Quote from Ancient Origins Net;
Wilgie Mia, known by the Wajarri Traditional Owners as Thuwarri Thaa (the place of red ochre), lies in the Weld Ranges of Australia. It is the largest and deepest underground Aboriginal ochre mine in Australia and the world’s oldest continuing mining operation. Its’ rich red ochre was first extracted more than 30,000 years ago and is still used today in Aboriginal Law, art, ceremony and healing practices throughout the Western Desert and its fringes
Wilgie Mia is characterised by large open-cut pits, excavated caverns and underground galleries that follow ochre seams in red, yellow, and green. But it was the red ochre that was most prized by the Wajarri people. The lustrous sheen and the ‘glow in the dark’ properties of this particular ochre, made it among the most sought after ochre in the country, used for thousands of years in ceremonies, rock art, and for trade.
The ochre from Wilgie Mia formed part of the most extensive pre-contact ochre trade network recorded in Australia. The ochre would be delivered on foot to the border of a neighbouring tribe where it would be passed on from one territory to another, reaching as far afield as 1,600 kilometres away. For those seeking ochre, a message stick was marked and passed on ahead of travelling men, letting people ahead of them know they were coming seeking red ochre from the Weld Range. Spears, boomerangs, and kangaroos were given as payment.
The mining techniques of the Wajarri
The mining techniques used by Aboriginal people at Wilgie Mia included 'stop and pillar' techniques to provide increased safety when mining underground, and the use of pole scaffolding with fire-hardened wooden platforms to allow them to extract ochre from different heights in the rock face at the same time. Heavy stone mauls were used to break the ochre away from the rock walls. These techniques have not been recorded at other traditional Aboriginal mines.
Once the lumps of ochrous stone were pulled from the mine, they were carried to the top of the northern slope where they were broken up to extract the ochre. The pigment was then pulverised with rounded stones, dampened with water and worked into balls. Using these methods the Aboriginal miners removed about 19 600 cubic metres of ochre and rock weighing around 40 000 tonnes. This is the largest amount of ochre removed by Indigenous people from one location in Australia using traditional mining methods.
The National Heritage Register on which Wilgie Mia was listed in 2011, describes the mine as offering “outstanding heritage value to the nation because of the place’s importance in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement during the last three thousand years”.
