The whipping tree went from a place of pain to one of healing

Warmun community came together to commemorate their shared history. (Supplied: Ngalanganpum School)

In Western Australia's remote north, a tree has stood for decades as a reminder of the region's painful and violent past, often referred to as the 'Killing times'.

Warning: Readers are advised this story contains distressing content and includes a photo and names of people who have died.

In Warmun, 2,800 kilometres north of Perth, Kija woman Roberta Daylight describes how one tree became known as the 'whipping tree'.

"That's where they used to tie up black people and they executed them," she said.

Ms Daylight said her great-grandmother was eight months pregnant when she was whipped under the tree by local police, accused of stealing flour.

The tree before it was cut down by Kija rangers in 2024. (Supplied: Catholic Diocese of Broome)

"They tied her up there, and they whipped her all through the night to the day," Ms Daylight said.

She explained her great-grandmother was one of many Aboriginal people subjected to this type of punishment.

She later gave birth, but died as a result of the injuries she had suffered.

But her story has lived on, passed down by her mother and grandmother who used to gather the children around the tree to share about the past.

Kija ranger Roberta Daylight, the descendant of one woman who was tied and whipped to a tree while heavily pregnant. (Supplied: Gabrielle Timmins)

A devastating flood in 2011 damaged the whipping tree, but the community did not want the story to be forgotten.

Many attended the commemoration ceremony held in Warmun. (Supplied: Ngalanganpum School)

The original was turned to sawdust and put on the graves of Ms Daylight's grandfather, Hector Sandaloo, and his family.

Two slices of the old tree were encased in resin and inscripted with words from her grandfather, an elder and spiritual leader, and handed to the family and local school.

The artwork created with sections of the whipping tree, with the words of the late Hector Sandaloo. (Supplied: Ngalanganpum School)

The Kija people have turned the whipping tree from a place of pain to one of healing, with an official community commemoration last month.

In 1979, the Ngalangangpum (Mother and Child) School was opened in Warmun by the Josephite Sisters, in answer to a direct request from Kija elders.

Sister Theresa Morellini said she was "shocked" to hear the whipping tree story from Roberta Daylight's grandfather.

Sister Theresa Morellini says it's important to learn about the past and move forward together. (Supplied: Ngalanganpum School)

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