Djidi Djidi

Gabrielle Pither

‘Chitty chitty…chitty chitty…chitty chitty.’

‘Gabby! Flat white with honey!’

‘Close to Me’ by The Cure drifts through the speakers as the coffee grinder whirrs. But all I hear is incessant chatter. The same succession of high-pitched whistling I’d been badgered by the last two Thursday mornings I was early enough for class to order a coffee.

‘Chitty chitty…chitty chitty…chitty chitty.’

What is he saying?

The way he so determinedly flits from side to side – it must be urgent. Tail wagging, just inches from me on the table, making abstract patterns around my laptop.

Djidi Djidi, or Chitty-Chitty, is the Noongar name for the Willy Wagtail, and according to Aboriginal dreamtime Chitty-Chitty is notorious for gossiping –a known eavesdropper (Collard, 2009). It’s like he can sense my curiosity. His little white eyebrows raised in stark contrast to his glossy black feathers, as if to say: ‘What do you know of my people?’

‘What do you know of this country you call home?’

The chatter stays with me all the way to the gallery. My gaze lands on the distinctive landscapes of the Australian bush. The Carrolup exhibition is on permanent display at the John Curtin Gallery. The vivid colours, bold lines, and Australian scenes are comfortingly familiar to me, the style so like the painting of the ‘Stirling Range’ that hangs in my parent’s entry way. I had seen those blue peaks everyday growing up when I looked through the kitchen window of our family farm in Ongerup. My home.

On paper, my Dad was born in Robertson, New South Wales. But Dad never spoke of Robertson – he spoke of wheat, machinery and cross-bred lambs, the aroma that always followed him in through the fly wire as he took off his dusty Akubra and wiped his hands on already grease stained trousers. He talked of our farm in Ongerup and the blue peaks in the distance.

My Mum was born in Armadale, Western Australia. My Grandad, every bit the well-spoken Brit – but with an affiliation for Australian botany – grew up eating Yorkshire pudding in England. My Nanny talked often of her childhood on Rokeby Road in Subiaco, Western Australia – a long way from her MacGregor name and tartan wearing ancestors.

Bella Kelly was born in Mt Barker, in the foothills of the Porongurups, not far from the Stirling Range (Davis, n.d.). Her family and ancestry an unwavering line of Australia’s first peoples – an undeniable connection to the land. Bella passed away the year I was born. There are seventy-nine years between us, and we are as different as the people we’d come from. Yet somehow my blue peaks were the same as Bella’s.

Bella’s Stirling Range painted a version of home for me that would never change. Sun drenched blue sky and white clouds lying atop the peaks. The pale blue hills in the distance, just a shade darker than the sky, the shape of a ‘sleeping lady’ (L. Dean, personal communication, May 10, 2018). Two large Wandoo Gums in the foreground, framing the bush land. Fine Mallee treetops and grey-brown trunks in the middle ground. Yellow soil, and the dark distinctive shapes of kangaroos meandering through, as if straight out of a dreamtime story. A bold black signature in the bottom right corner – BELLA KELLY.

The Stirling Range was Bella’s country. A proud Menang Noongar woman, she would have walked that bush, hunted, gathered, and told stories (L. Dean, personal communication, May 10, 2018). Stories that turned sorrowful when her first four sons were stolen and sent to Carrolup Native Settlement.

Unimaginable.

Yet fourteen years on she was awarded ‘the best painting by a coloured person’ at the Narrogin Arts Festival (Bella Kelly, n.d.). In the two years following her four youngest children were taken to Wandering Mission.

Unthinkable loss.

In 1972 her paintings were displayed at the ‘Gallery of Aboriginal Art’, and Bella Kelly is now thought of as the matriarch of the unique ‘Carrolup style’ (Bella Kelly, n.d.).

No matter the pain or the place, home is the blue peaks in the distance.

My Grandad used to take us on native orchid hunts through the bush in Ongerup. My two older brothers and I would war with each other through the low scrub, and it always came with bragging rights if you could find the rarest or most spectacular orchid of the season. Spotted electric purple petals with varying degrees of yellow and red outline – if Dame Edna was an orchid she’d be the ‘Queen of Sheba’. Thelmytra Variegata, as my Grandad would rattle off, was the crème de la crème of finds (Botanic Gardens & Parks Authority, 2021). We never could quite agree upon who found her first, and Grandad would just grin widely beneath his tweed flat cap as he shrugged his shoulders.

Grandad lost his battle with cancer in 2005. We lost our farm in Ongerup in 2007. The ‘Stirling Range’ now hangs in my parents’ entry way in Bowelling.

No matter the pain or the place, home is the blue peaks in the distance.

‘Chitty chitty…chitty chitty…chitty chitty.’

The same incessant chatter greets me as I exit the gallery. Somehow Djidi Djidi’s movements are less jittery, his eyebrows softer.

Some dreamtime stories say that the Djidi Djidi were once children who were turned into birds as punishment for their mischievousness (Collard, 2009). Some say Djidi Djidi lures children into the bush for the woodarjis (spirits), bouncing cheekily in front of you, tantalisingly close but just out of reach (Collard, 2009). Others tell the story of how Djidi Djidi proved that he was sharper than the eagle when he beat him in a race using only his smarts and cunning (Collard, 2009).

Djidi Djidi tells me: ‘No matter the pain or the place, home is the blue peaks in the distance’.

Djidi Djidi flits, bounces, and chatters until gazes meet. Until two people merge and see each other.

Bella Kelly. (n.d.). Biography http://www.bellakelly.com.au/biography.html

Botanic Gardens & Parks Authority. (2021). Orchid research breakthrough https://www.bgpa.wa.gov.au/about-us/information/news/2757-orchid-research-breakthrough Collard, L. (2009). Djidi Djidi, Wardong, Kulbardi, Walitj and Weitj: Nyungar Dream Time Messengers. Westerly. https://westerlymag.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/WesterlyVol.54Leonard-M.Collard.pdf Davis, A. (n.d.). The Art & Influence of Bella Kelly. Jakingka Aboriginal Art. https://japingkaaboriginalart.com/articles/art-influence-bella-kelly/ (L. Dean, personal communication, May 10, 2018)

Author’s note

This work is a response to the Carrolup Art Exhibition on display at the John Curtin Gallery. I was inspired my family’s painting by Aboriginal artist Bella Kelly, as well as my upbringing in country Ongerup – a childhood surrounded by the South-West Australian bush and Stirling Range.

Gabrielle Pither is a third year Professional Writing and Publishing student at Curtin University. Gabby also competes and coaches in equestrian eventing at a national level.

Gallery note

Bella Kelly (1915-1994) was a pioneering Noongar artist, who painted the landscapes of the Great Southern region demonstrating a strong connection to, and love of, Country. In her early works from the 1940s onwards she mainly used watercolours and gouache, but later used acrylics. The link to Carrolup comes through Bella’s sons from her first marriage who were taken from her and were at the Carrolup School at the same time as artists such as Alma Toomath (above). Many people believe that this influenced the style of painting that we would later refer to as the distinctive Carrolup style.