house, dwelling place – bimbal, ganya When we arrived to make Prosperous our home once again, before the whirly-whirly arrived and stayed, the ancestors would walk with me for hours down along the riverbank. I listened and looked carefully. And they tried to show me things while I was working the field, they’d run alongside the stump-jump plough, pointing things out, but I was busy a lot of the time. Once they showed me the houses that used to be in Massacre Plains, how they were round, made from the red stringybark – gundhay. How the wood was easy to handle, how the roofs were reinforced with clay mouldings and gum branches. We had a home, they tried to show me. A real bimbal.
husk, of seeds – galgan All life comes from the seed – yurbay. When you harvest you make sure you keep your husks safe. There are companies like the mining company trying to own the seeds. This is a scary thing to me, people trying to put a price on the farmers’ seeds. In Mexico, in India, everywhere crops are grown – even in this very country there’s a monopoly of bad guys trying to own the seeds. Can you imagine! Owning the centre of life, one company!
hunt – barra-winya The women would collect berries while the men hunted for kangaroo in the mornings. After they had dealt with the catch they’d take some fat of the animal and go hunting again for the sugarbag. First they’d find the honeybee on the purple flowers, gently they’d catch one and with a hair from the hunter’s head, slid through the animal fat and then he would entwine the hair around the end of the bee. They’d let the honeybee – ngarru go and follow him, as he became heavy and stressed. The first place he’d want to go like that would be home, and so the hunters would follow and were always led to the sugarbag hidden in the tree.
gaol, shut place – ngunba-ngidyala When your own daughter and then your grandson get put in gaol it must make the family look like trouble, I’m sure. But it isn’t so simple. Both Jolene and Joey made mistakes but the punishments outweighed the crimes. As much as the government wants to convince the population otherwise, it is an old thinking – locking us up as a solution. I think in this country there are divisions that run further than the songlines. The closed place, the shut place – the ngunba-ngidyala – is first built in the mind, and then it spreads.
geebung – bumbadula This is a magic tree. The wood of the stem of a young tree is shaved and mixed with breastmilk for use as eyewash to treat conjunctivitis in babies. The unripe fruit are also used to treat burns, scratches and rashes and the ripe flesh around the seeds is eaten straight from the tree. The ancestors even used the bumbadula to make dye to colour baskets. The older, hard fruits are roasted and cracked, and the nut inside is eaten. Doesn’t that one sound magic to you?
granddaughter – garingun My poor, darling garingun, there is no love stronger. It’s there forever. I’m so sorry for her. I’m so sorry, my biggest regret is that I let her down. That will be the heaviest thing I carry with me for all time.
grey shrike thrush – yurung The yurung is a warning bird. When he calls, bad news is coming. Small and grey. He tilts his head high when he has news, his throat drops, his sharp beak points to where the news needs delivering. The call, you’ve probably heard too, it goes coo, coo, coo, coo followed by a trilling and then a final, rising cooee. Hold fast to your affairs then. The yurung, no matter how cute, gentle and delicate looking he is, only brings darkness. He visited me often.
fish – guya The old Reverend in his notes, he wrote down cooyah – but the word comes from further back in the mouth, guya.
fishing – ngalamarra If the water comes back to Murrumby, and the fish too, the best way to catch a fish is with patience. Ngalamarra – there’s two types, saltwater and freshwater, running water and still. There’s still saltwater too – in the estuaries on beaches, but I only know freshwater. Only still freshwater now, but the river! The songlines of our ancestors follow water like markers on a highway. Many fish are endangered now, don’t take the perch, don’t take the grayling, no freshwater cod from up north, no gudgeon, no jollytail. Never buy fish from the food mart, or the restaurant, or Nemo’s fish and chip shop in town. You want to eat it? You catch it! Everyone should learn four things – how to ngalamarra, how to love someone boundlessly, how to grow your own vegetables, and how to read. The patience for ngalamarra, respect for loving, the soil for gardening and a dictionary for reading.
flour made from millet seed – buwu-nung, dargin When the millet plant is late flowering and the seed heads have turned golden brown, then you can cut the heads off and save the mature seeds for planting again – these are the swollen ones and will come away easiest from the cluster. The rest of the seed head needs to dry in the sun for a few days, and then the seeds should fall away easily. Next grind the seed as fine as you like, you can grind them rough for porridge or into bawu-nung for making bread. This is our harvest, since forever.
flower, a kind of flower – bagabin, narranarrandyirang The banksia flower is my favourite, not just because it’s large and proud looking like the hibiscus, but because it reminds me of something bigger. See, the banksia is a tough-looking flower but it still protects itself with sharp, jagged leaves, sturdy wood and roots. Its nectar feeds the bees, the birds and us people. When the flower finishes its cycle its pods burst open and seeds are released, and the cone will fall from the branch. Now the cone has two uses, one it can start a fire very well and keep it going like a piece of coal; the other thing it can be used for is to filter water, it’ll run right through it.
forbid to tell a thing – walan-buwu-ya-rra This word literally translates to ‘strong-law speaking’ and the ancestors told me that it is as serious as scripture. There were things they showed and told me that I was forbidden to tell to the wrong person. Some things are unspoken, and you carry them up until the end. That’s walan-buwu-ya-rra.
earth oven – gulambula The ancestors showed me how they cooked in the gulambula: first they dug a pit about a metre long and half a metre deep, making sure to get any clay out of the earth as they went. Then they filled the pit with firewood and then with the clay they collected, they rolled it into lumps and placed them on top of the firewood, as the wood burned the clay would dry and become very hot. After a couple of hours, the clay lumps were then taken out with sticks used like a pair of tongs and placed to the side, then the pit was swept out and lined with green leaves, some laid down the green grasses or green wood too, not dried. Quickly, a possum wrapped in paperbark was laid, covered by more green vegetation and finally the clay lumps were returned on top. All this was covered with the earth to make a nice, tight seal. When it was ready, they dug up the gulambula and then we ate the steamed dinner. Then we talked about the little things that are big things.
edible milky yam – murnong, bading In the old times, if you didn’t catch anything hunting or now if you are a vegetarian, this one is a good meat replacement. The murnong has the yellow, firework-shaped flower, and the tubers that grow under the ground you dig like carrots, and just the same way, you can eat them raw or cooked in the gulambula. They taste a bit sweet and a bit like coconut; murnong is very good food.
emu feet – nguruwinydyinang-garang Biyaami, or Baiame, has such feet – sometimes in my dreams I float around with useless hands and feet. Hands that won’t do the things I tell them to while I’m sleeping, and feet that won’t run fast enough to escape the bad guys. They might as well be flippers in sand then. Think about how impossible it is that a goanna looks like he does, and then look at your lover and wonder how they look the way they do. Now imagine the lizard in a rage, and then imagine your lover really angry. I reckon that it’s not so hard to imagine the blending of human and animal. We all come from the same soil. Well, Biyaami had emu feet, I don’t know why, they are as good a feet as any. I asked my ancestors and they said, ‘Little one, what does it matter? Some things just are.’