The google blog isn't letting anyone upload photos due to the technicians fooling around with the system dammit but here's the text.
A Ship In The Desert
By Anna Johnson
Forty eight
kilometres southwest of Cue, Walga Rock rises from the timeless desert sands,
and on its weathered walls is an amazing gallery of aboriginal paintings. This
lonely spot, almost hidden by bush, also holds one of Australia's oddest
mysteries: a drawing of a tall ship.
Tales abound of
its origins - some say it was drawn by local indigenous people based on
descriptions given to them by a young colonial girl, others say it was drawn by
a shipwrecked Dutch sailor, or an Afghan camel guide, as there is
Arabic-looking writing below the sketch.
Only the rocks
know for certain whose long-dead hand once outlined this image on the
rain-streaked walls, but thanks to the efforts of various boffins in recent
years it seems the mystery has been solved.
In the late
1800's, many Malay people worked as pearlers aboard ships along the WA coast.
One of these ships was called the Xantho, and one of the pearlers was a man
known as Sammy Hassan. In 1917, Sammy had left the pearling industry and gone
inland, and was reportedly camped near Coodardy Station next to Walga Rock,
shooting roos and living with a group of Aboriginal people.
Research by
historians strongly supports the belief that it was Sammy who made the drawing;
a key factor is that the features of the drawn ship match those of the Xantho.
Sammy Hassan had quite a remarkable historical place in WA's past; look up the
weblinks at the end of this article if you want to know more about his story.
So far it seems
no one has been able to work out what the writing below the ship drawing says,
but as it was written by a roo-shootin' ex-pearl diver I suspect it's something
along the lines of "I worked my arse off on this bloody ship" or
"See me at bush camp for a good time" rather than anything deep and
meaningful.
I first saw Walga
Rock and the ship drawing a few weeks ago, thanks to Meeka local Gary
"Blues Man" Hammer, my handsome personal tour guide. It's an easy
drive to Walga Rock (unless you are on a moped or rollerblades), which is the
second largest monolith in WA (Mt. Augustus is the biggest), but many people
don't know that it is also the largest gallery of indigenous art in WA.
Now in the
custodial care of the Wajarri people, there are many layers of art to be seen;
they are believed to date from over 10,000 years ago. Unfortunately it's very
hard to find much information about them on the internet or at the site itself,
as most write-ups focus on the ship drawing. It's a shame, because it's a wondrous
feeling to be inches away from an ochre-stained hand outline and think that you
are standing in the footsteps of the person who made it thousands of years ago,
and it would be fascinating to know what it meant to them and what the many drawings
might tell us about the human history of the site.
Walga Rock is
only one of many indigenous sites in the Weld Ranges area; many of course are
secret or inaccessible. A day trip there would give you plenty of time to visit
the enormous "ghost pub" at Big Bell and the old camel watering site
at Afghan Rock, where you can look across the vast stretch of outback in every
direction and imagine what it must have been like to rest with your groaning
cranky camels hundreds of miles from anything, with no sunblock, no fly spray,
no sunglasses, no cold beer, no women (look out, camels) and no one to call for
help.
Then you can hop
into your air-conditioned car, grab a cold tinnie out of the Engel, and head
back to Cue for a bit of big-screen TV and a coldie at the pub, enriched by
your day of culture and history, grateful that you don't have to spend the
night with a dusty horde of belching camels and a hungry ex-pearl diver
wandering loose with a rifle.
For more about Sammy Hassan and Walga Rock:
http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/maritime-archaeology-web/content/other-sites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walga_Rock
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