of securing all of the approvals required to enable the revival of the historical Balla Balla Port”. It says the new port will open up the central and western Pilbara as a source of high grade iron ore, “for decades to come”.
It adds, “All native title and heritage agreements for the BBI Project and Balla Balla mine are in place with the relevant traditional owner groups”. All native title and heritage agreements are in place with the Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation for the Ngarluma people; Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation for the Yindjibarndi people; and Wintawari Aboriginal Corporation for the Eastern Guruma people.
Environment Minister Stephen Dawson told StreetWise last year: “I am advised it (Balla Balla project) has the full support of the traditional owners who hold native title over the project land. Depuch Island is not within the proposed development area.” There is no native title on Depuch.
Importantly, the minister said Depuch could be considered as part of the World Heritage List nomination: “The boundary of the Dampier Archipelago National Heritage area will be used as the starting point. The values of Depuch Island could be considered as part of this process, however, as the island is more than 90km from Murujuga, it may be difficult to justify in the nomination how it could be effectively managed as part of the World Heritage area.”
The UNESCO deadline for including Murujuga to the tentative list of World Heritage places was February 1, 2021, but the nomination was delayed by COVID-19.
The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment in Canberra has told StreetWise the boundary of the World Heritage List nomination had not been determined: “A single geo-reference point, which is located in the National Heritage place, was used in the tentative list submission. The National Heritage place is the Dampier Archipelago including Burrup Peninsula. Depuch Island isn’t in the National Heritage place.”
Should such a historic opportunity to showcase the oldest and richest rock art in the world be excluded by a line in the sand around Murujuga alone when its proposed heritage boundary could be extended 100km to include the prized petroglyphs of Depuch Island, Peawah Hill and other significant Aboriginal sites near Murujuga?
The industrialisation of Balla Balla could cut a significant cultural link to Depuch. Such a strategic mining and construction project would have a major impact on the island no less severe than the threat posed in the early 1960s.
According to a 2006 National Trust of Australia report, Murujuga is part of a living cultural tradition: “Aboriginal people believe that the petroglyphs are the work of the marga, ancestral creator beings, in the Dreaming. They are a permanent reminder of the Law and retain their spiritual power. Looking after the petroglyphs is an inherited and ongoing responsibility. Pilbara people have songs and mythology for many of the images depicted in petroglyphs on the Dampier Archipelago, as well as on the mainland and Depuch Island.”
As Ride stated after his visit to Womalantha: “Let us hope that the future will deal with Depuch as kindly as the past has, and that other parties like our own will be able to continue the task of interpreting the history and beliefs of our forerunners on the continent.”

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