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The picture on our home page shows a sketch of our house ("High Beach"), whilst this picture shows a glimpse of the Indian Ocean with Rottnest Island on the horizon at the left. Michael Webster (2005) distinctly recalls being impressed by the view from the "High Beach" balcony of the British Pacific fleet anchored in Gage Roads on its way to fight the Japanese in the islands in WWII. In those days the view was a lot less obscured than it is now.
"High Beach" is located on what is known locally as Claremont Hill. The aboriginal place name for this hill is Kabamunup, which is said to mean "the hill that is haunted as punished by the Wagul, due to Nyungars breaking a food law". Bolton & Gregory |
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Haunted Hill at Claremont At Karbomunup and Beereegup (Claremont Hill and Peppermint Grove) some children broke one of their food laws, and the janga woggal living in the hill became so boogur (angry, sulky) that it came out of the hill and swallowed all the men, women and children of the place, except one woman, who was gobbelguttuk (pregnant). There is, or was, a peculiar shaped stone on or near the shore at Claremont which was supposed to have been the gobbelguttuk woman and the stone and the hill were ever afterwards forbidden ground. No spears must be sharpened at night in the vicinity; nor any daaja [meat, food] cut up or broken in the wrong way. A native named Bimba, within recent times broke a crow's wing, in the wrong manner, and that evening Bimba's dog's back was broken; and still more recently some Nor'-West natives, in defiance of the superstition held a corroboree on Karbomunup Hill, and two of their number were killed by the Woggal. Rushes were also strewn in the vicinity of Karbomungup. Bates |
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Note: Bright Sparks has a biographical entry on Daisy Bates References: Bates, Daisy M (1912) Haunted Places of the West in The West Australian May 11, 1912 Bolton, Geoffrey and Gregory, Jenny (1999) Claremont: A History UWAP |