Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me by FORM WA

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a Remember me

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Murlumurlu Ptilotus nobilis (Amaranthaceae) Mulla Mulla Collected in Nyiyaparli country. The soft, cylindrical flowers of the murlumurlu plant were used to fill bags or kangaroo skins to make pillows. The murlumurlu, is one of the most iconic flowers of the Pilbara. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

contents

Foreword 8 Introduction 14 Curatorial Note 18 Botanical Notes 24 Bonnie & Brian Tucker

May Byrne & Beverly Hubert

Fiona Foley—Djon Mundine OAM

Eunice Napanangka Jack—Chrischona Schmidt

Adrian Condon 61 Yandicoogina David Stock 66 Stephen Hopper 70 Hilda Flan 79 Bill Gammage 84 Philippa Nikulinsky 93 Giovanni Lorusso 100 Wadu Tucker 104 Julie Walker 110 June Injie 114 Lorraine Injie 119 Marnmu Smyth 125 Nancy Tommy 130 Roma Butcher & Doreen James 134 Thank you 142

Thurla Mardamarda (Yinhawangka name) Swainsona formosa Sturtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Desert Pea Collected in Nyiyaparli country. The flower of this plant can be sucked for its sweet, honey-tasting nectar. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

foreword Lorraine Injie IBN Corporation Chairperson

Remember me

In Aboriginal culture, almost every

Australia. Just like my grandmothers and

swimming, fishing and collecting bush

aspect of life has something to do with

their grandmothers before them, I am an

tucker. Our Elders taught us from an early

plants. Plants provide different types

Yinhawangka. Up until 200 years ago the

age the names of different plants, what

of food, medicines, tools (artefacts) and

Yinhawangka people lived and occupied

plants we could eat, use as medicine, how

are an important resource to Aboriginal

the upper plateaus of the Hamersley

to make artefacts and weave baskets to

people. Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember

Ranges.

trap fish. As we grew older, I remember

Me provides a unique glimpse into the complexity of Aboriginal ecological knowledge and explores the links between botany, land, and cultural identity.

there were trees in the school yard that For as long as I can remember, I have had a strong passion for collecting

we would pick off the nuts and berries particularly the sweet ones!

and recording traditional Aboriginal knowledge of flora, fauna and place

The Aboriginal people of the Pilbara not

The traditional lands of the Yinhawangka,

names, because to me, this knowledge

only have distinct identities, but come

Banyjima and Nyiyaparli (YBN) people

is so important. This traditional cultural

from distinct places, and have specific

extend across the Hamersely Ranges in

knowledge not only unites us to our past

knowledge about the plants of those

the heart of the inland Pilbara region, in

but connects us to our future. When I was

places. However, dispossession and mining

the high country of northern Western

younger, we would spend all weekend

in the Pilbara region has meant that

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

much of the traditional linguistic and

incorporating biodiversity, land and

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me was

cultural knowledge of the Yinhawangka,

cultural values. FORM has honored this

developed in response to requests from

Banyjima and Nyiyaparli is on the verge

traditional knowledge with the efforts

Elders and the YBN community after the

of becoming extinct. If this knowledge

of Sharmila Wood (Curator), Andrew

successful Marlbatharndu Wanggagu: Once

became extinct before we had the

Dowding (Anthropologist) and Rhianna

Upon A Time in the West (2014), capturing

opportunity to share it, it would be as if

Pezzaniti (Environmental Scientist) we

Aboriginal stories of station life in the

our people never existed.

are grateful to them for bringing their

Pilbara.

skills to this project, promoting respect for This would be a gross injustice to the Elders of the past, who lived to an old age without the science and medicine that we have today. We must continue to pass this knowledge on to our future generations

Aboriginal culture. FORM has captured

For most YBN people, the loss of land

this knowledge through storytelling,

through dispossession means that the

film, photography and the collection of

connection with Country requires

traditional plant samples with support

support. IBN Corporation believes this

from the Western Australian Herbarium.

project connects people to the strong

to remember how our Elders lived and survived. Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me is about sharing knowledge. Aboriginal people have a unique connection with the land and have developed distinct knowledge systems and practices

cultural identity that is fundamental to Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me has

Aboriginal social and emotional well-

provided the Yinhawangka, Banyjima and

being and recognises the traditional

Nyiyaparli people with the opportunity

historical and botanical knowledge

to express their traditional knowledge

of Aboriginal people in the Pilbara.

and contribute to preserving and sharing

These knowledge systems and cultural

the stories embedded in the Country for

expressions continue to remain a source

future generations to share.

of strength, pride and resilience.

Remember me

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

introduction Lynda Dorrington FORM Executive Director

Picture the Pilbara and what comes to mind may often comprise wide sweeps of red earth, blue sky, endless horizons and the architecture of ancient rock. The landscape is indeed dramatic, but sometimes it can be at the seemingly smallest level of detail that the richest stories can be found. Within a single plant, a leaf, even a seed, is contained complex and ancient knowledge. Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me is a creative project that gives audiences an insight into Aboriginal societiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; understanding of place through botany and methodology of plant use, the project engages Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli and people as participants, alongside commissioned artwork by Eunice Napanangka Jack from Ikuntji

Senna glutinosa subsp. pruinosa (Fabaceae)

in Central Australia, and Badtjala artist

Collected in Banyjima country. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

Fiona Foley.

Remember me

The exhibition, which incorporates

the Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli

FORM has demonstrated a long-term

film, documentation, paintings and

people. In seeking to strengthen culture

commitment to building opportunities

installation work, aims to offer different

and well-being, FORM and IBN have

for Aboriginal culture to flourish, and

ways of presenting Aboriginal traditional

partnered to increase opportunities for the

has forged cross-sector partnerships

knowledge and history. At the same time,

community to engage with a broad and

to multiply these impacts. Our Pilbara

the high country of the North West of

inclusive creative platform, which has been

programming continues to combine artistic

Australia is reframed and revealed from

designed to share and present their culture

and creative excellence with community

an ethno-botanical perspective not only

in a contemporary context.

engagement and development. The Spinifex

by the visiting artists and non-Aboriginal participants, but also by the traditional owners who know and understand it, down to its most diminutive aspects.

Hill Studios for example, which opened The processes and methodology employed by FORM in initiatives such as Marlbatharndu Wanggagu â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Once Upon a Time in the West (2014) and Kurlkayima

in South Hedland in early 2014 and is managed by FORM, supports a range of creative expressions while at the same time facilitating Aboriginal people's access

Although the presentation and production

Ngatha - Remember Me have been devised

of art anchors Kurlkayima Ngatha -

to increase the visibility of Aboriginal

Remember Me, it only reveals part of

voices and culture. The process of creating

the larger project, which has been

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me has also

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me

developed through a partnership with

facilitated an intercultural platform that

illustrates FORMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment to

IBN Corporation (IBN). The project has

has brought together Aboriginal people

showcasing the riches of Aboriginal

facilitated return trips to Country with

from different artistic backgrounds and

culture, land management and connection

Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli

traditions. Through connecting diverse

to Country. This exhibition draws attention

people who have reconnected with

artists and organisations together over

to the status of the Pilbara as a biodiversity

memories of land through sharing,

vast distances, the project has enabled the

hotspot; it reminds us how vulnerable

recording and documentation.

exchange of information about different

this unique environment is. For the

approaches to interpreting, place, memory

Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli

and connections to Country, demonstrating

people, it is also home.

FORM shares with IBN Corporation the desire to sustain and celebrate Aboriginal culture for the long-term sustainability of

the way arts and enterprise can sustain and renew knowledge.

to economic and cultural opportunities, in turn promoting self-determination.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

C u r ato r i a l n ote Sharmila Wood FORM Curator

Androcalva luteiflora Collected in Nyiyaparli country. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

Remember me

The importance of the natural world, of

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me

knowledge and practices which are

botany, and of landscape, is pervasive in

has been a vehicle for the interaction

beginning to become memories. Yet, it

the artwork, film and stories that comprise

of science, art, and Aboriginal ethno-

also reveals the ongoing use of plants

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me. The

botany. The exhibition has also facilitated

as medicine and food. The process of

exhibition explores how knowledge and

intercultural exchange between

collecting and recording this cultural

the human imagination can interact

disparate Aboriginal communities and

heritage was an important outcome of this

with the environment through art,

artists. To date, it has brought together

project.

ritual, science and culture in ways that

a botanist, an environmental scientist,

variously sustain, revere, and sometimes,

an anthropologist, a cinematographer,

destroy. The exhibition is a meditation

leading contemporary artists and the

on place and belonging, memory and

Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli

loss, renewal and decay. It is a reflection

(YBN) people through exchange,

on what it might be to live away from

collaboration and production.

This process was developed in partnership with IBN Corporation who endorsed the project following the success of Marlbatharndu Wanggagu Once Upon a Time in the West. Andrew Dowding, an Aboriginal anthropologist

home, how it is to be dispossessed from For the YBN community, the project has

who works extensively in the North West

facilitated return trips to Yurlu (Country)

with elders and a range of communities,

and a way to reconnect with experience

travelled with FORMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rhianna Pezzaniti

and uses of botany and land management.

and myself on field trips along with

It has created an archive for the future

cinematographer Giovanni Lorusso. The

and documented knowledge from which

Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli

The Yurlu (Country) misses its people

more knowledge can be produced. In the

people who wanted to be part of the

and implores them to kurlkayima ngatha

recording of stories in film, audio and

project requested us to meet them on their

(remember me).

text there is an undertone of longing

Yurlu (Country). This often involved very

for the past - for the old people and the

long drives from the towns where most

Country. Aboriginal land management practices were pragmatic and respectful of the interconnectedness between people and the ecosystem, between a healthy Country and human intervention.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

YBN people now live. This highlighted the

The plants are the Pilbara in miniature -

In expanding the project to explore the

vast distances that have separated YBN

each suggest a story of place, season, and

diverse connections between botany and

people from their traditional lands and

time. Although scientifically pressed and

culture, Badtjala artist Fiona Foley was

place of belonging, causing displacement

dried, classified and categorised, the samples

commissioned to create the installation

and hardship.

retain sensuality, fragility, texture, and

works for the exhibition. Foley’s work

form. They appear visceral and suggest the

commonly incorporates botanical elements

promise of perfume. When photographed

as symbolic, metaphoric and cultural

on a white surface the samples have the

material. She is one of Australia’s foremost

appearance of delicate sculptural objects.

contemporary artists, and has been

They are also metonyms for Yurlu (Country)

presenting work since the 1980s. Her

and for Aboriginal culture. As Lorraine

work is represented in many of Australia’s

Injie IBN Chairperson and Lore and Culture

major public art collections and she works

Officer commented, ‘they are like bringing

across a range of media, including painting,

in a piece of the Country.’ In this way the

photography, printmaking, sculpture and

samples become cultural symbols for a

installations.

Giovanni Lorusso is interested in combining the philosophy of language with new forms of cinematographic expressions. He was tasked with capturing how YBN people interacted with the land. Lorusso did this through creating atmospheric and evocative images that reach towards the transcendence of nature. He captured the dichotomies of light and dark to hint at the timelessness of a landscape, which has repeated the cycle of birth to death for eons. Lorusso documents the scale and vastness of the landscape, and the minutiae of soil, stone, plant and leaf. The intimacy of Kurlkayima Ngatha Remember Me is also embodied in plant samples collected by Environmental Scientist Rhianna Pezzaniti, with the support of the Western Australian Herbarium, Department of Parks and Wildlife. The Herbarium's Pilbara Identification Botanist Steve Dillon helped to guide us in the collection process and assisted in identifying the scientific names for plants.

dense and expansive traditional knowledge system of ecology through which Aboriginal people managed plants and botany for food, for medicine and for the future. They are gentle relics that express the vanitas which is part of the eternal story of regeneration and renewal, decay and loss.

Foley has a reputation as a provocateur, often challenging the status quo through revealing hidden or marginalised aspects of Australian history and race relations. She commonly uses strategies of subterfuge, inviting audiences to engage with artwork that is seductively beautiful but, in fact,

The botanical illustrator Philippa Nikulinsky

symbolises unseemly and sinister elements

similarly captures moments of time in her

of our past. For instance, Foley’s public

meditative and detailed field drawings.

art commission for the State Library of

Nikulinsky pictures the survivors of arid

Queensland, Black Opium (2006), and

environments that bloom year after year,

her work, Bliss (2006), at the Museum

revels in their beauty and the dignity of

of Contemporary Art, use exquisite and

survival and age. The field drawings in the

elegant poppies to reference the 1897

exhibition are immediate because they are

Aboriginals Protection and Restriction

captured on the spot, and they carry with

of the Sale of Opium Act. This legislation

them the traces of the environment.

was an instrument of colonisation and subjugation that ultimately led to oppressive

Remember me

State control over Aboriginal people and

Similarly the large-scale text-based

painting, and her meticulous dots evoke the

legitimised population removal into reserves.

artwork in aluminium, IOU (2016),

wildflowers around Tjukurrla'.

is concerned with how the impact of Foley’s artwork in Kurlkayima Ngatha Remember Me similarly employs metaphor for much broader concepts underpinning the history of Western Australian race relations. The body of work she has

colonisation continues to ripple through contemporary society through the debt owed from stolen land and stolen wages, whilst incorporating objects found on Pyramid Station in the Pilbara.

developed for this exhibition is layered with

In our contemporary world concerns about the environment have led to a reexamination of how we interact with nature and develop a more meaningful relationship with the earth. Within this context Aboriginal culture and land

meaning to reflect the time Foley spent in

Songmen (2016) features boomerangs used

management practices, which sustained a

the Pilbara on a field trip meeting traditional

by Aboriginal singers in the Pilbara and

balance in the environment over millennia,

owners as she travelled from the Burrup

is a collaboration with Brian Tucker. It

and will experience a renaissance. Whilst

Peninsula inland through the Millstream

also features a set of boomerangs made by

race relations and colonisation have

Chichester National Park to Weeli Wooli

David Cox. This work reveals how Foley's

resulted in dispossession, silencing and

Creek and Newman.

art investigates the deep connection

marginalisation, Aboriginal beliefs in the

between the cultural and natural contexts

interconnectedness between people and

of place and Aboriginality. Through song,

ecology provides a beacon for the future.

The irreverently titled Pontificate On This (2015), references the historical significance of tobacco as a source of barter, and its use in the North West when mixed with white

the intricate symbiotic relationships between people, art, culture, plants and animals is echoed across the millennia.

ash to create a mild narcotic. The 66 cast aluminium clay pipes represent the number

In showcasing the diverse ways place

of clauses within Western Australia’s

is evoked through botanical forms,

Aborigines Act 1905, echoing the earlier

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me also

Queensland legislation referenced in Foley’s

includes a series of paintings by senior

significant body of work on opium. Foley’s

Ikuntji artist, Eunice Napanangka Jack. As

work draws out the parallels between

Dr Chrischona Schmidt writes, Eunice’s

Queensland and Western Australia, States

work brings her Country with her into the

in which the tools of colonial administration

painting: ‘Napanangka sings the songs of

were a particularly blunt force in the

her ancestral spirit, the wallaby woman;

everyday lives of Aboriginal people.

she travels through her Country whilst

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

When you’re standing in an air-

The Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me

important to seek out, extend and

conditioned city-centre gallery, a box of

project simultaneously follows this model

preserve these traditional knowledge

walls and glass and ceilings, your spatial

and extends it, combining science with art,

systems, and create enduring partnerships

awareness dictated not by distance

botany with story, partner with partner.

between arts bodies, science bodies and

and wide horizon but by the geometry

What appears in this exhibition is but

Indigenous people. It could be of benefit

of angled and artificial light, it can be

a small fraction of the project’s scope,

to us all if traditional knowledge could

difficult to connect what you’re seeing

developed and documented from repeated

be better recognised and integrated with

and hearing – artworks, objects or

trips to Country with Yinhawangka,

Western science; and perhaps projects like

installations, film footage or audio – with

Banyjima and Nyiyaparli people. Many

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me can

a place thousands of kilometres away,

hours of driving, walking, talking and

act as a pilot for what could be developed

and with knowledge tens of thousands of

gathering. Of filming, watching and

and achieved in the future. Surely an

years old.

listening. Of generous sharing and

experience-based, practice-led knowledge

collaboration, individual and collective,

– how humans have learned about the

across regions and areas of expertise. The

planet from the planet itself – is every bit

deep, empirical, irreplaceable knowledge

as valid as laboratory-based research.

It’s a little over a decade now since FORM started working in the Pilbara, embarking on partnerships and projects intended to share knowledge and experiences of this vast and complex part of Western Australia; to encourage people’s awareness and appreciation regardless of the length of their connection to the area, and to facilitate creative and cultural exchange for the betterment of all. Right from the organisation’s early days in Newman to its present involvement with Port Hedland, many stories have been told through a variety of media: paintings, objects, installations, photography, film and words. In collaboration with partners drawn from both private and public sectors, FORM has gathered these stories up, shared them with local audiences and taken them beyond the Pilbara’s boundaries to delight and enlighten many other audiences, both domestic and international.

of the region’s Aboriginal people combined with the painstaking identifications and scientific protocols of the Western Australian Herbarium, and with the wisdom and cultural guidance of the IBN Corporation. All of this, catalysed by FORM’s determination to help foster the maintenance and sharing of precious knowledge, and offer new ways to new audiences of appraising and honouring it, through cultural and artistic means. I was fortunate to travel to the remote reaches of the Pilbara, and experience first-hand the privilege of following the Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me project’s Aboriginal participants as they located a particular plant or bush, and then spoke of its healing and nutritional properties. As the world becomes ever more urbanised and industrialised, it seems increasingly

In the meantime, the project is a link to a place thousands of kilometres away, and with knowledge tens of thousands of years old. Imagine that the Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me exhibition, as well as comprising plant specimens, film and art, also contains wide open spaces, the noise of insects, and the nip of a hot desert wind. Hear it amplify the quiet voices of Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli people, explaining how bush medicine can be made from the sap of the bunungu tree, and what happens when you wash in nhirti infused water. Let it offer a tiny sample of traditional knowledge, garnered from millennia of desert life and experience, and passed carefully from generation to generation.

Remember me

b ota n i c a l n otes Rhianna Pezzaniti FORM Environmental Scientist

Ptilotus calostachyus (Amaranthaceae) Weeping Mulla Mulla Collected in Banyjima country. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Marruwa Acacia xiphophylla (Fabaceae) Snakewood Collected in Yinhawangka country. Murruwa is the best type of firewood, it burns all night. It can be used to make wirra, (boomerangs) and fighting sticks. The ash of this tree is also mixed with tobacco to make a substance people like to chew called pulkurr. The marruwa is also a good source for gum and the seeds can also be cooked in the fire and eaten. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

that comes out of the red gum tree, we call it a punara tree, and the punara and

b o nn y & brian tucker Nyiyaparli Country is like a chemist, all those trees and shrubs are a resource to use.` Marlba who lives in his Country is just a practical person in his Country, doing practical things.

the other language groups they call it martawut, but in our language we call it thurilypi. That is the main thing old people ask to collect but it has to come out in the seasonal time itself too. When you look at all the special trees like the malykanpa, we make artefacts, make the dish called the jartu, or when you look at the snakewood tree we call it marruwa and that makes a wirra1, boomerang, in our language we call it yirrkirli. Another tree, melaleuca tree we call it jarlkupurtayi tree and that’s what we make yarra or shields out of,

Brian is a Nyiyaparli and Banjiyma man and his Mum alongside him, Mrs Bonny Tucker, an old Nyiyaparli woman. The interview took place sitting at the Weeli Wooli Yinda. The Tuckers are traditional owners and custodians of this Country.

it back to the hive and makes the honey

because its really only a light tree that

which becomes the main source of

can be easily handled and carried for

medicine for us. All these bush medicines

vast distance doing ceremony, dancing,

we tend to get during seasonal times, we

stuff like that. There is also another tree,

use for sores, for drinking, and bathing in,

we call it the munturu tree that got the

and because of that, the honey is the one

karangu, bush lolly.

When you look at the whole Nyiyaparli

karangu in that, and when you go down

Tharninharru

Country and the whole Banyjima Country

to fish you dig the little worm yirrkiyirrka,

we look at all those trees and shrubs as Brian: We are going to tell you about some

put it on the hook, chuck it in the water.

a resource to us. It’s like a chemist. We

of the plants and species that live in Weeli

I remember a lot of things old people use

look at the whole environment. When

Wooli, it’s about our environment and

medicine for, you know that punara tree

we look at the snappy gum tree up in the

how we see all these particular plants in

you got the red one, that thing will kill the

hill we call it the malykanpa. The white

this area. For a start the wanpayi is the

cancer inside, if you’ve got cancer growing

snow flake sugar on the leaf what we call

wild bush honey bee, the wanpayi produce

inside or lump inside [abscess] that thing

the warnu. There are all different kinds

the honey for us, which is considered an

will cure it, old people used that, especially

of gum trees we’ve got here, pirarrpa

important medicine. When we talk about

my Mum. We used to use a lot of bush

and malykanpa, and when we talking

nectars and pollens, they come from all

tucker but mum used to get seed, grind

about all these gum trees they all got a

different plants, and the little wanpayi go

it on a rock, like a damper, grind, grind.

different name to it and all these gum

and collect the nectars and the pollens

Until it get soft, he don’t go for a flour or

trees have speciality resources that we

from all these different plants and takes

anything, he just grind that seed, that’s

use. When we look at the red gum sap

what I learn from my Mum. Mum told

big antibiotic for us. Bonny: We get a munturu tree we get the

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

me “don’t mistake these languages what

have chemical- like the marruwa tree, like

The plant that means the most is the

I’m learning you my daughter, keep it on

punara tree dry ones because they burn

jantaru, its considered the most wanted,

your brain, I’m like a teacher for you, how

more longer than any other wood.

the old people used to say manamaju

you gonna cook a damper or something”. I used to drink medicines we call it jurilypi - boil it in a water when it get really red, we drink it then, kill all the something… you have inside you now. You don’t know

jantarupi yanarta. The expectation they These days, not too many people know about the resources in trees and plants. There are certain plants and trees people

was wanting the wild honey because they knew the wild honey was the most important medicine in our culture.

recognise because they’ve been pointed out, you know, one time, old people

Bonny: [The most important plant to me

used to use these plants for any kind of

is] jirrpirliny you get a little fruit. Some

sickness or cold or sores, that’s why people

of them know but they go [driving] past

might have forgotten about the language,

[plants], but me I say "pull up", I tell my

they do know freshly in their mind what

grannies "I’ve got something here to show

the particular tree was used for. When

you". Not just driving past and don’t know

you look at the seasonal times, this is the

anything. I learn all my grandchildren.

time of the season you go and collect these

I’ve got to do that. My mother leave that

[or] you can’t collect it because you gotta

word with me, don’t ever miss anything

Brian: A lot of things been practiced out

wait for season because the plants grow in

you’ve got your grandchildren or great

there in traditional ways to heal. One

different seasons. So, in different seasons,

granny you learn him.

of them was fire. People used heat to

whether you are in Winter or you’re in

straighten your leg out. Everything what

Summer you are pretty much aware of

we use from fire and everything in the

what’s out there through knowledge,

Country - what can you eat and what

because you carry out collecting them.

what you’ve got inside. I told the doctor “Can you have a look at me right through? See if I got something else growing inside of my body?” And he told me “no, you’re very clear, all your kidneys right, your livers right”. I wash myself, my eye with the bush medicine, if I get swelled up here I boil the plants.

from the little vine jirrpirliny you got the jirrpirliny fruit, kawarta tree got a fruit in it too. Every other plants you can’t eat because they’re toxic. When you look at cooking your meat and food, you have to get the right type of karla (wood) some

and all these resources, its about our life. We shift areas within that because it was the time to burn off, to re-germinate the

can’t you eat because of all the thukurta (fruits and all that). Even the fruit you get

Brian: When we talk about all these plants

Marlba got all this knowledge through

plants and all the vegetation itself, because

traditional songs and stories, been passed

that’s important to those particular fruits

down like in many other cultures, that

and medicine - to re-germinate the old

is how we sustained our life within our

ones to the new ones. When you look at

Country, in our Yurlu, that’s how we

our Country we do travel around.

preserve everything that you see, it’s a We go right down to the Fortescue Flat to

resource to us.

get kulyi, wild sweet potato. When they

Remember me

talk about the yams, all them types of little

Bonny: I just tell you another thing, say

plants we’ve got there, right down to the

a lady having a baby or something, they

lemon grass, all the jamis, we’ve got them,

got medicine too, they go out and look for

medicine. It’s not in any one particular

that, its very sticky, but its not around

place. When we look at gorges like Weeli

here, I can show you down there if I’m

Wolli, mostly the medicine is in here,

going down, wild milk, another one again,

in this sort of creek bed environment

its very sticky, you put it on the tummy, it

because its clean that’s why people have

hold that baby till the hospital.

to come into the creek bed. Like the wild honey bee, he’s protected up in the hill, if he’s down here there’s a lot of predators for him, so its safer in the hill. He’s dry up there but he collects his nectars and pollens with him down here then he goes back.

Brian: There are all kinds of ways. When you look at all the animals like the gurrumanthu/marantu we call him. When the marantu get bit by the snake by the yurtapa, well the yurtapa it wouldn’t kill him, that marantu will go over there to a special plant, because that plant will keep

It’s very important for our children to

him alive, that warlu is poison, but that

learn because we had this knowledge for

gurrumanthu he will run to that plant, and

medicine for thousands of years because

you see them plants, them flowers, they

we still use it. I know other people use it.

make the gurrumanthu come good. Every time thunder form gurrumanthu come

Bonny: I know I use it. Brian: Its' important to us in the Country. If we keep continue doing what we’re doing now - not passing it on, nobody going to ever know about these bush medicines that we got or what particular plants that got names to it, what is good and what is bad.

out of the pirli, during winter time they hibernate. This time in winter time, you can’t eat jankurna, every animal having their little ones. You can’t kill them, that’s the process of young generation coming up. Marlba who lives in his Country is just a

1. Nyiyaparli people also say warrkurnti for ‘boomerang’

practical person, doing practical things.

2. Gurrumanthu is a Banyjima word for marantu

Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Remember me

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Remember me

Marruwa tree, (snakewood) in the Pilbara, 2015. Photograph by Rhianna Pezzaniti, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

m ay b y r n e a n d B e v e r ly H u b e rt Galharra is our skin lore and it determines where we belong.

May: My sister and I are both Banyjima

tribe has their own tribal mark, used at

from the Milyuranyba Banyjima (top

ceremonial times. Our djarrbiya belonging

end) dialect group and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re Banaga/

to Milyuranba Banyjima connects you with

Burungu people and we married into

your land and people

our neighbours, Bandigura Banyjima (bottom end) are still Banyjima but their

Galharra connects us to flowers, plants,

galharra (skin group) is different, they are

bush medicine and animals they also have

Garimarra/Milangga people.

Galharra names like us, Banaga/Burungu/ Garimarra/Milangga.

Every tribe has their own galharra and every animal and plant also has a galharra.

The malyi is your (birth totem). My malyi

Galharra gives you your birth right.

is jandaru (honey). My mum ate jandaru

Galharra is our skin lore and it determines

with burnt damper and the sweetness

where we belong. Banyjima follow the

made her sick, this is how I came about. I

motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s line, my grandmother (ganthayi)

have a birthmark on my forehead, mum

and I are Banaga and my mum is Burungu

says thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s from the mardumirri (damper).

like her maternal grandmother. Every

My mum said that I am greedy for jandaru, because of it being my malyi.

Film frames by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Beverley: It’s the same story with me.

I am the thurdu (older sister) and Beverley

rock. We cut the trees in a special way

My malyi is the turkey, mum ate that and

is the mari (younger sister) for me. In

for jarndaru (honey) and mirriru, which

started vomiting, that’s when she knew

Banyjima we don’t have a word for sister

is a baby carrying dish and they make

she was pregnant.

or brother, we only have older brother,

artefacts with it too.

gaja or older sister thurdu, younger May: Beverley was a bush baby, born

brother, magaya and younger sister, mari.

out near Nanutarra, she had a wuduru, a

Beverley: Jibulgarri come out in December and January in the flats, you eat it, it’s

midwife, who assisted with her birth, in

May: You get bardi (witchetty grubs)

nice and it grows like a creeper. I used to

the olden days they used to have wuduru

in the kudaberra tree (snappy gum).

go crazy over that fruit. The gajawari has

all the time. They also have a galyardu

Sometimes you can see the sawdust just

a thugurda, which is wild orange.

(birth uncle) who has to be the same

outside their hole. In acacia trees its' down

galharra skin grouping as the mother

on the bottom near the roots and you can

having the baby. The mother shout’s out

see the shell of their heads.

May: The gajawari is a shrub laden with fruits, it is nice, green, and gets all soft when ripe. It's fibrous and strong in flavor.

the galyardu name at birth. They all have We have been chopping jarndaru (honey).

They grow everywhere around here in

You see it in all sorts of trees, the nyirrga

clusters, you have to race the birds and

(desert oak tree), the kudaberra. On the

emu for the fruit. They are green and go

Beverley: The younger people need to be

nyirrga tree you can get nice honey, its'

burgundy when very ripe.

handed down knowledge and culture, we

softer to chop than a kudaberra tree. A

don’t want to lose it. We want them to

lot of people check and see if there are

have a sense of ownership for their own

honey bees (wanbayi) flying around. In the

Country.

winter time you just see a little bit of wax

a life-long relationship, wuduru and baby and galyardu and baby.

and in, summer time the bees are flying May: We live on our homeland. It is part of the Bidurula (the Hamersley Range Plateau in Banyjima country). When we

all around the tree, it's easy to find. The leaves on the trees are called walharn, the bark is called barnnga.

are on Country, we feel belonging, it’s culture, identity, it’s our homeland and

Beverley: There is fruit on the bunungu

our spirit is open.

(bloodwood tree), it’s a thugurda (fruit) which is a little round ball like a cork that

Beverley: We can relate to the land on the Bidurula homeland. You feel relaxed, everything is just gone from your mind.

has a worm inside. You open it up and this has water too, which you can drink if you are out in the bush and have no water.

When we are here, we can tell our children about the bush medicine, make

May: You can see many old scar trees

sure they know what to have, when they

everywhere around here, many are

come out here. Kids love it.

snappy gum trees which are pretty old, that have been chopped with a sharp

Beverley: Thugurda (fruit) are yellow inside with big seeds. They have big, fine flowers, with a nice smell. Beverley: They make spears, from the wirndamarra (mulga tree). The jiwirliny (shrub) is a medicine one, they normally grow in a really big bush, with lots of thorns, and is a very strong medicine. May: The jiwirliny has a small green oval fruit. Inside like a cucumber, this fruit cleans your body out. A desert lady living on the coast always asks me to take this medicine bush to her. This is strong like the bunangu (bloodwood tree) medicine.

Remember me

The gadanyba (honey hakea) you can also get jarndaru from this tree, and very clear again. You put the barnag (bark) on your body. Beverley: It is very cool, like an airconditioner. They put this on babies to keep them cool, you got to burn it and make this into a coal, let it dry and cool, then add a bit of water and rub it all over you. If you have bad headache, it helps you relax to sleep. We use it at law time. May: This tree’s galharra (skin group) is different to the warlu (spiritual snake, which belongs to the yinda, permanent spring, waterholes). Say if you went near a water hole or river and you have just eaten a bardi (witchetty grub), plain turkey, plain kangaroo, or breastfeeding milk, it don’t like the smell of these things, the warlu will send a winigarra (willy

Polycarpaea holtzei (Caryophyllaceae)

willy) or lightning, you have to run to the

Snowfllake

gadanyba tree, this tree is a nyirdi (in-law,

Collected in Banyjima country. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

like mother-in-law) and will protect you from the warlu. Beverley: But you are only protected if you sing out "nyirdingga nyirdingga" and it will leave you alone, don’t come near. Otherwise, you could get pulled in by the strong winds and then the warlu will drown you, that snake is very powerful. This tree has a lot of meaning to us in the traditional way, it is like a Panadol and an air-conditioner.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Pontificate on This (detail), by Fiona Foley for Kurlkayima Ngatha Remember Me, 2016. Image courtesy of Urban Art Projects, 2015.

Remember me

Fiona Foley Djon Mundine OAM

Common people may appear to disappear from a place for a time but leave traces of their lives. Simple common things have meaning and are powerful. As Fiona Foley was led through the Pilbara she noticed a few simple but emblematic discarded objects and vignettes of another life, so different as almost existing in a parallel dimension. Djon Mundine OAM is a member of the Bandjalung people of northern New South Wales. He is a curator, writer, artist and activist. He has held prominent curatorial positions in many national and international institutions. He conceptualised the Aboriginal Memorial at the National Gallery of Australia in 1988. Mundine is a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the promotion and development of Aboriginal arts, crafts and culture.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

At Roebourne Old Gaol she noticed clay

to Aboriginal workers in lieu of wages

of boomerangs represent the singing land

smoking pipes (for tobacco). Fiona had 66

(or food) to trap them into an addiction

of the three language groups Fiona met in

cast in aluminium by Urban Art Projects.

and slave labour. Part of the motives

the Pilbara: the Ngarluma, the Nyiyaparli,

These she’s used to embody the 66 clauses

for creating the Act in question was

and the Banyjima.

of the Aborigines Act 1905 (Western

paternalistically to ‘protect’ Aboriginal

Australia). The smoking pipe in white

people from these work practices.

an Act granting the colony of Western

western society is tied to the persona of an elder, a deep thinker, an intellectual (think Sherlock Holmes or the anthropologist Professor Ronald Berndt) - think of white males smoking a pipe of tobacco while pondering on how to solve the ‘Aboriginal problem’.

On a cattle station Fiona found a metal

Australia self-government, but it would

ring, a metal rod curved in the shape of

appear they had concerns about the

a ’U’, and a metal rod completing an ‘O’.

treatment of Aboriginal people in the

The curved rod and ring bring to mind

colony for some time. Section 70 of this

tethering and tying things up - animals

Act set out that the new autonomous

or human prisoners. Will white Australia

government would yearly set aside five

ever recognise the colonial debt?

thousand pounds or one percent of state

Fiona was shown that the snake wood (Acacia xiphophylla) was the best tree for burning. The ash would be mixed with tobacco to enhance the flavour and for medicinal purposes when chewed. This is also a reference to the practice of using the residual ash from smoking opium. The residual ash remaining in the pipe bowl actually still contains a sufficient amount of the active ingredients for a considerable effect. Opium and alcohol were given

In 1890 the British parliament passed

revenue, whichever was greater, for the An Aboriginal singer is often described as having a sweet voice. Aboriginal life could be described as a song. A singer is a most important being in Aboriginal society they not only connect the people of that society together in action, they connect them to the articulated land and to the spiritual cosmos. The god of small things exists in the small native bee and we are now discovering how indispensable they are to our existence. A set of three pairs

care and benefit of Aboriginal people. It is unusual in that these funds would be handled by the new government but paid to the British representative, the Governor who would work with the Aborigines Protection Board set up in 1886. Though in the Act of self-government this was never acted upon and has been the subject of some legal discussion in recent times to no result.

IOU, by Fiona Foley for Kurlkayima Ngatha-Remember Me, 2016. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Remember me

Pontificate on This (detail), by Fiona Foley for Kurlkayima Ngatha Remember Me, 2016. Image courtesy of Urban Art Projects, 2015.

Remember me

I think empathy is what the world is like

imitating life, life imitating art, corrupts

it was deregistered as a sacred site as

inside someone else’s head. Historically

and destroys a couple's relationship. The

the definition of ‘sacred’ is now being

the story is a fractured narrative, a

story tells of how commercial (power-

contested again in law through new

split silence, an Aboriginal soliloquy -

capitalism) interests insidiously display

guidelines to section 5 (b) of the State’s

an unheard, traumatized, pondering

contempt for intelligence, contempt for

weak Aboriginal Heritage Act.

discourse on one side, and what can only

the artist, and contempt for personal and

be described as the covering up, ‘white-

social moral values.

The Pilbara is a region of immense mineral wealth and one of the highest

washing', on the other, white Australian What is sacred is a constantly contested

money making districts in Australia -

personal and societal idea and value,

huge profits are being made here, some

and no more so than in the colony of

of which goes to the traditional land

Western Australia where some strive

owners. But what type of society comes

to ‘rehabilitate' and bring 'civilisation'

out of these huge injections of money and

to what they see as empty, inhospitable

vicious power struggles - what values does

spaces. What is called the Burrup

it engender?

The year before Fiona Foley’s birth, Jean

Peninsula contains over one million

Djon Mundine OAM

Luc-Goddard made the film ‘Contempt‘

religious rock art sites, like bits in a

(1963), using the trope of a film being

computer, many of which pre-date the

made, and how the process of art

last Ice Age 30,000 years ago. In 2015

side. In 1946 over 800 Aboriginal workers took part in the Pilbara strike for human rights recognition and payment of fair wages, and for fair working conditions. Both male stockmen and the female domestics went on strike.

IOU by Fiona Foley for Kurlkayima Ngatha-Remember Me, 2016. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016.

My Grandmother Went Hunting. Photograph by Christine Multa, 2013. Image courtesy the artist and Ikuntji Artists

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Eunice Na pa na n g k a Jack

during the rain, and after the rain.

Dr Chrischona Schmidt

the hues of the wildflowers that are in

Napanangka shows the changes of the environment: Pink, yellow, blue, green, creamy white, orange and red are amongst full bloom after the rain. Fields of flowers emerge and create colour fields when seen

From sandhill country to mission times – memories of a childhood ‘in the bush'.

from a distance or bird’s-eye perspective. The sand hills surrounding the water hole are covered in a myriad of flowers. They are floating on the background

In her paintings Eunice Napanangka Jack

of the red earth. From a distance one

revisits her country, the country of her

can see the patterns of the flowers and

Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) and the country

the movements of the sand hills across

of her childhood. She remembers living

the country. Napanangka reminisces in

in the bush, off the land, walking great

the beauty of the country after the rain

distances, and hunting and gathering on

and highlights its abundance, including

a daily basis. When painting Napanangka

all the food and water available for the

sings the songs of her ancestral spirit

wildlife. However, when she lived last in

the wallaby woman, she travels through

her country it was dry and any food was

her country whilst painting, and her

scarce. The drought was so severe that her

meticulous dots evoke the wildflowers

family made the decision to move away.

around Tjukurrla after the rain. The

Thus her paintings are about a time before

deep waterhole of Tjukurrla is a constant

the drought at the same time as they are

inspiration for her art, before the rain,

about the Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) time.

Remember me

That’s my country and my father’s country. I paint that one…wallaby, that’s me, Tjukurrpa (Dreaming). That wallaby woman, she’s from there… Lake Mackay. She is looking for food and kapi (water) at Tjukurrla. Eunice Napanangka Jack, January 2013

the bush’ significantly influenced her

When the painting is completed

life and became an intrinsic part of her

Napanangka gets up from her mat on the

person. The deep connection between

concrete floor in the art centre studio

her country, her ancestral spirit and her

and starts singing and dancing next to

childhood find expression in her art.

the painting, describing the travels of her ancestral spirit and performing the

Now in her late seventies and one of two remaining old ladies who grew up ‘in the bush and proper way’, Napanangka rarely travels back west to her country

Napanangka was about three or four years

and she cherishes the photos that she

old when she walked with her family

kept from a trip in the 1990s with Ikuntji

from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western

Artists and art centre manager at the

Australia to the Lutheran mission of

time, Marina Strocchi. That was the

Haasts Bluff, situated 230 km west of Alice

last time Napanangka had visited parts

Springs in the West Macdonnell Ranges.

of her country and seen her father’s

The long walk of her early childhood, a

country of Lake Mackay. However, she

journey of almost 800 km, is etched into

revisits her country around Tjukurrla

her memory. It is what separates her life

through painting. She remembers the

‘in the bush with family’ from her life in a

water around the deep waterhole of

Lutheran mission being provided rations.

Tjukurrla and how after the rain several

Furthermore it describes a transition

rockholes fill up with water and create a

of living off bush foods and hunting

lake; furthermore she recalls the plants

and gathering on a daily basis to rations

growing around it, the different kinds of

of flour, sugar and tea in the mission.

flowers and the wildlife that would be

Haasts Bluff was situated near a natural

attracted through the water and plants.

spring that provided water for all mission

Napanangka carries a deep knowledge of

residents. Before arriving in the mission

these water sources and their surrounding

Napanangka had only heard of rations,

environment.

European settlers and missionaries. The early childhood experiences of living ‘in

Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) songs associated with her country. Other artists in the studio sometimes accompany her singing and her grandchildren dance with her if present. She walks through her country in her performance, remembering a place that she left a long time ago and which is imbued with memories of her childhood, a childhood pre-contact with European settler society, and her ancestral country, full of memories of Tjukurrpa (Dreaming). When she completes her performance she sends the painting on its way: “Kunyi (poor thing), you are going now!” are her farewell words to the artwork whilst touching its surface for a last time.

Acknowledgements Information about the history of Haasts Bluff and the mission was given to me in several conversations with community members including, but not limited to, Alison Napurrula Multa, Gordon Tjapanangka Butcher, Alice Nampitjinpa and Eunice Napanangka Jack. I would like to acknowledge their knowledge and contribution to this article.

Tjukurrla, Eunice Napanangka Jack, Ikuntji Artists. Acrylic on Belgian linen, 1800 x 400mm each. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Kajawari Capparis unbonata (Capparaceae) Wild Orange Collected in Banyjima country. The kajawari tree is laden with lots of little round dugura fruit, sweet fruit. They grow in clusters but you have to race the birds and emus for them. They flower after big rain and then when the flower dies, the fruit comes up. The fruit are green on the outside and yellow with big seeds on the inside. The seeds can taste peppery. They go burgundy when they are too ripe. The tree has a white flower with a nice smell. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

Remember me

adrian condon The bush is our pharmacy.

We used to eat all the bush tucker we

come out raw - but it had a very bitter

could find. I used to eat a lot of bush

taste, so we had to wait till the fruit itself

honey, that jandaru. We used to run

gets a real dark green, then just before

around in the scrub - walking through

it starts dying out, you strip the plant to

these snake wood trees - marruwa.

get all the little pods and seeds out. Our

We would find peas and beans, which

favourite was gardangu, it’s just like a sap

have got all these little pods in them.

off the plant and it is very sweet, and that

Sometimes, we used to wash them and

was candy for when we was out bush. We

eat them raw or we’d put them in the

didn’t have to worry about the shop, we

fire. When we were at school, we used to

would just raid all the trees.

go out and pluck the tree to get the little fruits out, we’d wash them all up and have our desks full with them. We’d be sitting down in our lesson, and sneaking into our desks, and chewing them while the teacher turned his back, or was occupied with somebody else. We’d pick them especially at the time when they first

On some gum tree leaves, you get the little white aphids that grow on the leaf itself they are all these little white spots on the leaves, we used to pluck that leaf and have a taste of that, and it is sweet, like sugar. We would climb the gum tree, as soon as we see that first little bee, we will run and

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

climb that thing until we find where the

they gave him a bottle of this stuff and

tastes. My mum won’t chew the tobacco,

hole is. And then we sit down and pluck

said "now you drink this". It knocked that

unless she has the ashes, and if I don’t

all the gum tree leaves.

bloody asthma right out of him. There is

get it to her she will get angry, so I have

also the jilbagarri, which is a viney type

to make it, to stop her getting angry. She

of tree and it has sharp thorns on it and

goes and gives it to her friends and sisters,

this is another very potent medicine.

that’s the one thing that kept the older

There was a bloke, who they said had

people together. Sometimes when we have

cancer growing in him so they give him

elders come in for a visit, I’ll go out and fill

this to drink and he come good, put that

up a whole tin, just for them, and its like a

cancer back in remission. Even the doctor

gift to them. That is the thing they love.

When we were kids and used to get all our little school sores, like boils and scabies, my mum used to boil this plant, called nhirdi and wash our whole body. We were out in the stations and we were nearly 200 kilometres inland, away from hospitals, so that’s what we used, it

couldn't believe that was going away.

cleaned our whole body out, really good.

I eat bush tucker all the time when I am

There was one story of a very old man

When everybody used to meet, they used

out there in the bush. Often someone will

whose whole body was covered in rashes.

to trade the wood from inland because it

come to ask me to get that medicine called

A lot of people were too frightened to go

was a hell of a lot stronger than the ones

yajarri. It’s only in a small little bush and

near him, they didn’t want to get infected,

that are on the coast, and they needed the

has a waxy, little, white flower all over it;

so the other old people got that nhirdi,

wood to help them do their digging and all

most of it grows on the other side of the

and washed him down and he was good.

that, then they would trade what they got

airport, there, next to Paraburdoo. That

I would have been eight or nine then. At

from the seashore, like the salt.

is the main medicine that everyone likes

that time I was just learning things from my mum, how to survive in the bush which is our pharmacy.

to drink now, they come and I boil it up The old people would also burn the tips of the marruwa tree branches until it became ashes, then they mixed the ashes with

and give it to everybody. I have taken it to the Kimberley to fix them, because they were my in-laws and wanted a taste of

When the old people get sick, the good

tobacco, it makes the tobacco stronger. In

medicine is the jandaru - wild honey, you

different areas the ashes taste different,

eat that straight and it cleans the whole

even on the tree itself it tastes different,

system on the inside. We used to have big

from the smallest branches up the top,

fights over the honey, usually all the older

until it gets down to some of the thickest

brothers get the most and us younger

part down the bottom, some of them like

ones used to try and get the scraps. That

the whole lot dry, some of them like it still

was a beautiful medicine, it keeps you

a little bit ripe - they like the green taste

really good, its like antibiotics or cough

of it. They have different tastes, from

medicine, it works exactly the same as all

different parts of the plants. We couldn’t

For instance, with our bush fruit, the wild

of that, straight off the bush.

believe how they tell the difference.

orange only grows at certain times of the

When I learnt how to cook it - how to

year. It's really nice fruit, but the black

break the trees, they shake their head

seed inside is like pepper, if you bite that

because it don’t taste right. Then my mum

black seed in your mouth, boy, you will

come out and showed me the different

taste it. You can suck the flesh. Some of

The red sap of the marruwa is a potent medicine, when this bloke was getting crook - he had a very bad asthma, and

our medicine. It usually grows throughout the year, but, in certain months it starts flowering and you can see the flower, and the leaf start getting an oily sheen, and that is where the best medicine is, where you get that oil. There are certain times for other plants but the yajarri and nhirdi grow year round.

Remember me

them you can eat it off the tree, and some

out bodies strong. When we go walking,

you put in the ground, and cook it, like

to the next part of our land you can see

little peanuts. There are different ways to

the plants change, it’s the same sort of

prepare it.

stuff inside, but the country changes, and is growing in a different way. I would

Once you know every different tree, it is automatic and you can see whether its important from a long way off. I’d like my culture to go on, and on. Most of my children know about bush tucker because I teach them every time we go out, all

love all my children to learn, so if we are out in the middle of nowhere and we are broken down on the side of the road, and somebody feeling sick, you say "well there is some bush medicine right there, I’ll fix him up right now".

different things. And it is good too - I love teaching. That is why I was a teacher. Plant knowledge is part of Aboriginal culture. It’s where we learn to keep most of our sickness away - that is what kept

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

ya n d i c o o g i n a

d av i d stoc k They used to give one another, give. Those days they kind to one another â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Marlba. Kurlkamalayikanapiya.

Wathawa Gossypium robinsonii (Malcaceae) Wild Cotton Collected in Banyjima country. The long stems of this plant are shaved back and used to create janyjin (dancing sticks). The leaves have five points and the flowers are a pinky purple colour. This plant is sticky and catches flies. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

Remember me

The old people used to say that’s the

When I used to get a sore, they used to

people, we might send something for them

muntaru tree - you can eat this seed from

get that young leaf from the gum tree,

too". Not like that today, it’s very hard to

the tree, and you can eat the gartangu,

and boil it up, really strong, and I have a

do all these things. I used to be a kid. Fellas

that’s the gum from the tree, you can eat

wash, shower - oh, feel good. That one for

used to come and talk, meeting, they think

that too, from the kanji bush - and the

anything, if you cold, or sick, you feel a lot

of you fellas. You make this and you’ll

seed and the gum, they good eating. We

better. Take all the sores or sickness away.

have a spear each, turn, turn, turn, turn to give.

ate them when I was young, and we can still eat them now.

Old people would trade - nganabiyamunatarra, they used to give them this,

Old people used to tell me about the bush

Punara tree, they got a round thing, like an

one and they give them back something

tucker - they teach me, take me, show me,

apple, but you can eat the inside part, they

again. People used to travel, and they

this one - see. Some of the old people they

call them mangkurrka and the mantila tree,

would give one another a present,

used to have those grinding stones still,

he got a gum too, kanji tree, you pick them

boomerang, Martu, people used to come

grind 'em up the plant and put a bit of

in summer time, towards Christmas, they

with a load of spear to give them the

water and you put it on your mara, it was

come up in the heat, that’s the season for

Nyiyaparli people. From the Western

used like a cream. They used to say, "when

the gum. You can’t get 'em any other time.

Desert they used to get 'em up there and

we gone, you will tell the others about

send it across, it would be, "few for you",

what we show you", continues on then,

and this fella give them a "few for you,

what you been getting in the bush, well,

few for you", make all that thing from the

you tell your young fellas now. That’s how

tree. They all used to have spear in their

you living in your Country, better than

hand, that’s a gift. Boomerang sometimes,

what you getting in the cafe take away,

but the spear was the main one.

chicken and things, too much fat, it’s a

They used to boil the gum tree leaf or cadjeput leaf for the sores and that dries them off and they heal up better, take all the germs out. They was like a eucalypt. For the blood, they get them from the punara tree - gum - red one, and they drink that a little bit at a time, use them like a medicine, not drink ‘em whole lot in once. They would have a little bit, little bit, like a cough medicine.

good taste but no good to your body, but They used to give one another, give. Those days they kind to one another – Marlba. kurlkamalayikanapiya - they think about one another. They used to think "what about those people down west, Nyiyaparli

this bush one, this one is very good.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Two way science â&#x20AC;&#x201C; walking together on one land, sharing knowledge systems. Stephen D. Hopper

Stephen Hopper Professor Stephen Hopper is an internationally renowned plant conservation biologist who gave up his job in England as Director of the world heritage-listed Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, to take up a new Chair in Biodiversity at The University of Western Australia.Professor Hopper has written eight books and published more than 200 articles on plant biology. He was awarded the Centenary Medal for his contributions and in 2012 was named a Companion of the Order of Australia.

Remember me

As a young scientist working on flora

and the southwest Little Sandy Desert

conservation across Western Australia in

which the species occupies has become

the 1970s and 1980s, I was privileged to

progressively better known. Of course,

visit and walk on Country in many parts

Ramel’s mallee was intimately known (as

of the State. At the time, deeply steeped

yalpiri) by Martu people, but I like so many

in a Western scientific world view, I saw

other desert biologists was so used to

my task as getting to know the plants,

learning through self-teaching on country

common and rare, as biological species,

that I didn’t think at the time to go to

and helping devise ways of conserving

Jigalong or Wiluna and seek help and

them, primarily through the creation of

guidance from Aboriginal custodians.

conservation reserves (national parks, nature reserves) and listing threatened species under new legislation.

Of course, I was aware that Aboriginal people had lived on these lands for tens of thousands of years, but their modern

For example, I became involved in

physical absence from the country I

confirming the rediscovery by white

traversed, except around country towns

people of what was the only presumed

and urban Perth, meant that I conducted

extinct eucalypt in Australia – Ramel’s

my work almost entirely divorced from

mallee (Eucalyptus rameliana). This

any Aboriginal contact. Yet their voices

sprawling shrub of red sand dunes has

were there, on the wind, across the

single pale yellow or pink flowers that

landscapes, ancestors and present-day

are pollinated by desert honeyeaters.

people inseparable, speaking quietly to

First collected by Ernst Giles in 1876, the

me through the enspirited lands I walked

species was tracked down in the Little

upon, waiting for when I might be ready

Sandy Desert in 1991, more than 500

to listen.

km further west than Giles’ herbarium specimen label said it should be. Having been the subject of several fruitless searches by biologists over the preceding decade, its rediscovery by bushman Nick Foote drew national media attention,

It wasn’t until the early 1990s, as the newly appointed Director of Kings Park and Botanic Garden, that I resolved to engage in cross-cultural awareness training led by Noongars at Walyunga

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

National Park near Perth. The course

River to become the Swan as it issues

largely outside such prosperity, rendering

was organised by my former employer,

through the Darling Scarp. All who visit

the whole endeavour shallow and

the Department of Conservation and

must throw some sand into the water, and

transient unless rectified – the plight of

Land Management, and by the Western

tell the Waarkarl who they are and that

most Aboriginal people and the decline

Australian Branch of the Australian

they are there as a respectful friend to

of significantly degraded environments,

Association for Environmental Education.

enjoy the power of the place.

including ongoing loss of biodiversity.

Today, as an older man still enthralled

Regarding the Pilbara, our two cultures

Both organisations saw the need for better crosscultural dialogue as important. I recall being shown a few species of

I can’t claim to have understood the significance or meaning of more than a small amount of traditional knowledge shared on that day, but it was a beginning.

bush tucker by

with the wonder

walking on one land remain variously

and mystery of

inter-twined, sometimes communicating,

one of the richest

sometimes not, very rarely connecting

places on Earth for

at a deep intellectual and spiritual level.

plant life, I have

Western science continues to play catch-

been privileged in

up with indigenous knowledge systems.

Noongar Hardie Derschow, and for the

a second way. Noongars would describe

The pace of ongoing scientific discovery

first time seeing soap bubbles lathered up

my life’s path as koodjal beedawang (two

is remarkable. For example, just five years

from the leaves of soapbush (Trymalium

initiation journeys). Others have called

ago, the Pilbara had 1521 recorded native

odoratissimum). Here were aspects of

it two-way science. For close to three

plants, and 103 introduced weeds. Today,

plant knowledge completely new to me,

decades now, I have walked together

there are now 1674 native plants and 120

unavailable in the text books used to

with a number of Aboriginal teachers on

weeds known. This represents a rate of

train university students. The group I had

Country, learning to see many things that

new records equal to that for any of the

joined was also invited to participate in

escaped me as a young scientist, revisiting

world’s most poorly explored botanical

a small dancing and singing ceremony,

and rethinking Country.

regions, including tropical rainforests.

This is not an easy journey, nor is it

Aboriginal people have so much to offer

possible for participants to fully cross the

to plant biologists. Some of our Indigenous

cultural divide, but it remains important

sisters and brothers hold a deep practical

I can’t claim to have understood the

nonetheless for all Australians to make

knowledge of plant uses, combined with a

significance or meaning of more than a

an effort to better understand Aboriginal

profoundly reverential but rational world

small amount of traditional knowledge

knowledge systems. An intelligent and

view regarding the place of plants as fellow

shared on that day, but it was a beginning.

respectful dialogue is the first step in

beings, connected to ancestors and the

And Walyunga, a place of thanks shouted

walking together.

spirit world, responding to appropriate care

including a few words in language, to reinforce the use of all the senses in learning the Aboriginal way.

from the lungs (walyal), had begun a conversation with me, which continues to this day. It was, is and always will be a spirit-scape, where the great serpent Waarkarl carved a place for the Avon

and manipulation. Some plants are totems. Two hundred years of Western settlement in Australia has achieved remarkable prosperity in a modern, yet troubled, world. Two significant arenas remain

Some play a special role in stories of the spirit world and the creation of all that we know and live amongst. Some are crucial for ceremonial rites, for medicines, for food.

Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Ethnobotanists like Fiona Walsh who

scientific investigation, knowing more and

at a time when knowledge systems are

as a PhD student lived and worked with

more about less and less. It’s about seeing

converging, and I have experienced

Martu people invariably are in awe of their

life as an integrated whole, respecting and

directly how this process opens

Aboriginal teachers. We are lucky indeed

learning from and with the past, which is

unexpected and richer prospects for us all

that such knowledge exists and remains

with us in the present, and will be in the

when we are prepared to embrace it.

nurtured, and often is so generously shared

future. Australians are able

within the constraints of cultural traditions to do with special business, sacred and profane, men’s and women’s, and the stage in initiation rites that the pupil has reached.

Artwork has

Some of our Indigenous sisters and brothers hold a deep practical knowledge of plant uses, combined with a profoundly reverential but rational world view regarding the place of plants as fellow beings, connected to ancestors and the spirit world, responding to appropriate care and manipulation.

emerged as a powerful medium to convey some of

to draw upon 50,000 years of continuous human presence on our continent and

Guided by elders, and addressing aspects

these important

of cultural heritage they see as meriting

insights from

investigation, Western science can become

Aboriginal people

a powerful ally to the ongoing challenge

to a wide audience,

of developing a respectful and lasting

locally, nationally

collaboration with Aboriginal people across

and internationally.

Australia. For too long, Western science

My heart sings when I see such cross-

environmental change over this period,

has been a blunt instrument of the colonial

cultural engagement. It facilitates ongoing

intelligently adapting and mastering

juggernaut, working independently of

dialogues, and touches us at many levels if

world views that ultimately enabled rich

Aboriginal knowledge systems as I did

we are open to the offer, generous in spirit

socio-cultural diversity and lifeways that

earlier in my career, and applied more to

and intention.

did not irrevocably degrade the social

future. We all have a stake in a better future, learning from Aboriginal people that it’s not about self-enrichment, it’s about cooperation to deal with unforeseen challenges in a rapidly changing world. It’s not about ever-more particularised

exceptional heritage. Aboriginal people have lived, indeed thrived, through extraordinary

dispossess and disenfranchise than to help chart a more sustainable cross-cultural

its islands. What an

and natural environments they cared for. I have committed to work and learn together with Aboriginal people as much as I can in the coming years. Every moment I spend in the bush, suburb

Such knowledge systems are desperately needed to help forge future sustainable lifeways under modern global and local change.

or city, I see evidence that we live in a profoundly humanised landscape,

Two-way science, walking together,

bursting with meaning and relevance

sharing knowledge systems, holds

to today and tomorrow. We are living

much more promise for risk mitigation

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in a rapidly changing world than independent pathways. My hope is that this will become a mainstream position of Australians. We are all somewhere on that journey, and can only be enriched by sharing knowledge systems, enjoying life to the full, in good humour, recognising our common humanity, and using our exceptional abilities to collaborate as a positive force.

Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Remember me

Hilda flan My mum told me about the spinifex, its very special.

My name is Hilda Flann but I’m a Yuline

My mum used to go looking for bush tucker

too, I’m only a Flann by marriage. My

too - them little ones like the onions, we

language is Nyiyarparli. I was born in

called them thkarlu or ngarlku, they are the

the bush and I grew up in the bush with

same. We used to get that, cook them in

my mum and dad, not in a town like Port

the hot sand, and grind them up. Some we

Hedland. This was the ration times and we

would cook and eat, some we would eat

were working with minerals, it was before

raw. We’d get the bush fruits, which we

money came in. Back then it was tin, tin

call minyiumurlu, it’s like a gooseberry, but

with the yandi dish. We’d make the yandi

I don’t know what the white fella called

from the tree, and use it to carry fruit, and

it. Another one is a mangakurrka from the

when the old people went out looking for

bloodwood tree, you’ve got to get them

goanna, they’d put em in the dish and take

before the mosquito come, get them when

them back home. We’d yandi gold or tin

they are fresh, he’s got a little sweet thing

with a tin yandi, it was tin at Marble Bar.

inside too, the juice is good.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

My mum told me about the spinifex, its

Some of them bush medicines they get

that one tree with yellow flowers - they

very special. They grow like grass, that’s

from the gum tree leaf. People have a sore,

grow a bit high, you’re not allowed to

where they get the seed from, they grind

so you get the gum tree leaf and boil it,

touch that, its poison, but one little fella

it up for flour, they use a little bit of water

and you can add salt or have it without

play around with the flowers. That little

and a grinding stone and make a damper

the salt. You wash that sore every time

fella went back home and they had a feed

out of it. Make a fire, and cook them in

in the morning, or before going to sleep.

ready for him, he didn’t wash his hands,

the hot sand. When the rains come, that’s

I tried it on my grandson who had a sore

he just grab the meat or bread and eat it,

when the grasses all grow, not in the dry

leg and I get that leaf, and I boil it, wash

couple of minutes later, he died. That’s a

weather, you don’t see them much. As

him in the morning and in the evening.

poison tree. There are plenty growing up

soon as the rains come they grow, and

Next couple of days the sore was dried up.

that way, one is in Marble Bar right in the

you gotta let them dry, a little bit, then

My mum did the same thing from the gum

road. We tell all our kids, "don’t touch em,

be quick. One of them grasses is a green

tree and cadjeput, leaves. Sometime when

that’s a poison, if you touch it you gotta

grass, like onion. It’s got to be the right

I feel sick, I use the bush medicine. I went

wash your hands straight away".

time to get them, and we’d collect onion as

to Marble Bar the other day, went to the

soon as they grow.

river to get that leaf from the tree and boil it up to feel fresh. I told David, here, smell

To know the right time you look around

this, "Ohhh lovely!" He reckons.

and you see oh this might be the time. I’m

Another story my mum told me about a tree again, if you get a stick and hit somebody, its no good, that fella might die. They can’t heal or, put a medicine. Mum

waiting for that fruit, next time I’ll get

I go to Marble Bar and make ashes for

tell me about stories to do with plants,

'em, no point to eat them raw, they are not

people when they ask me, take it back to

and the old people used to talk about it,

sweet, like the minyjumurlu, you wait till

them. They got a bush tobacco growing

sing a song about it, but sometimes I can’t

it’s a bit yellow. You have gotta get them

too; that grows in the rock. The old people

remember.

before the kangaroo gets them. It’s a little

would dry the leaf before they chew it and

round green fruit, like small grapes.

then they make the ashes, big one. That’s how the people used to live.

My mum used to show us some fruit, she’d

We take our kids, show them about that bush fruit, and bush tucker. We tell them so when they grow up they will

say, "this one you can’t eat because its no

The old people have very good knowledge,

know. You have to take them out bush,

good, bitter; but this one is sweet", another

strong. Keep everything in good health.

otherwise they wouldn’t know anything.

one is no good because it’s the kangaroo’s

They would tell us "don’t go for that one" -

That’s what me and my sister do now, we

fruit. My mum taught me how to get all

tell us which tree poison, "don’t touch that

take our children, our grandchildren, our

the fruit that we get from the tree, and

tree, no good". Now we take them kids, to

great-great grandchildren and we learn

to look for bardi. We go look for the bardi,

learn them, we show them, we tell ‘em,

them.

look at the ground. They know which one

"don’t go to that tree" and let them know

to get from a different, special tree. They

about the poison. My mum told me about

dig ‘em out, have a look at the root then

a story in the early days, when all the

they get them out, take them and cook it.

children playing around and they seen

Remember me

Polycarpaea longiflora (Caryophyllaceae) Paintbrushes Collected in Banyjima country. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Professor William Leonard "Bill" Gammage AM, FASSA is an Australian academic historian, Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Fellow

Bill Gammage Managing Land in 1788

Eucalypts are smart. Their bark, oil, leaves and open canopy all promote fire. It

at the Humanities Research Centre of the

scorches their leaves and twigs, but kills

Australian National University (ANU). Over a

other plants competing for space and light,

13-year period he researched and wrote the book

while the trees recover. Fire lets eucalypts

The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia,[4] released in October 2011. It won the 2012 Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History in the Prime Minister's Literary Awards,[2][5] the 2011 Manning Clark House National Cultural Awards in the individual category, was shortlisted for the 2012 Kay Daniels Award,[6] the History Book Award

['1788' is shorthand for the moment before invasion, which began at Sydney in 1788 and spread across the continent over the next 140-odd years.]

of the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards[7] and

dominate; eucalypts help fire spread. Together they have captured all but the wettest and the driest parts of Australia. About 70% of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plant species tolerate or encourage fire. The people of 1788 joined this plant-fire alliance, and

awarded the 2012Victorian Premier's Literary Awards overall Victorian Prize for Literature on

shaped it to suit. This changed the face of

top of the non-fiction category prize.

Australia. The landscape was not natural

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burning. This let people prevent the

undergrowth uncommon, food plants next

terrible killer fires which have immolated

to shelter plants. And the benefits were

the fringes of every Australian capital

the same: plants and animals were made

except Darwin in recent decades, fires

abundant, and located predictably and

which must have decimated people had

conveniently.

they occurred - no-one could outrun them. But regular fires prevented irregular fires: instead of today’s maxim, “Prevent bush fires”, the 1788 rule was “A fire a day keeps bush fires away.” Taming fire was a great achievement, one beyond us today.

In these ways particular places were associated with particular species, including as totem places, conservation reserves, or both. I call such places “templates”. How a template was made depended on local climate and terrain, and

People might burn to put good grass

how it was used depended on local plants

next to open forest, taking years to make

and animals, but no matter which plant

it ready for fire-stick farming – that is,

communities dominated locally, similar

patch-burning to lure grazing animals.

templates for parallel purposes recurred

Fire-stick farmimg was a harvest method,

across Australia, including Tasmania.

one of many in 1788. People might also back-burn around clumps or single trees to protect them, or sheet-burn to clean country (occasionally in the south, perhaps annually in the north), or hot burn to promote scrub to shelter small birds and reptiles, or let grass grow and in 1788, but made. Aborigines made it, by

dry then fire it to hunt, signal, or make

using fire or no fire to distribute plants,

tracks, or not burn at all, to make dense

and plant distribution to lure and locate

scrub or protect vulnerable species.

animals. Giving plants and animals ideal conditions made them abundant; carefully distributing their habitats made them convenient and predictable. This was possible because of the plant-fire alliance, and because in Australia the only large predators to disturb prey lured to a locality were people.

This was hard work. Managing fire and its ceremonies was probably 1788’s biggest task. But the rewards were boundless. Life was sustained according to Law in habitats each plant and animal not merely tolerated but preferred, and people knew where their resources would be, when to harvest them, and when to rest or rotate them according to season and circumstance. They depended not on

Local variations in managing fire and no

chance, but on policy.

fire are many and obvious. You can’t burn rainforest in the same way as spinifex. But everywhere fire’s basic purposes were the same: to limit fuel, to ensure diversity and abundance, to regulate plant and animal populations. The plant patterns people made with fire and no fire were the

1788’s first fire task was to control fuel,

same too: grass on good soil, forest split by

by ceremony, and by constant, careful

grass, tree and scrub clumps in grassland,

Two factors blended to make templates, one ecological, the other religious. Ecologically, laying out country variably to suit and balance every species meant undeviating commitment to very intricate land management. Individual inclination and enterprise must be curbed, and ecological rules and knowledge must

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

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Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

accumulate beyond living generations.

truly beautiful: it was thinly studded

gatherers lacked the skill and inclination

The Law, a religious philosophy rooted

with single trees, as if planted for

to make parks. Yet the parks were a clue.

in ecology, compelled this. It taught that

ornament...It is impossible therefore

They worked. It works to make grassland

every living thing has at least one totem

to pass through such a country...

to burn for fresh growth to lure kangaroos

derived from a creator ancestor, otherwise

without being perpetually reminded of a

for example. You see this on golf greens

it can’t exist. Even life Europeans

gentleman’s park and grounds...The first

today, where kangaroos prefer to risk

introduced – rabbits, camels, house flies –

idea is that of an inhabited and improved

flying golf balls and angry greenkeepers

have a totem, and every totem has people

country, combined with the pleasurable

to get at new grass, even though safer but

who belong to it, and at the risk of their

associations of a civilized society.[1]

longer grass is only metres away.

In Tasmania John Hudspeth praised a

Every species was managed, many with

“beautiful and rich valley...more like a

fire. Eucalypts were burnt to bring on

souls must care for it. Emu people must care for emus and emu habitat, and emus and emu habitat must care for them, and so on. Rules, myths and ceremonies about the sanctity of totems warned and instructed, until the consequences of disobeying were too terrible to contemplate. Totems thus protected diversity and enforced conformity via religious sanction, powerful in any society.

gentleman’s park in

fresh leaves to

England, laid out with taste, than land in its natural state”.[2] WH Leigh thought country

They made land beautiful. After “bush”, the most common word newcomers used to describe the land was “park”. It’s a striking word.

increase and locate koalas. Acacias were burnt to increase lerp manna next

south of Adelaide “a

year. Spinifex was

wild but beautiful park,

patch-burnt to

which reminded one of the domain of an

ensure refuges and diversify habitats.

English noble”[3], around Bunbury (WA)

Rainforest was cleared to make edge

John Barrow thought “the whole country

habitats. In general there was more grass

wears the appearance of an English

and more open forest than there would

park”[4], and even in the dry inland,

have been without fire. In this way the

People went further. They made land

country like the Pilbara which horrified

people of 1788 paved the way for the

beautiful. After 'bush', the most common

and sometimes killed newcomers,

pastoral settlement of Australia. They put

word newcomers used to describe the land

travellers encountered “very pretty

Australia on the sheep’s back.

was 'park'. It’s a striking word. Europe’s

grassy and park-like country”, “country...

parks were made. They deliberately

beautiful, with park-like scenery and

associated water, grass and trees in

splendid grass”, “open grassy country — a

picturesque array. Few if any were public

very park-like piece of scenery”, and “a

in 1788; most were the preserve and

plain thickly grassed and studded with

mark of gentry. They signified wealth

fine green gum trees, most park-like in

and leisure. Yet newcomers frequently

appearance”. [5]

Evidence for this intricate fusion of Law and ecology exists in enough dispersed places to say that in this sense the whole continent was a single estate.

Port Stephens (NSW)

sustainable. Possibly even in hard times, it was so abundant that people may normally have harvested only resources made surplus by expanding off their templates. Such abundance was possible because people had plenty of land, so

compared Australia with them. Robert Dawson thought the country inland from

Their system was much more than merely

How did parks come about? No newcomer

they could let plants and animals recover

asked. Almost all thought the land natural.

undisturbed. Mobility was thus a great

They assumed that primitive hunter-

advantage. Whereas farming licensed

Remember me

population growth, mobility curbed it. Whereas farming drove people out of marginal land, mobility let them prosper there. People did not have to stay by their crops, and no livestock, no beast of burden, anchored them. This suited Australia’s erratic seasons well. So to locate and rest resources the template system needed big areas free of people, while allying with fire required a mobile population with few fixed assets. A scant and scattered population made 1788 Australia vulnerable to invasion, but this should not mask how impressive the Aboriginal achievement was. To balance land and people so richly for so long across so great an area ranks among humanity’s great achievements. No other world civilisation managed it. Almost all turned from 'hunter-gathering' to agriculture, thence in time to a bad end or an uncertain future, such as ours. Aborigines never joined the agrarian world’s trek to a complex technology. Fire gave too many advantages. It let people fuse the ecology and religion of an entire continent into the biggest estate on earth,

1. R Dawson, The Present State of Australia [1830], Alburgh UK 1987, 108-9.

and instead of dividing Aborigines into gentry and peasantry, it made them a free

2. RW Giblin, The Early History of Tasmania, vol 2 Melbourne 1939, 306.

people.

3. K Moon, “Perception and appraisal of the South Australian landscape 1836-1850”, J RGSA SA 70, 1969, 45. 4. J Barrow, “State of the Colony... 1 Jan 1830”, J RoyalGeogSoc 1, 1830-1, 5. 5. EJ Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery... [1845], Adelaide 1964, vol 1, 190; PE Warburton, Journey Across the Western Interior of Australia [1875], Adelaide 1968, 148; E Giles, Australia Twice Traversed [1889], Perth 1995, 176; “Journal of Mr Lewis’s Lake Eyre Expedition, 17 Feb 1875”, SA PP 19/1876.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Remember me

P h i li p pa Nikulinsky I’ve always liked drawing. Drawing is how I discover my natural world, by drawing it, I learn about it.

Philippa Nikulinsky is an artist and botanical illustrator based in Western Australia. She began working as an illustrator of natural history in the mid 1970s, specialising in plants from harsh environments. Her illustrations have been included in many books and magazines. She is the author or coauthor of books on plants, animals, and their environment. Nikulinsky was recently awarded an Order of Australia, "for significant service to the visual arts as a botanical painter and illustrator, to professional associations, and as an author. She spoke with FORM Curator Sharmila Wood in her studio.

Capparis spinosa var. nummularia by Philippa Nikulinsky, 2016. Watercolour and pencil on paper, 385 x 285mm. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor 2016.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

What attracted you to plants as a subject

glorious in its own right, but it doesn’t

matter?

convey the wonder. It’s the detail of the

I grew up in Kalgoorlie, which is a very

differences between plants which is also

dry place, but once every few years after a

very important, that’s what the science is.

good winter with great excitement I would

I find it very difficult to draw something

go out and find the everlastings and the

roughly, I have to discover what I’m

wildflowers. I’ve always been interested

drawing and then I’m able to do the

in arid places and being able to depict the

painting. Life is just so amazing. I think

beauty in survivors of arid places. Deserts

the older you get the more amazed you

are my favourite places - things that come

are about the intricacies of life and what

out, things that stay, survivors that come

keeps us going.

up year after year no matter what the weather. The single survivors, the old, and the battered, the ones that have lived a life I find are my inspiration. I find most of my paintings have something old - broken leaves, broken branches, the seeds, the seedpods. I like to give my paintings the dignity of age. Earlier in my career I did like pretty flowers, the mass of flowers but now it’s the survivors. I don’t know if that’s because I’m now old!

What is your creative process? My creative process is extensive. Apart from the end work, the creative process involves walking, seeing, planning. I’m always looking, walking and thinking how would I draw you? What would I draw you with? Then it’s drawing and drawing and drawing. I do a whole suite of field drawings before the finished work, which will be a compilation of all the field drawings. I like to have a finished

Hakea lorea by Philippa Nikulinsky, 2016. Watercolour and pencil on paper, 385 x 285mm. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor 2016.

An important element of your work is to

work on a pristine sheet of paper. I can’t

represent the scientific accuracy of plants,

do that in the field because there is dust

why is this significant to you?

and flies and wind and time. Back in the

I think the science and the scientific

studio I finish the work. I’m always asked

accuracy conveys the wonder of nature.

how long it takes to do a painting, but if

Its important to me to be able to show

you take into account the preparation of

whatever it is – the insect, the bird,

the field work, the going, the walking, the

the plant - to show what’s there and

staying for weeks at a time, all the field

what’s so special about that plant. An

drawings, its weeks and weeks and weeks,

impressionist painting of that might be

sometimes months.

Remember me

Acacia pyrifolia by Philippa Nikulinsky, 2016. Watercolour and pencil on paper, 385 x 285mm. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor 2016.

How do the field drawings in Kurlkayima

use them extensively as reference for

Ngatha - Remember Me fit into your overall

habitat so when I come back I can use it as

body of work?

a memory.

These field drawings are special because they are more immediate, because they are done there, in the field, half painting, half not, with the notes. They capture being there. They are fresh, done, on the spot. Painting, looking, discerning, feeling, there is something more special about a field drawing than a finished one. I keep every drawing I’ve ever done. I’ve got 40 years of field drawings.

Travel is an important part of practice. Can you tell me why being in the field is so significant? Being in the field is probably the most important part of my practice, to actually see the plant, animal, insect, in its natural environment. To actually see them alive or dead, what’s with them. I have favourite places so you can see the same plants that come up year after year, so I

For Kurlkayima Ngatha- Remember Me

have a memory of place. I go back to place;

because you couldn’t send me out to find

I go back to familiarity. I’m not always

the plants I was able to go through all my

looking for something new, at different

field drawings and find verifiably scientific

times of the year it’s different.

drawings that I had done of those plants and build a new work from those field drawings. They have quite detailed colour notes on them, notes about what’s growing with them, always at what time of year and where they were found. The drawings with the text around the outside tell you where I found them and perhaps something about that plant. Every drawing, every work, has a whole history behind them and where there has been bush food I’ve tasted it, I’ve collected it. There is a first hand experience in every work. I don’t work from photographs. I

For instance, in the Cape Arid book we did eleven field trips, over four and half years we actually spent a year at Cape Arid so I was there for all seasons and saw the changes. I was there watching the regeneration after the fire. Fire is an important thing in my love of the bush. I love the black, with the new growth after the fire. The fire is like a new canvas. The ground is black and then you see the beautiful seeds, and watch the regeneration - it’s magical. A lot of my work has burnt bits because it’s a very important part of our bush.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

The body of work for Kurlkayima Ngatha -

Finally, what would you like the audience to

Remember Me is from the Pilbara, what are

experience from your work?

your thoughts on the Pilbara?

I would hope that they look carefully

I love the Pilbara. I go back year after year.

and then go away and look at what we

Every year I watch for the cyclones. I ring

have. It’s a sharing of a love for the bush,

the station people to find out where there

of our natural world and hoping that by

has been rain. I love the East Pilbara,

looking at my work they see the bush in

east of Nullagine, out towards Telfer into

a different way. My mother was from

the Little Sandy Desert. The Pilbara is

New Zealand where everything is green

a very special place. I’ve been going up

and she didn’t like the Australian bush,

there since the '80s. I go camping on the

but once I took her on a tour of my bush

Nullagine River, watching all the birds

she looked at it very differently. Until

and collecting drawings year after year.

you understand what you are looking at,

The Pilbara is so varied. The wonderful

people just think the bush looks grey. But

rock formations, the grasses, the trees,

really every mulga is a different grey, and

the rivers. I love the grasses when they

green, with different colours, different

are on the side of the hill, with the dark

foliage. You go to Europe and you’ve got

rocky formations and when the wind

two or three different greens. I walked

blows, its just wonderful. Some years it’s

through the forest in France and I thought

so much better than others. It’s different

this is so boring. In Australia if you are

every year. Every time I go I have a new

interested and want to look you can never

focus. I don’t go looking for something in

be bored, the variation is so amazing.

particular, it’s the sense of discovery.

Corymbia opaca by Philippa Nikulinsky, 2016. Watercolour and pencil on paper, 385 x 285mm. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor 2016.

G i o v a nn i Lo ru s s o

philosophy of language with new forms of cinematographic expression, and collaborating with renown artists such as Mike Parr, Steve Kilbey and Amiel Courtin-Wilson, with whom he worked as

Stills from this book are courtesy of Cinematographer Giovanni Lorusso. Giovanni is a cinematographer and artist based inÂ Australia. Born in the island of Sardinia, Italy, Giovanni has lived and worked in several cities including Rome, Copenhagen, Stockholm, London, Sydney. He has obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Rome, 2003), a Masters in Literature (Rome, 2005), a Diploma of Screen and Media (Sydney, 2006) and a Masters in Philosophy (London, 2009).Â In recent years Lorusso has worked on several experimental, commercial, long and short form drama projects around Europe, Australia, Africa, New Zealand, and Asia (Cambodia, China, Japan, East Timor, India, Thailand and Laos) aimed at combining his research in

a 2nd unit director and cinematographer for the feature film RUIN, winner of the Orizzonti Special Jury Price at the 70th Venice International Film Festival. Lorusso's solo work has been screened around Europe, South America, Australia and Asia, and he has been awarded several prizes, including five ACS - Australian Cinematographers Society Awards (2011, 2012, 2013) for his documentary and commercial work; an ATOM Award (2007) and a ATOM nomination for Best Experimental Film (2011), a Best Short Film Award from the Sydney College of the Arts (2006) and several other recognitions and nominations including participation in festivals in Perth, San Paulo and Seoul.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Wa d u Tucker Growing up my aunty used to show us bush medicines.

My name is Gladys Tucker and my

bush medicine. She used to cut ‘em up

Aboriginal name is Wadu, the long

and put it in the tin or billycan and boil it.

Aboriginal name is Wadugarra. They give

Sometimes boil it in the bucket with warm

me that name from the hill Mt Lockyer.

water, then we’d mix it with cold water,

My language is Banyjima, I have three

because it was hot or sometimes we would

other languages but I stick to Banyjima.

just leave it out till it gets cold and we would drink that one down. We eat the

Growing up my aunty used to show us bush medicines. [She would say], this plant

fruit too and use as a medicine to drink, or wash our sores and things.

is for sores, have a wash with that plant you know they boil it and wash it, could

We used to go out as kids, go out, pick

be for itch, you know when you get itchy,

our own bush fruit. We used to pick wild

could be for sores, there’s quite a few bush

orange, summer time when the flowers

medicine plants like that.

come out, that’s the time when they grow, you know. I’ve forgotten the Aboriginal

When we were young we would drink the jilburdu, its like a passionfruit, but they grow in a prickly bush tree, they are very sharp things. We used to have that. Our aunty used to make that when we get sick, Aunty used to go out bush and get some

name. We pick them off the tree and we suck the seed you know, and we used to eat that skin part, like you’re eating a mango. We used to have that quite a lot. We’ve got some at the block. We used to eat from the mulga tree, I forgot the name, 104

Remember me

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

105

Portulaca conspicua (Portulacaceae) Collected in Yinhawangka country. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

Remember me

ngaburda I think we call them, we used

out. Chop them up and get all the honey

We’d catch the truck, asbestos truck. We

to fill the tin up, it’s a little fruit from the

out. We used to fill the tin up. We would

used to jump in that. When it was empty

tree. The snakewood tree we get a gum,

share the honey. We used to mix the

and we would sleep in the back. When we

we cook that, boil it and put a bit of sugar,

honey with the guna (waste), you know

go back to school, we had to catch it when

sweeten it and we used to suck it then.

the white yellow guna. Mix that up, its

it was loaded, so we would sit on top of

Mix them up and put it in a ball you know,

lovely. The guna, its a yellow one. I guess

the asbestos. If you see some bush fruit we

and stick on the stick and lick it. There are

the bees must have put it there, it’s not

would get off and pick some.

two lots of gum tree, you see the gum tree

the bees, its little ones [like little balls].

along the side of the park [in town]. [You

They make a noise too, you see them

see it] in summer time.

flying around, you know there’s a honey in there. They get in and out, you know,

In those early days, I might not have been around then, they [old people] used to trade, like, spears and boomerangs, you know how they used to make it, and they trade it in, for, might be flour, tea

in and out, go in there, stop at some things there, you know, sweet things. The yellow [things], that’s a guna we call them, we used to mix it up you know, its lovely, it tastes lovely.

young leaf of the gum tree, if they got a

Bush medicine woman taught me a few

cold they would boil that young leaf and

more things you know, because we went

drink that for medicine for a cold. And

to school learning the English, learning

honey from the tree - that’s good for a

the white fella way. We used to go back

cold. And good for eating too! I used to live

holidays again bush, and start all over

with my daughter’s father, he used to take

again learning, but we still remember,

my kids out when they was little then,

when you go back bush.

my children, we used to walk, he used to come down and kids there waiting for him to fill the tin up. He used to climb up like a monkey! Kids waiting there, my children, my boys.

[The people with bush knowledge] learn it from their Elders, they got taught by them. They learn and they teach others. Like her now, Bush Medicine woman, she been teaching quite a few young people, young and old.

You chop the tree down first, and the tree would fall down and he get down, and chop the tree then, where the bees come

road to Tom Price along the side of the road. They have thick leaves and they call it nhirdi. Its good for kids when they get sores, colds, bathe them with it. [It’s important for kids to learn] so they won’t lose it, so they can teach their generation and their little ones. But

and sugar and all that. Old People use the

climb up the tree, and chop the tree, and

[There are plants that] you see along the

I remember I used to go back to Mulga Downs from the school from Roebourne.

107

lately, well, I’ve never been out bush, I would love to take my grandchildren out, especially summer time when bush fruits are out. I’ll show them trees when we go along, when we’re travelling on that road. I’ll have to go back again out bush I think!

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

108

Remember me

Julie Walker, project participant, in the Pilbara, 2015. Photograph by Rhianna Pezzaniti, 2015.

109

Remember me

Film frames by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

J u l i e Wa l k e r We used to come down to the river

My Aboriginal father worked around

our camp. We used to have a corroboree

the Ashburton River basin area at the

and dancing at a place further up the

station, his whitefella or station name

bank. It has changed now. There used

was Ashburton Tommy. The Ashburton

to be two separate pools, one side is this

River is known as the Mindurra to

yinda side, and we wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go there, used

Aboriginal people. Mindurra flows all the

to swim and fish over the other side near

way through to the Onslow coast. The

the old bridge. Catch gulhamba (fresh

Seven Mile Creek (Binbidnha) further up

water trout) and binhthara (fresh water

near Paraburdoo flows into this river as

eel). Fresh water eels live in the mud.

does Turee Creek (Thurri) and the Angelo River (Yirdibirdi) at the top end (Gubawara). These names are all in the Yinhawangka language. You can see little nyimari finches around here - there is a story that said if you see a nyimari, water will be close. The river used to run flowing, nearly every year, but this is the first time, in a long time that there has been an

But the river has changed and you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see fresh water eels anymore. Old people used to make nets to catch the eel from grasses, they would knit it like a netting and would stand up with a net on one side and then they would rattle the net and put their spears into the net. At Seven Mile they used to catch bony fish, there was a big mob of bulrushes which they would

ongoing flow.

use to trap them up. They would train We used to come down to the river during

up the young people to use spears in the

time off when we lived on the Ashburton

water, they used to use those bulrushes

Downs Station as its just a little way from

now [to trap the fish] to spear them fishes.

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Film stills by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Remember me

Also, they used to grind up a grass that

Secret Creek but it doesn’t come down this

flower. Clears the head when you have a

became like a soap and this would stun

far. There are two different sorts of sweet

headache, cold or congestion.

them [the bony fish] with a poison, they

potato, one with the purple flower and one

would peel the grass and use the stem part

that is a more brown and yam like.

When we were children, we learnt to look for a certain, smoky tree as that’s

which would be ground on a large rock. On the bank of the river you see tea tree

where we’d know there was a soak with

The plants that people use up and down

as well, which, was ground and boiled for

clean drinking water. We’d bring a billy

the river that I remember are the bajila

medicine, mainly to bathe in and smell the

to collect the clean water which would be

tree as it grows everywhere and is the

steam, as it clears the nasal and sinuses

approximately four feet down, at first it

main food for the bush turkey. It is green

and is good for colds and respiratory

looks soapy and you’d dig until the water

and shaped like a football, but when ripe

problems. Mum used this when it’s cold to

is clean, then let it refill for the morning.

turns yellow and the flesh is red, you can

wash sheets and blankets for us kids so we

The soil acts like a filter.

put the whole thing in your mouth, but

have a good sleep, because the smell stays

you don’t eat the seeds, you spit them

in the blanket. They would boil it in the

out. Turkeys eat the whole thing because

old boiler at the station with the wooden

you can see the seeds in their stomach

heater. Boiled up babies’ clothes as well if

when you open them up. To trap a bush

they had a cold.

Just up from the Ashburton River bank is where my Grandfather is buried. He passed away on Christmas Day in 1965. We made a stretcher with two sticks and a blanket, then buried him under a

turkey the old people would dig a hole They used the leaf mainly and the new

willow tree. We cut his hair and used this

growth where it is still soft because it is

as a spinning jenny to spin the hair and

easier to smash and grind it up. They used

wrapped it round a spear and sent his hair

this for the bough shed too, as the gum

back to Yinjibardi country and buried the

tree leaf gets dry too quickly and this is

hair there. The spinning jenny is made

When I was growing up here bajila was

not spinifex country, so they would make

from a plant with a yellow flower, it looks

the main bush fruit around the Mindurra

it with tea tree. It would help to keep the

like a cross, one stick is long and another

river, but occasionally you might get bush

shed cool; they would put a pipe up the top

one is shorter and they spin it and it

honey marliya or jandaru. Old brother

with holes and the water drips down.

makes the hair belt. In those day, people

underneath the tree, make a grid on top with sticks and cover this with a light wind grass – then the bush turkey will fall into the hole.

Kooline Mick used to ride on horseback to the Angelo River at the Wanyanha Junction to collect bush honey and bring it back. You still can see the scar tree from where he got the honey. Another place some way from here is Secret Creek, which used to be a secret army camp near the Beasley Pinnacles. This is the place where the gulyu sweet potato grows. There is a big plantation of gulyu down by

just got buried where they passed away. We would get the mardawud sap from the paperbark and some gum trees over on the other side of the bank. Some people drink this for when they are not well, like an aspirin, it thins peoples blood. We never went to the doctor when we was little, just grew up with bush medicine. Jami is a plant also used for bush medicine for colds and sinus problems and is really strong and sticky, it has a little purple

113

Mum and my aunties got his body ready for burial, rub him with red ochre, wash his body, and wrap him like a mummy in a sheet. The grave has to be clean all the time, so when people walking along and see something in the clearing they know that it is probably a grave. They also have to be under the shade of a tree, or in a malu.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

june i nj i e Our mothers are our teachers

Wandayiny – makes the womens juna or wanu (womens fighting stick), it’s a big thing! I used to see my grandmothers having a hit with that thing every morning. And I used to sit there watching and thinking "what are they doing?". I was thinking they are going to hurt each other with that thing, but nothing, they just tap

We are part of the Yinhawangka, but

one another with the stick.

our apical ancestors Jarndunha, mum’s yayu great, great grandmother. Her

In the past they don’t burn spinifex. They

grandmother’s grandmother. Her

got mina the spinifex glue for artefacts and

grandmother’s name was Tharndayinha -

fighting sticks, everything what they need

Mum’s Ganthayi and Mum passed all her

to make they use that glue from the spinifex.

knowledge to us, so we have everything. Our mothers are our teachers and my mother was also our best friend. In our family there is no fighting, no anything, we come from a close, big family and that’s the way our Mum wanted us to be and that’s exactly the way we teach our kids, our sons and daughters.

Mum used to make a little table, keep me off the ground, away from snakes, it was made of wood, one of the things women can do, its long and hollow, just the right size for baby to carry under the arm. Dig it out and carve it out. Women make from the wood of the Marralha trees to make a mirrurdu – baby crib, you look for a dried old tree trunk or

Marruwa – is the snakewood tree, that

hollow log and you chisel it out and make

marruwa tree that give us the bush lolly

the crib long for the baby. Good to teach

we also use it for fire wood and artefacts

young women; then they know what tree

and the leaf give us junba. We need a

they talking about.

resource centre for people to make all the artefacts and we can do the woman’s side of things. Only a handful of them [boys] know how to make them magurndu or that punishment spear, most of those artefacts, are listed as weapons because they are very dangerous to use on one another now, and only certain boys got that.

114

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

118

Remember me

Film frames by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

lo r r a i n e i nj i e The Jibalarda

In our Yinhawangka culture we have jibalarda sites which mean to drive, or to create an abundance of. This is the story about the Baby Thalu. This is the Bibi Tree. That Marralha (River) gum tree is a Jibalarda.

to visit and to make their request. Even when my mum was alive she brought a couple of women that couldn’t have babies to this tree and they ended up having kids. This is a really old tree and normally only the women would come here. Babies and child birth are women’s business - there are a lot of things that my mum and my

The Jibarlada Garndi or Baby Thalu site is

grandmother taught me about women’s

a woman’s place that is very spiritual. It is

business.

here along the banks of the Beasley River. The women that wanted to have babies

We found some old grinding dishes

came here to visit the Baby Thalu which

when we visited before, and we believe

is an old Marralha (river gum) tree. A long

the spirits of the old people were happy

time ago, the old people used to come here

that we came to visit, so they gave us the

to wake up the babies, they say they could

grinding dish as a gift. There are many

hear the babies crying, it was alive with

species of the gum tree; the Wilhu (white)

their spirit. They hit the tree with small,

gum, the Mayigam snappy gum and the

leafy branches.

river Marralha red gum, we boil the leaves and drink it as tea.

The old ladies would walk up to the tree; they would hit the tree with leaves and talk in language, saying they have come

119

Jibarlada Garndi, Baby Increase site, Photograph by Sharmila Wood 2015.

Film frames by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Trianthema oxycalyptrum (Aizoaceae) Star Pigweed Collected in Yinhawangka country. Photograph detail by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

124

Remember me

Marnmu Smyth My auntie was a bush medicine woman, she had this suitcase that we weren't allowed to touch. I was born in Windmill Outcamp called

passing that knowledge, and she do that

Marnmu-nha, my skin colour is a Milangga

still, like the bush medicine jirrbirliny -

and Badjarri in Banyjima and I have

since I’ve been in the block we still use

connection to Yindjibarndi and Ngarluma

the bush medicines, we still like eating

family. I grew up with mum here before

the bush fruit, the bush mandu we’d

my young brothers come along, and

rather live off that than in the shop. We

she would show me bush medicine and

did a lot of walking around, so mum here

bush tucker, which, she was taught by

continues to pass on the knowledge what’s

her mother. We used to live out bush

on Country about family, and connection.

at Wirndamarra where we would walk to Wittenoom and walk back. Been everywhere with Mum 1Bonny in the Nyiyaparli Country, she was talking about how her mum been teach her knowledge about the plants and the fruits, she also taught me and my old sister. We used to walk around out bush, getting fruit, like sweet potato. In Cowra, old girl used to take us and dig up sweet potato, she was

We were all born to a skin colour and that is how we are related to one another and that skin colour governs us, how we behave and how we relate to one another. We come from one language group, when we go for ceremonies, or when I used to work for Wangka Maya when I used to go out to Jigalong, they’d know the family name, you’d tell them the family name, tell them skin colour, what I used to find

125

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

all the time, those ones that were our

had measles one time, we was in Mount

always yarning at night, mum and aunty

marrugu or our mangkalyi line, the ones

Florence Station then, my aunty Elsie

used to be signing all the time, barlgabi and

you can’t talk to, wrong skin colour, they

Timothy was a kaparlkarra (musterer’s

it was quiet, then we hear the bird, I think

used to get up and go, the one’s that used

cook) so she used to make Christmas

we must have been on our own there. I

to be still sitting in the room I can talk free

pudding, thruppence and sixpence. Once

think the men were mustering, that’s why

then.

we were having Christmas in Mount

we were on our own in the camp. Then

Florence and I ended up with measles.

wind start, my aunty says, "c’mon we

They had dome huts, and my auntie used

better move inside, something coming". So

to tell me "you gotta go inside sit inside

we went all inside, locked up in the house,

until the sun go down", I was thinking,

she’d give us a running commentary. We

how this old girl know about measles - it

had two kangaroo dogs at that time and

was because the light would make you

we had to tie them up in the front of the

blind or something.

verandah, in front of the room and old girl

With the flora and fauna, we’re related to all of them through the skin colour. When I was born, my mother been eat a marandu, gurrumanthu that was the last thing she been eat before I was born so the goanna is my malyi my totem. We have to respect the malyi relationship. A

would tell us, "oh, bad thing was coming",

lot of the mob they might have a goanna

But my aunty now, my Dad’s sister, she

malyi, or some might be a turkey, they

gave us our language names, she called me

not supposed to eat them, some say, we

Yilybayinypangu cut short to Yilybayiny,

eat a little bit it makes me sick, or some

and Wadu name is Jilybayinypangu, there

don’t eat it at all. The skin colour is very

is a place with these two names up on

significant, it governs how we interact and

top of the the Karijini Ranges. She was

relate to everything, to people and plants.

like a medicine woman, she used to have a suitcase and she used to tell us never

We would be taught by being taken out on Country, getting involved and participating, it was oral, being in it, living in it, you can’t learn it from a book. One minute you are little, sitting on dad’s lap, listening to stories, and singing. There comes a time when that is finished and my aunty then took responsibility for us girls, growing us up, plus we lived out bush, being out bush on Country, actually going out and living is how we learnt. Growing up, my aunty used to bathe us in bush medicine when we had sores. We grew up pretty healthy, living off the Country living in the Country. I

you know, and , the two kangaroo dogs barking, going really silly, then she tell us, "oh it's gone now", whoever they was looking for, not here. Them two kangaroo dogs me and my thurdu Wadu would take them bush and they would get a kangaroo every round, then we would carry it back to camp.

touch it, so we never touched it, but she had all her stuff there. When I had

I don’t think you can learn those things

measles now I remember she getting a

from a classroom, so mum (Bonny) has

bag out of her little suitcase and she used

been part of my growing up and she

to run it over me, my whole body. I been

passing her knowledge about bush

wake up, I can’t remember how long I had

medicines and bush fruits on Country.

to sit in the dark all day, but I remember

It is very hard for kids in the classroom

it being before Christmas and her making

when we started going to school, when

the pudding, getting it ready with a

we was allowed to go to school, unless

threepence and sixpence inside. Then one

you go out bush you can’t learn in the

day, I woke up and it was all gone, I didn’t

classroom, even your skin colour, you

have the measles anymore.

learn that, and how you’re related to one another, so I teach my girls, even when

When we had bad luck there would be a certain bird that makes a noise. Mum and us was one time at Coolawanya Station,

126

they are little, they don’t understand what it actually means, I pass that knowledge to my daughters, I’m trying to teach

Remember me

my grannies now, they might have a

are in town, they’ve got other influences,

that, they used that as resources to make

hard time in school because they don’t

distracting our young people, like alcohol,

traps and it was a bit easier for them.

know English well. For me, Yindjibarndi

when it was introduced devastated our

Like tracking, old girl and aunty used to

and Banyjima my first languages. Also

people. There were few old people who

teach us how to track goannas, it was

Nyiyaparli language I was hearing, and I

stayed strong and never drank, a lot has

more the women who used to track the

had to learn English by correspondence. I

happened, you’ve got Native title, the

goannas and all the fruit and that. All our

started working, still studying externally,

native welfare protector, what they used

history, what belongs to us and where we

to learn English, even now, I’m still

to do with our old people, rounding them

belong is fast disappearing. You know,

learning English, I push myself to learn, so

up and the hard life and chaos they went

a lot of trouble in towns. The younger

I can write letters.

through. A lot of things has happened into

generation are missing out because its

the Pilbara with all our mob, but with law,

not often they come out, you know. Who

that keeps family’s connected and that’s a

can talk for Country that skin colour is

celebration of continued culture against the

very important, because it governs us and

obstacles and struggles, that is still strong.

our lives and how we go about our lives

All the mob from different places come

wherever we go.

It’s still relevant for our kids to know about plant knowledge. We’ve lost so many old people, we still got Mum (Bonny) passing that onto us, there’s going to be a time when we don’t have the old people passing it on, but its a responsibility and obligation we gotta pass that knowledge

where ceremonies are happening and part of ceremonies that we share and look after everyone.

on. If you don’t use it, you lose it, if you don’t maintain it, then it’s lost. Now that

On the station when they used to have

we’ve got our Wirrilimarra community we

sheep, they’d save all the sheep fat in a milk

have come full circle and learning can still

tin, that’s for all the families when we go,

go on, because you got the bush plants

you know yiwa, jurnba. Mum and aunty

and medicine, still there, we go hunting,

used to fill milk tins of that too and save

still cooking how we used to cook, mum

it if we went to Roebourne, there were

still sings barlgabi, my brothers, they’ve

gifts. The old people were very sensitive

been around home and singing barlgabi.

to the signs like that bird, we’ll be getting

I grew up with mum here, aunty and the

a wangga, we’ll be getting bad luck, next

two fathers, they used to sing barlgabi

minute we’d be packing up and going to

every night, that’s the music I grew up

Roebourne, because bad luck. Those gifts

with - with my old people singing. Even

they used to save them. When shooting

though we grew up on a station, we

a kangaroo, the old man used to shoot

did those things as part of learning, we

it, and he would signal that it’s a fat one,

still was learning what belonged to us,

and we were all happy, we survived off

we still had our old people, the young

the fat. It was a lot harder to get murla/

people now because of mining, access to

mandu for the old people when stations

2. Murla is a Yindjibarndi word for mandu

Country I don’t know what the future

started happening wires started and all

3. Banyjima people also say manggalyi

for the young generation holds, they 127

1. Yiwa is a Yindjibarndi word for jurnba

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Nancy Tom my I remember my mum and dad rubbed me down with bush medicine

My language group is Gubuwarra Mindara Yinhawangka. My English name is Salene Nancy, my Aboriginal name is Bimbalyurra - it comes from a song

season calendar you’ve got your Spring,

Old people used to trade bush tobacco. In

about this time, when we was out on

one of the CD's, my mum names the bush

the station, is when the Country starts

tobacco, but that’s a name that’s never

warming up and the plants are dying

been used for so long, it’s a word that’s

because the heat is coming up, you can’t

forgotten. I know they used to trade, Mum

get them in winter time, because they are

used to always talk about it. They come

When we were young we’d eat bush

still growing and it’s too cold. When the

and give something, such as the tobacco,

tucker all the time. We would eat yam,

Country start warming up a bit and no

and the sea people would bring seafood,

gugatharri, they got purple flowers, they

rain, that’s when the flowers are dying,

shells, or something. Bush potatoes and

grow in the bush, you pick it when the

they are going out of season, as soon as

things they would trade across Country,

flower starts dying. They call part of it the

the flowers are dead, you can tell most of

in some place you can’t get those wild

mara (hand) got to see how big their leaves

the bush tucker is ready to harvest. But

oranges, so they would have traded with

bloom out. You know when to pick it

those white things off the gum tree, them

us, with different tribes. I don’t see the

when the flower starts dying out, and the

little sweet marlbanunku, we used to get it

bush bananas growing here (Karratha) I

hand, we call it the mara because it’s like

in the school too, me, my cousin and that

see it a lot on my Yinhawangka Country at

a palm, and then you have the stem and

one that just passed away, we used to try

Ashburton Downs station and Kooline, on

a purple flower. As a kid we used to eat

and sneak it in the school yard, because

the bank of the Ashburton River.

the jiburda, wira (bush banana), gajawari

we weren’t allowed to break plants but

(wild orange), sweet potato, yindal, and the

we used to try and sneak a few off a time

Growing up on the banks of the

normal potato itself gulyu.

from the leaf while we’re playing and

Ashburton River (on Yinhawangka

trying to dodge from getting in trouble. I

Country) where I mainly found my bush

used to always try and dodge the teacher.

tucker binthara that’s the fishes, binthara,

My old people and Nannas would tell me when to pick them. If we go to the four-

is a freshwater eel, gajawari is that catfish

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Kartajiparra Tribulius suberosus (Zygophylaceae) Cork Hopbush Collected in Yinhawangka country. This plant is used to help catch fish. The plant is squashed with a rock and thrown into the water and it makes the fish dizzy and stunned so that you can jump in the water and collect the fish. If you boil the plant in water and bathe in it, kartajiparra can also help heal sores. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

and gulhamba is those little bony breams,

I can still picture my dad getting that tree

they call it milinyja in Roebourne. Ngarglu

when I was young, being a skinny kid and

they call it here, but me and my cousin

undernourished I used to always be sick,

call it bardunya, that’s a wild onion I think.

little things I’d catch. Sometimes, they give

Gums, ngarrgalha.

me the jilarn now, the nhirdi, sometime they just boil the gum leaves, the fresh,

I remember my Mum and Dad rubbed me down with bush medicine. We used to get oiled down with emu fat mixed with red ochre to keep strangers away. If you are getting into strange Country that is like a spiritual protection for us, keep us from

eucalyptus smell, you can’t get them old leaves, you have to get the new shoot leaves. I can remember my dad boiling that and washing my head, even bathing me with it. I got rubbed in emu oil and red ochre, and the cork tree.

getting hurt by somebody else’s Country, or the devil, or something they call it. Me

These days I just can’t get to the bush

and my brother and sister Julie and my

medicine. A couple of times I went

youngest one who is in Jabagurru now

surveying and found a bush banana but it

ngarrigu there with mum, our old Yayu,

was dry and not good to eat. I go out at the

Topsy, Michelle Hubert’s grandmother

wrong time, not like if you were actually

used to always rub us down with the red

there and on Country, when it was the

ochre so we won’t get hurt even if we sick,

season. I used to eat it plentifully, but

they cure us with the red ochre to settle

now living in town I just don’t have the

the temper down. Grind charcoal, paint us

opportunity to go out there no more, at

black, not only charcoal, we have this tree

the right time.

they call the gadanyba and they burn the bark out of it, then mix it with the good ol’ emu oil again, no matter how stinking the emu oil was, they still painted us with it. In summer times it was like a sun tan lotion, to protect us from the heat when

A couple of times at school holidays we only used to go two times on break, and Christmas, New Year holiday then we have a middle term. July/August was plentiful then, then December ones for the gums, like the gardangu, the summer

we was little.

foods, it was good time then. These days,

132

Remember me

wherever I go, I think the iron ore dust

say, boys who have been through law, but

to be silly enough to go there and get shot.

or something is killing the bush foods

now, I don’t know.

The mining company owns the Country

because I am pretty sure about bardunya, wild onions, buffalo grass took over that and we can’t find it anymore, can’t dig it, no matter where I go, on the bank of the river I cannot find a wild onion without getting touchy for a snake because of the buffalo grass, it is thick now, so is the bullock poos and everything. Not even our good water holes where you can dig up a soak on the Ashburton River, we are forever going out there, we don’t use the main pool for water, we dig the yurrama, you always got to make a soak and drink clean water, not out of the pool.

now, nobody else does. Well, that’s the Sometimes, I used to go with my old great aunty, my Yayu Binbara, a Yinhawangka woman and Gaju Baguda they used to dig wild potato themselves and I would stand there watching. They don’t tell me, it’s

old Tilly used to go digging up bardi (witchetty grubs.) I used to follow her too and that is where I used to dig my bardis, witchetty grub because I am not supposed to use that name, bardi. You got to say jugari or bring out another name; it’s getting more difficult for me because you’re not allowed to say it. I could still dig a bardi out of the ngularnan tree because we could only eat a bardi out of a nugarlanan tree, we can’t get a bardi that’s in a gum tree that is for boys they

where I’m from won’t grow here around Karratha. I did try with the bush banana, but it didn’t grow. I think the soil is no good.

look and learn, it’s not listen and learn, with us you have to actually look what

When I got into the hostel it was a diet

they doing. They show you, even with

change in my whole body and I think

digging the wild potato. They’ll tap it there

that’s where I became sick, if I balanced all

and you got to hear the different sound of

this I wouldn’t have had this heart attack

it on the ground. To me it was a difficult

and I wouldn’t have been as big as I am

lesson because I don’t know what I was

today. If I had stayed on traditional land,

trying to listen for, just watching and

eaten traditional food, I reckon I wouldn’t

trying to lean.

have had this diet problem. I reckon

I learnt about bush foods from watching my old people. My old blind grandmother

way I see it. The plants from up that end

today’s young generation, should at least I liked all my foods jiburda, wira, bardunya, marlbanunku, gajawari. Bush banana is my favourite, it used to be so plentiful a long time ago, you don’t have to eat them raw, you can cook it in the ground. I think that is the best food. Then again I used to like my gum too, and wild potatoes. I think I like all of my food! And now I crave for them, I know I cannot get it. I don’t go back to collect bush foods, not with the mining company sign saying Private Property. Keep out. I am not going

133

have a little knowledge of the bush foods, but I would rather my grannies have a full knowledge of it and that would help them.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

134

Remember me

Film frames by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Roma Butc h e r and doreen James Around this place and across the Pilbara are lots of mulla mullas; that is our totem. It’s our relation. Roma: I am a Yinhawangka elder and my

lot of our plants as well. So for instance

mari (sister) is Doreen James. I live in

wherever there is a marruwa snakewood

Paraburdoo which we call Birrubardu.

tree you look around and find the yardirri bush because they are companions. .

Doreen: Birrubardu is the parson’s nose of a bird which is birru and bardu is the

Roma: There is a place on the Paraburdoo

feathers.

to Tom Price road that we call nhirdi corner because this is where nhirdi

Roma: So we say Birrubardu is tail feathers and the white fellas call it Paraburdoo. Doreen: Around this place and across the Pilbara are lots of mulla mullas; that is our totem. It’s our relation. Roma: We are related through our galharra, skin group. We are related to a

135

normally grow. You will also find a lot of marruwa snakewood trees as nhirdi are always growing with the snakewood trees. Doreen: Old people cook up the marruwa, burn 'em for ashes and put it in the tobacco to make it a burlgu. They make boomerangs out of them.

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

Roma: There is another little bush food

also used to start them. Our old people tell

food, when she used to get sick she’d go

that grows under the marruwa snakewood

us the Country used to be flat, it wasn’t

out bush and get the bush medicines. She

tree, the barrier salt bush is also a

bushy Country like this, because at season

died of old age.

companion plant for marruwa.

time they burnt. But everybody moved away in the 40s and 50s and everything

Roma: This bush medicine now, you can use it for sores and drink like a tea and this one is the same. The jilarnba has a bigger leaf and this one is for external use. We normally use this for soap and stuff,

just went wild out here, and everywhere for that matter, because Government made it compulsory for us to go to school. But they didn’t understand we were already at school in the bush.

when you squeeze jilarnba it smells strong. It was all flat. The old people kept it nice Doreen: It depends on what season it is. Sometimes it’s really strong and sometimes you don’t smell it. Roma: It can be really dry. Doreen: You can smell a gajawari for miles. They are our oranges, old people used to get the biggest. You got to race the birds, mainly the 28 parrots. When it ripens up, it smells sweet.

and clean; they used fire. We also have bush animals living on these plants so they need it too. Roma: Growing up we used to eat lot of bush foods. When we were on Sheila Plains - which used to be the outcamp for Wyloo we used to dig the yams like a sweet potato. It used to be in the marndangarli – hills, we’d climb the hills and we’d dig them out, it would be hard

Roma: Gajawari is found around Tom Price

work. We would find a jandaru in trees in

area. They flower, then when the flower

the wilhungarli or in the bunangu trees. It

dies the fruit comes up. Everything

used to supplement us because we only

flowers, after the big rain. Gajawari is

had tea, flour, sugar.

found around Paraburdoo in the flats.

Doreen: If ever we go back to the old

Roma: Everything flowers, after the big

way, we’d survive and I teach that to our

rain. When you are sowing the seeds, you

granddaughter.

have to burn it first. This germinates the seed.

Roma: We have a 70,000 year old history. What did they do before the Europeans

Doreen: Just like the emu gotta eat that

arrived? Well we went out into nature’s

seed first to digest it and then break

garden, we were hunters and gatherers.

it down and poo it out. The bush fires

My old Aunty who was in her 70s wasn’t

happen naturally through here but people

diabetic because she lived on the bush

136

Ptilotus obovatus (Amaranthaceae) Cotton Bush Collected in Yinhawangka country. Photograph by Bewley Shaylor, 2016

K u r l k ay i m a N g at h a

138

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

ISBN

FORM gratefully acknowledges the contribution and support of the following

978-0-9944727-0-0

Kurlkayima Ngatha - Remember Me partners and individualsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Principal partner, BHP Billiton for their support that underpins FORM's work in

Published by FORM

the Pilbara. To IBN Corporation in particular the support of the IBN Board and CEO Tony McRae. We also extend our gratitude to Gail Carnes; Halloway Smirke; Jaylan

Curator: Sharmila Wood Environmental Scientist: Rhianna Pezzaniti Production: Sean Byford Anthropologist: Andrew Dowding

Smith; Linguist Annie Edwards-Cameron for her assistance with translation and language and Lorraine Injie in her role as Lore and Culture Officer. We'd also like to thank all of those who contributed to Fiona Foley's installation,

Linguist: Annie Edwards Cameron

including Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Clinton Walker and Ngurrangga Tours and

Cultural Advisor: Brian Tucker

Curtis Taylor.

Lore and Culture: Lorraine Injie

Brian Tucker for his advice, song and cultural knowledge. Publication designed by Folklore Storytelling & Viet Nguyen Printed by Scott Print

Steve Dillon from the Western Australian Herbarium for his assitance with plant identification. Most importantly, we thank the Yinhawangka, Banyjima and Nyiyaparli people for sharing their memories, experience and knowledge of bush tucker and bush plants.

Project initiated and managed by

Principal Partner

Project Partner

Regional Partner

Supporting Partners

With support from the Western Australian Herbarium, Department of Parks and Wildlife.

Film still by cinematographer Giovanni C. Lorusso in the Pilbara, 2015.

Senna glutinosa subsp. pruinosa (Fabaceae) Collected in Banyjima country. Photograph detail by Bewley Shaylor, 2016