Dispute Resolution & Restorative Jurisprudence: Inquests, Spearing Trials & Social Healing

1. Restorative Principles of Customary Dispute Resolution

Within the Bibbullmun Sovereign Nation, the administration of justice was governed by the foundational imperative of restorative equilibrium (Kwobidak Koorliny).^[1] Western legal systems are primarily retributive—focused on state punishment, incarceration, and establishing individual guilt or innocence in an adversarial trial.^[2] In sharp contrast, Bibbullmun customary jurisprudence recognised that interpersonal violence, property theft, or broken taboos fractured the entire social fabric of the kinship network (Moort).^[3] The central objective of dispute resolution was not to alienate or incarcerate the wrongdoer, but to heal the social rupture, compensate the aggrieved lineage, and re-establish cosmic balance.^[4]

2. The Forensic Inquest: Determining Causal Liability

When an offense occurred—particularly an unexplained homicide or death attributed to sorcery—the process commenced with a rigorous forensic inquest presided over by the Boylyagaduk (medicine jurists).^[5] The Boylya examined physical clues, tracked post-mortem insect vectors around the cleared grave site, and conducted metaphysical investigations to identify the responsible party or clan estate.^[6] Once liability was established, the aggrieved family did not engage in lawless vigilantism; instead, they dispatched formal diplomatic heralds (Koornding) carrying messenger sticks (borndok) to negotiate terms of legal settlement with the accused's clan council.^[7]

3. The Judicial Spearing Trial (Kardup)

If diplomatic compensation in prized material goods—such as red ochre, seasoned spear-wood, or possum skin cloaks—could not resolve the dispute, customary law mandated a formal judicial spearing trial (Kardup).^[8] Held in an open clearing before assembled clan witnesses, the accused warrior stood defenceless, equipped only with a narrow hardwood shield (Wunda). The aggrieved party threw a predetermined number of barbless spears from a regulated distance.^[9] Customary law strictly prohibited fatal strikes: spears were aimed exclusively at the fleshy parts of the outer thighs. The moment blood flowed and flesh was pierced, customary justice was fully satisfied; clan elders stepped in, declared the dispute closed, and binding peace was formally ratified.^[10]

4. Criminalisation of Customary Justice by Colonial Courts

The imposition of British law violently criminalized this sophisticated restorative system.^[11] Colonial magistrates criminalized customary restorative justice, treating sanctioned ceremonial participants as common felons and exiling elder ritual executioners to the carceral offshore limestone penal station of Wadjemup (Rottnest Island).^[12] Today, with Western Australian prisons suffering from disgraceful rates of Indigenous over-incarceration, legal reformers are calling for the formal revival of customary dispute resolution, proving that Bibbullmun restorative jurisprudence offers far superior community safety and social healing.^[13]