The Charnok Woman of Lake Joondalup

Kaya (Hello) and Wanjoo (Welcome)

Joondalup Health Campus (JHC) acknowledges the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation as the original custodians of this land and pays respect to Elders past and present.

The Joondalup region is part of Mooroo country within the wider Whadjuk Noongar area.

Yellagonga Regional Park is located in the Joondalup area and is a significant Aboriginal landmark, named after the Noongar Elder and leader, Yellagonga.

Yellagonga led the Whadjuk Noongar people on the north side of the Swan River.

The work you are looking at was painted by Nerolie Bynder, a proud Whadjuk Noongar Badimia Yamatji woman, contemporary visual artist, mother and grandmother.

Her family descendance connects the southwest, the midwest and the north, and her artwork entwines these rich, unique cultural bloodlines in this work that swirls and shines in a deeply spiritual way.

Nerolie’s work weaves the different aspects of her ancient ancestral cultures in a vibrant, almost astronomic way.

Inspired by the words of her elders and her own familial life journeys, she paints for calmness, healing, health and happiness.

She explains: “I live to learn and gain more knowledge about Noongar and Yamatji life, and how we all can work together to live in harmony today.”

This acrylic on canvas, The Charnok Woman of Lake Joondalup, integrates bright, penetrative colours with earthy natural tones to tell the Dreamtime story of the tall spirit woman of Lake Joondalup known as the Charnok Woman.

In the darkness of the Dreamtime, the woman with long flowing silver hair saw a pair of eyes looking at her; the eyes of a tiny being. She bent down and picked up the tiny being, a spirit child, and placed it in her hair. As she travelled, she continued collecting more spirit children.

She crossed a large valley that the Waugal; the Rainbow Serpent, created, which we now know as the Swan River.

Continuing north, she crossed the lakes created by the male, Waugal, collecting more spirit children as she went.

Then, she realised that the spirit man was collecting the children and eating them and knew that what she was doing was wrong. She had to place the spirit children back.

To stop the spirit man, she headed south where she last saw him. On her way she came across spirit children that had not been collected and they cried for the children in her hair. They turned themselves into Koolbardie, the magpie, and picked the children from her long locks.

When the children hit the ground, they turned to stone. As Charnok Woman headed south, she left a trail of stone behind her, leading to the largest stone (Kartakitch or Wave Rock). She stepped onto the stone and was lifted into the sky.

As punishment, she could never return to the land.

Her hair has become the Milky Way and the stars in the sky represent the children she collected.

Today, if you go to Lake Joondalup during a full moon, you can see her long white hair reflected from the stars above.

So, this place is called Joondalup, “the place of the long white hair”, and the lake is often referred to as “the water that glistens.”