songlines – yarang gudhi-dhuray Means song having line and birrang-dhuray-gudhi means journey having song. These lines are our early map-making. They measure our places, our impossible distances and they are passed down through story songs and dances. The lines are there, but sometimes the gudhi is lost. The Gondiwindi lost the gudhi, only now it’s coming back to us again.
star constellation the Southern Cross – gibirrgan Sometimes only the women would come and collect me and we’d go and sit by the fire at the riverbank. They taught me how to count up to a thousand by counting the stars. First we’d start at the less bright ones, I’d count along my toes, count with each joint in my legs, then the brighter, those I’d count with arms, elbows, fingers, then the brightest with my face, tap tap tap on my nose, eyes, chin and ear all night. The brightest stars were gibirrgan – the constellation of the Southern Cross, which features on this country’s flag – it is made of five bright stars almost in a cross shape. The woman told me the story of gibirrgan once, and they’d begin the story with ‘When the world was young’: Nguwanda – a great leader of a tribe who had no sons but four beautiful daughters – was getting very old. He’d be leaving soon so he gathered his daughters together and told them he’d be going because he was at the end of his time, but he didn’t want to leave the daughters without protection because they had no brother to look after them. He said, ‘I want you to come live with me in the sky and I’ve talked to a clever and magic man and he is willing to help you all come live in the sky with me.’ When their father died they went to see the clever magic man, who was sitting by a fire braiding a long silver rope, plucked from the wiry silver hairs in his beard. When the daughters found out the only way to reach their father was to climb the rope to the sky they became even more scared. Eventually the silver-bearded man convinced them it would be safe and they reached the top of the rope and stayed with their father, who was the brightest star – Centaurus. The Seven Sisters are there too. The Greeks call them Pleiades and we call them Mulayndynang.
suicide – balubuningidyilinya We ran the karate here and the mothers’ group that turned into cooking classes; those young ones found something they cared for and that they were good at and could improve at. We tried to do something to keep the young ones busy. All the balubuningidyilinya is the old pain coming through. It breaks my heart.
rabbit, a wild – wadha-gung The problem was the rabbits, before myxomatosis got them. They were brought over by a grazier who thought he’d breed them for target practice on his station. He started with twelve pairs, and some rabbiters made a good living, but within a couple of years there were thirteen million of the buggers eating the seedlings and the crops and the native plants meant for the kangaroos, the bilbies and wallabies. Then they brought in the foxes to get the rabbits but instead they went for the native animals. They built the rabbit-proof fence from one end of the country to the other to keep the rabbits out of the ‘granary of the Motherland’. Too bloody late they’d built that fence.
raven, native – waagan, wandyu If you know Massacre Plains then I would bet you know the waagan or the wandyu. Everywhere you walk in this town or in the bush, you can be sure that he’s watching you – waiting for you to become food, maybe. On the farms when the ewes are giving birth you have to keep a close watch and get the lambs off the paddock. The raven will eat them as soon as they’re birthed otherwise. There’s a story I got told about Wahn the waagan when I was time-travelling way, way back then and how he liked to watch the pelican gangs. He sat outside a gang one day and waited and watched. After a while, an old pelican wandered out to ask Wahn what he was doing. Wahn said he was hungry, so the pelican went and talked to the elders of the group and they allowed Wahn to come and sit by their fire, and offered him a bit of food they had. After a while it was time for the pelicans to go and get more food for their babies nesting in the trees. Wahn wanted to eat the eggs of the pelican, but he found they were hatched already, so he put a spell on the tree and sent the branches high into the sky. The young cried out for food and when the pelicans came to feed them they had to climb the trees but couldn’t reach their little pelicans. From then on the pelicans keep their babies low and always keep their distance from Wahn – as do all the other birds. Well, I love the waagan and I think he got bad press in that story. The waagan has a crafty reputation but that doesn’t mean he’s evil. He doesn’t have many bird friends and he likes to be alone most of the time, but they are a faithful bunch. When they mate, they hold each other’s beaks like they are having a long kiss and when they are courting each other they interlock their feet midair. See, the raven he has his mate for life, and I think that’s a good thing – how waagan keeps his family together. That’s important.
respect – yindyamarra I think I’ve come to realise that with some things, you cannot receive them unless you give them too. Unless you’ve even got the opportunity to give and receive. Only equals can share respect, otherwise it’s a game of masters and slaves – someone always has the upper hand when they are demanding respect. But yindyamarra is another thing too, it’s a way of life – a life of kindness, gentleness and respect at once. That seems like a good thing to share, our yindyamarra.
rib – dharrar In the Book of Genesis 2:18–22 it says that woman was made from man’s rib. Elsie said, ‘That’s a load of bullshit.’ I laughed. In the end though, I came home to the Bible because it was my friend when I was a boy. Just the goodness in there, and the stories. I think I take the words where I want them to go. My ancestors’ stories and the Bible too. Anytime we argued in our marriage, she’d scream and point to her side, ‘I’m not your dharrar! You want a dharrar, get to the butcher!’ It’s a good insult that one, I hope we taught the girls that – not to be anyone’s rib.
river – bila Now you know where the word billabong comes from. From us. Everything comes back to the bila – all life, and with it all time. Our songlines originate there, our lives fed from there and it’s where our spirits dwell in the end. Even the Reverend was drawn to the river, there he recited Isaiah 44:3, For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. Can’t imagine how it hurts not to see that water come anymore.
queen bee, bee – darribun, ngaraang The ngaraang is in danger now, whole colonies are dying and the queen bee darribun is left, like on a chessboard, without any pawns, with all the worker ngaraang dying off. The bee puts off leaving the hive until later in their lives, when they are adults, because with less flowers it means collecting pollen is hard work for the bee, and many die of exhaustion before they make honey – warrul – and never return to the home. If the pesticides from the farms stress the hive or the bees while they are out foraging in a big sweep, they can die. This triggers a very fast, too-early maturation of the next generation of bees, and they leave the hive too early, before they’re ready, and a whole colony collapses. The Gondiwindi have been like that, scattered children without the thing that nourishes them, without a compass to get back home.
quiet place with many pretty flowers – girra-wiiny Keep your eyes peeled for wildflowers on country, like wild flax and yellow wattle bloom, and the orchids and lilies – that’s edible, they’re called dirramaay. They aren’t just for food and medicine, but their stems and leaves can be used for weaving baskets too. The flowers also tell us when other things are happening – like when the ngawang, the happy wanderer plant, flowers in purple then we know it’s a time when the fat guya can be caught in the rivers and the lakes.
pair, two – bula I was buried by scripture, but buoyed by hope, and so when we got our second spring, having two little daughters again in Jedda and August, we opened up Prosperous for all the people. The bula and I would go for long walks up to Kengal Rock. I’d explain how the old people walked up there through those same pastures, used their stone axe before white men brought their own metal axe, where lovers met and they left marks on the trees, or long round scars where they would chop into the bark of the tree, gently break it away and have a long, rounded dish for carrying baby. Or if the wood was strong enough, for digging roots and tubers of the plants. I’d lead them to the river to see where the old people fished and the rocks arranged on the bare river flat where irrigation was first made, and where the old people had fish traps. That’s what the old people ate – fish from Murrumby, mussels from Murrumby, crayfish and yingaa too. And they ate kangaroo grass from the plains – they ground up the seed and made their own bread and cake in the oven of the earth. They made bread and cake long before the wise Egyptians did. Bula would look up at me at those times, eyes wide, all the wonder in the world bustling in their minds. They are my fondest memories, showing bula what great people they come from long ago.
parent, to be like the parent – buwubarra Elsie and I got to buwubarra to those sweet bula.