Styx River

Statement of Significance

The Styx River is a valuable cultural and natural resource in the Walpole Wilderness Area. Noongar Traditional Owners have been conducting a lot of work around Styx River and throughout the Walpole Wilderness. Work has included extensive archaeological investigation throughout the Walpole Wilderness, cultural heritage landscape management and natural resource management. These continued conservation efforts demonstrate the commitment and attachment that Noongar custodians hold to Styx River and Walpole Wilderness as a living cultural landscape with highly significant heritage values. Styx River Waterfall is an ecological and cultural node within an extended Noongar heritage landscape. Numerous cultural features are apparent in the area surrounding the river and on the river itself, including huge numbers of lizard traps and gnamma holes, and stone artefacts in surrounding bushland. Styx River and its surrounds are part of the Parry Inlet catchment area which forms the basis of a large cultural landscape focused around the Kordabup and Styx River and culminating at Parry Inlet. The cultural elements within the landscape exist at different locations around Styx River today as physical manifestations of the ways in which Noongar people engaged with the area in the past. None of the archaeological features exist in isolation from one another or from the ecosystems and natural features of which they are a part. The features are all important components of a cultural landscape now, just as they were components in a cultural system in the past. Noongar cultural systems throughout the Kordabup (Parry Inlet) catchment in the past were interwoven with the landscape and its ecosystems, just as today the cultural landscape is an inherent part of the natural landscape. Styx River provided Noongar people living traditionally in this area with abundant resources including freshwater, aquatic and terrestrial food sources such as marron, lizards, kangaroos, emus, turtles, frogs. The Noongar community, as cultural custodians of Styx River and the Kordabup catchment wish to care for and conserve the natural health and beauty of the land and water. The preservation of cultural values in the area is dependent upon maintaining ecological values and on the active involvement of Traditional Owners in caring for country. In caring for the ecological health of Styx, Traditional Owners are caring for culture.

Physical Description

The Styx River is located in the Walpole Wilderness in the upper catchment of the Kordabup River (Parry Inlet). The key heritage site associated with the Styx is a granite rock face over which the Styx River flows into a large waterhole. Dug into the granite rock face are a number of large, well formed gnamma holes which remain filled with water throughout the year. The entire river has heritage significance for Noongar people so while the waterfall site is a specific location, the whole river is listed on this inventory. The gnamma holes at the waterfall, which range in sizes of up to approximately 1 metre in diameter and are of varying depth, have been intentionally created in the landscape by previous Noongar populations. Through a process of heating the rock face with fire to create an indentation before filling the indentation with smaller rocks, the gnamma hole production process is set in place. As the water of the flowing river causes the rocks to move constantly, the indentations gradually become larger and larger. The only further maintenance required is periodic cleaning out of the gnamma holes to avoid the rocks becoming silted up and their movement inhibited. This cleaning process also helps to keep the water pure for drinking. Otherwise, the gnamma holes are a self- perpetuating process, constantly growing larger and deeper. The Styx River is a valuable cultural and natural resource in the Walpole Wilderness Area.

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update