Devils Rock (or Burragurra) in Yengo National Park is considered one of the most sacred engraving and ceremonial sites in south-eastern Australia. In the Dreamtime stories, Baiame (creator of heaven and earth) stepped from here to Mt Yengo in one stride and then ascended back into the sky – the distinctive shape of Mt Yengo can be clearly seen in the distance. The tops of Mt Yengo (as well as Mt Warong and Mt Warrawalong) were flattened when Baiame used them as stepping-stones (“Yengo” in the Aboriginal language means “stepping stone” or “step up”).
The vista from the elevated rock platform of Devils Rock includes “the Chimney Stack, or Tyan Peak [another sacred site], at Capertee can be discerned. Mount Werong is to the North, and beyond is Mount Merwin, or Howe’s Mount” (Goddard, 1937).
Although much has been lost around the mearning of the individual engravings at Devils Rock, there is no doubt that it was a significant and deeply spiritual site for the Aboriginal people. In Goddard’s words, “Burragurra to the aboriginal was as Glastonbury to Medieval England”. The term “burragurra” is said to mean “‘Words on the Rock”, a Bora ground where “the Karaji carried out their ceremonies in connection with initiation into manhood”:
The late Mrs. Rachel Milson as late as 1910 used to relate tales of the aborigines of the Wollombi District, who from time to time would leave their “‘women and children camped down by the river and go off into the Devil Mountain” to be made men… Some years ago Mr. Walter Enright gave it as his opinion that the Devil Mountain in the Wollombi District, possibly referred to Devil’s Rock, or Burragurra.
Goddard (1937)
Devils Rock or Burragurra was recognised by Europeans as being significant when it was first documented in the 1930s – and it was perhaps one of the first sites in NSW to suffer from vandalism:
About a year ago some very important aboriginal rock-carvings were discovered and recorded at the Devil’s Rock and other spots out from Wollombi… Unfortunately, this interest has already lead at least one person to cut out and bring away specimens of these rock carvings. This is a very serious matter, for it seriously interferes with the scientific value of the carvings; these must be studied in situ in their relation to the whole series of carvings of which each one forms a part; e.g., what may look like the imprint of a bird has another symbolic meaning in certain contexts.
A.P. Elkin, Letters to the Editor – The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder. 2 March 1937. Trove
The name of Devils Rock might be attributed to one of the engravings, which depicts a Daramulan – but was described as a more sinister figure in the 1930s and “the most striking figure carved at Devils Rock”:
Depicted in a sitting posture, with one arm outstretched to the North, it appears to have five eyes, and measures from the extremity of the foot to the upstretched hand four feet in length and is two feet three inches across. This figure probably represents the traditional Wa-boo-ee, the demon-spirit of the Wollombi tribe, who was supposed to have sprung from Devil’s Rock and landed on Yango… Wa-boo-ee was of great stature – he thought nothing of stepping up to the sky for a change of residence and of throwing a few rocks, in the shape of mountains, down to the earth as stepping-stones.
Goddard (1937)
McCarthy many decades later documents this figure as man with a “wing-like left arm attached to the outline of the back of his shoulders”, but later in the same article adds that it is “a composite human-emu spirit of the Daramulan type, with a human head, right am, leg and foot, and penis, and an emu’s wing and body”. Interestingly, McCarthy recorded two eyes with a pit above them, while Goddard noted five eyes.
Next to this Daramulan figure is what McCarthy also described as a man, while Goddard described it as Mulla Mulla – the spirit of darkness (a female spiritual being associated with the night and darkness, and the wife of the deity who controlled the day).
A kangaroo is depicted with “what appears to be a bird’s leg and claws” where the front paws would normally be. McCarthy similarly describes it as a a composite figure of a kangaroo with a human arm:
… a second foreleg or a human arm with 5 digits projects and is attached to the shoulder, a leaping animal flat out with its tail streaming out behind it and head vertical.
Elkin described these three figures (the two men or Daramulan and Mulla Mulla and the kangaroo) as interrelated and part of a kangaroo totemic group where “the kangaroo was their ‘dreaming’ and is a lesson to the group to keep the rules, especially those concerning sexual relations”.
On the right are two human figures. The man has had one arm and one leg taken offand the woman has lost both hands for punishment. The five dots in the man’s head are eyes: he will thus have five eyes, or “all eyes,” which really means no eyes, that he will be no more. He is, moreover, made to expose himself, because his crime has been sexual, but the three marks (a u or u and two upright marks) mean that he will never use his penis again; in other words he, that is the group, will have ceased to exist. This disastrous fate is also denoted by the three hands (her two and his one) which have been cut off an have dropped down, and finally by the direction of the tracks, for these all finally converge in the one on the right of the woman, and it points to the north – the destination of the dead.
A.P. Elkin
Around what may have been a waterhole (it’s now filled with soil) are two men, one with a six-rayed headdress, and the other with a “curved boomerang-like object across the top of his head” (McCarthy). Goddard referenced the rayed man as Moori (an ancestral creator being or spirit protector) but somewhat perplexingly did not record the second man. A line of broad headed bird tracks runs past the two men.
…another track of carvings leading away to the South-West from the outstretched hand of the figure representing Wa-boo-ee, forming four emu pads, three feet apart, to the carved figure of the traditional Moori – the spirit of life – measuring four feet in length, with five rays spreading from his head, and with arms outstretched, as in the former figure.
Next to the two men is what could be a club.
Another man has upraised arms, and very short legs.
Some of the more unusual figures at Devils Rock include this inderminate motif.
A weathered “map like figure” is thought to represent either a plant – or a map representing the nearby ridges.
What appears to be a pair of legs, or the bottom half of a human figure, wasn’t documented by McCarthy or Goddard.
Devils Rock / Burragurra has multiple sets of spirit pads or mundowa; McCarthy recorded 23 in total, compared to only 8 in Goddard’s earlier site sketch. Similar to mundoes, or human footprints, mundowa are much larger sacred spirit footprints that mark the path of Baiame, the Ancestor Creator. Elkin described them as “threetoed pads which denote both direction signs and camps on a journey”
Another set of mundowa is near the man / Mulla Mulla described earlier, superimposed on an unusual motif (which was not recorded by McCarthy or Goddard).
Crossing Devils Rock are at least 65 bird and emu tracks, some of which link the two men with an emu. It may be that these emu tracks represent those of real emus, or a mythical “emu destitute of feathers that sucked down in a ‘whirlpool anyone who bathed in one of its waterholes”.
A modern engraving?
On a separate rock platform to the south is a human figure that has a slightly unusual shape – and the words “I am Perry”. It’s likely a more recent European engraving, which was first documented over fifty years ago.
Grinding Grooves
There are a total of 16 axe grinding grooves around several potholes.
The narrow, deep grooves are spear grinding grooves.
Devils Rock Spaghetti Head engraving
Below Devils Rock on a lower ledge are three more engraved figures; the two below include a very small Daramulan-style figire
Above these figures is “Sphaghetti Head”, small rayed figure, and several bird tracks.
Devils Rock lower bird tracks
Below Devils Rock near the Boree Track are several birds tracks (one of them seems to be a more moden arrow).
An Alternate History of Devils Rock
The site was also used in the 1930s by Frederick Slater to propose a somewhat unorthodox view on the origins of the indigenous Australians:
…the theory that the blacks of Australia came from Egypt was confirmed by the aboriginal carvings at Devils Rock, Wollombi. The totems, symbols, and ideographs carved he said, showed that the ancestors of the Australian aborigines migrated, probably from Egypt, in the late paleolithic and the neolithic ages.
Remarkable Carvings at Wollombi – The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder. 19 Feb 1937. Trove
This view was quickly denounced: “members of the Anthropological Society who heard Mr. Slater’s interpretations of rock cuttings evidenced their disbelief in his far-fetched renderings of the occult meanings”. However, there were a few notable supporters of this “pseudoarchaeology”, including Steven Strong who believes that Australia has been visited in the past by the Ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese – along with more ancient Extra-terrestrial presence.
Getting to Devils Rock
The signposted Devils Rock engraving site is 7.7km along the Boree Track from Boree Valley Road; the conditions of the unsealed road varies but usually requires a 4WD. From the parking area, a short trail leads up to the rock platform.
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