The Western Australian Museum acknowledges and respects the Traditional Owners of their ancestral lands, waters and skies.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this digital guide may include images, sounds, and names of now deceased persons.

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A raft made of thick sharpened wooden poles, suspended above the glass display case.

The First Fishers - How First Nations People Caught Their Fish

Gaalwa - raft

Kalum mana, bIyal-biyaL, gaalwa (mangrove Log rafts) are symbols of identity for Worrorra, Mayala, Bardi and Jawi saltwater peoples.  People rode the changing tides on rafts, travelling, fishing and moving between the mainland, islands and reefs. The mangrove trunks in each fan were pegged together with a harder wood, then the fans overlapped with the bow under the stern. The fans could separate, with the lower fan attached to a harpoon for hunting dugong and turtle, and the fan acting as a drag weight to enable the capture of the speared animals. 

An aboriginal man stands tall on a raft on open water.

Tjangaloli (Samson), Worrorra, on his double fan raft Camden Sound, West Kimberley, 1917.
Credit: Photograph by William J. Jackson, Battye Library

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A raft made of thick sharpened wooden poles, suspended above the glass display case.

Galwa Raft.
Credit: WA Museum

The Western Australian Museum acknowledges and respects the Traditional Owners of their ancestral lands, waters and skies.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this digital guide may include images, sounds, and names of now deceased persons.