Prisons were not part of the Aboriginal culture before colonisation. Incarceration or lack of free will leaves one vulnerable to possession by spirits. As the Pyrton site is a recognised centre of spiritual activity for the Waugal, it would be inappropriate and dangerous for a prison to be located at this site.

The Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee has already decided that this is the case:

"The ACMC recommends that the Minister be formally advised of the strength of opposition to the proposed use of the land expressed by many Nyungah people on the basis that it will be inconsistent with, and inappropriate to, Aboriginal belief, custom and tradition..."

Since colonisation, prisons have been used as an instrument of dispossession for Aboriginal people and in truth they symbolise the desecration and destruction of Aboriginal culture. It is clear to Aboriginal people that a prison is not appropriate at Pyrton.

For the wider community, a prison at Pyrton would not only desecrate the site, it will deny our aspiration and obligation to recognise and respect the cultural and spiritual diversity of our own indigenous people.

Perceptions of a Prison
"Values which are present in a culture are often accepted by the members of that culture in a way that is not expressed but assumed, that is not articulated, but felt, that is not conscious but subconscious. They are taken for granted and for that reason are very powerful. An attack on such fundamental values is an attack on the individual and the group. Cultures are whole social fabrics, and if an attempt is made to change a part without taking into consideration all other aspects of a cutlure the effects can be chaos and disintegration."
(Kluckhohn:1962:337)(Applebaum:1984:232)

Therefore, it is taken for granted that the siting of a prison on the registered sacred site at Pyrton would be a desecration and an attack on the beliefs and values of the Nyungah People and detrimental to the amenity of the entire community.

Both the Nyungah and wider community are united in the belief that with regard to their quality of life there is no difference between pre-release minimum security or maximum security prisons and that they will adversely impacted by any form of prison, however it may be described. In the community view, there is no such thing as a benign prison. This view has been consistently expressed at many public meetings and in surveys. A prison is an institution of incarceration and is inappropriate at the Pyrton site with its associated spiritual significance.

The Ministry of Justice may argue that prisoners have been working at the Pyrton site for some time and now they just want to sleep there too. It is not the presence of prisoners at the site that constitutes a desecration, it is the establishment of an institution of incarceration that offends and injures Aboriginal spirituality and the wider community's respect and recognition of that spirituality.

The real and symbolic destruction that the state prison system in general has come to represent to Aboriginal people has no place on the Aboriginal sacred site at Pyrton.

NEXT: NATURAL HERITAGE

Contacts
Swan Valley Nyungah Community (08) 9377 3550
Pyrton Action Group (08) 9279 6781