Vernice Gillies: Upper Kalgan rich with important sites from Menang antiquity

The Upper Kalgan is rich with important sites from Menang antiquity.

We have got a site up there near the Upper Kalgan Hall, a kaal, or a fire site.

We have had three anthropological digs done there and the material that was found was sent off to be carbon-dated.

If we needed proof of ancient habitation, evidence was provided when the material came back dated in excess of 26,000 years.

No doubt then that we live on very ancient country.

I never cease to be amazed when the rest of the world gets very excited because someone has dug up a 4000-year-old site when on our doorstep is proof putting us at least 26,000 years old.

And that evidence was found at only two-and-a-bit metres down, so imagine what is there if we went down further.

There is also an amazing tree growing at the Upper Kalgan Hall which we know our people trained to grow the way it has grown.

It is a gnamma tree. There are quite a few gnammas around.

The tree has had four of its branches trained to grow in different directions, away from the major trunk and then it has been hollowed out so we have four limbs that basically form a cup that collects water.

Sometimes kangaroos have eaten the skin off the tree and tannin has leaked into the water that’s held in that cup.

Once our people had killed and skinned a kangaroo, they would put its skin in the cup and the tannin would soften it.

The water itself can be treated because the tannin would make it taste like some sort of horrible tea.

Someone told me that you can treat it with charcoal. I have not done so and I don’t think I will.

The Upper Kalgan is also unique, because right underneath the bridge itself we have the coming together of two different rivers.

On the north side of the Kalgan, we have pretty much fresh water and on the south side we have the briny, more salty water.

This means on one side you could find freshwater fish, like trout and like perch, and on the southern side you find brim.

It is like two completely different river systems and the profusion of ancient sites along its banks is what makes it so unique and important to care for.

Vernice Gillies is a Menang-Noongar elder. This is the third of a four part series for the Albany Advertiser.