Indigenous Trails and River Crossings
From Engineering Heritage Australia
Because of their strong religious and economic connection with place, Aboriginal groups strongly interacted with their close neighbours. Contact between the groups was maintained through the ‘mandjar’, or fair, where people came together to barter a variety of goods. A network of trails crossed the country and many of these these later became the alignments of highways and the location of bridges.
A description of the trails and crossings in the Swan and Canning River Catchments has been compiled and is contained in a report by Debra Hughes-Hallett titled Indigenous history of the Swan and Canning rivers.
