Ngalang Moort Manjar: Part of Harry McGuigan Park to be renamed in recognition of Kwinana Aboriginal families

Part of Medina’s Harry McGuigan Park is set to be renamed in recognition of its cultural and historical significance to Kwinana’s Aboriginal families. City of Kwinana councilors voted at their May 11 meeting to signpost an area of the park off Wheelock Road as “Ngalang Moort Manjar”, or “Our Families Meeting Place”. The Ngalla Yorga Waangkan (We Women Talking) Group, an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation comprising local Aboriginal women, recently asked the city to change the name of the area of the park with the hill. The area, pictured below, was an established meeting place for Aboriginal families during the 1950s and 1960s when the Kwinana township was first established. Ngalla Yorga Waangkan chairperson Cindy Ballard said families gathered on the hill behind the Medina shops to socialise and gave food to any child that came up on to the hill hungry at lunchtime. “Parents would bring lunches and the kids would come over from the school; there was always damper or something cooking, sausages or stew. It used to bring whole families together,” Mrs Ballard said. “We want to come back here and start meeting again.” The name was workshopped with Kwinana’s Aboriginal community, the city’s Boola Maara Many Hands Advisory Group and the Medina Aboriginal Cultural Centre Elders Group, among others, and “Ngalang Moort Manjar” was agreed upon. While the tree everyone used to gather under was felled by developers, the stump now bears an overlay recognising the key Aboriginal families in the area. Kwinana mayor Carol Adams said the renaming reflected the area’s cultural and historical use by local Aboriginal families. Mrs Ballard said she hoped to have a totem pole installed alongside the city’s signage to improve the meeting place’s visibility from the road.