Week 9 - Bibbul-mun, part 3

PART 3 - The naming of Bibbulmun

 

 

I was going to name him Balingup after a town in Western Australia famous (or infamous) for the magic mushrooms that grow in the forest around the town. 

We drove through Balingup in 2005 on our way back from Walpole and Pemberton to Perth (but didn’t stop for mushrooms)

Then I read that there is a Bibbulmun Walking Track which passes along Balingup Brook, then meanders to the south through the Balingup Golden Valley Tree Park, the track is well known internationally and quite a challenge.

I liked the sound of Bibbulmun but wasn’t sure about using the name as it had been the name of an aboriginal tribe and it seemed a little frivolous to bestow it on my dragon.

I did a little more research on the Bibbulmun people and came across their history which had been written up by Daisy Bates (1863 -1951) who had been an anthropologist and welfare worker among the Aboriginals.

Her study of the Bibbulmun people was recorded in her book The Passing of the Aboriginal – the chapter can be read here 

 I found her story to be very moving, she states the “The first landing of the white man was the beginning of the end.”   

Could I then equate fact and fiction and compare this to the beginning and end of dragons. 

In honour of both a vanished people and vanished creatures I named my dragon Bibbul-mun.

 

The Bibbulmun Track stretches nearly 1000kms through jarrah, marri, wandoo, karri and tingle forests, interspersed with sections of coastal peppermint and heathlands.  It traverses some of the most beautiful and wild areas of the south west of Western Australia………

……… imagine how many dragons are hiding there!