Moort-Nyanginy

Yey naardj?! Reciprocity and the old laws of giving. 20thOct 2008

There is a story about a Noongar called Steel Bullet.
The stories I heard about this old man with eyes - ngorpmin - like blood, who could shape shift wedjabin, yaakinabin an emu or dingo-becoming, concerned a man who it was said had killed the Noongar among him who refused to follow the old ways.
"And what was the old ways?"
I was always told he killed Noongar who refused to share.
Many of the stories I heard about Steel Bullet or Alex Bibarn concerned his meetings with Noongar who did not share their meat with him.
"Dartj ngany-yang" 'meat me-give' he had often been heard to say.
The story always identified with the Noongar protocol that had been broken, that to refuse a Noongar a portion of meat was the very worst of Noongar transgressions...
For my old teacher and his wife their fridge and food was always available, even if this was to leave them short...
It seemed they were unconsciously showing me one of the central tenets/components and social mores of their people, that to refuse another was inexcusable...
But then, I see, by welcoming another to their table or fire they also created an onus and expectation for the other to reciprocate.
"I have done this for you so that you too should do the same for me" I think was how this rule seemed to work.
I have no doubts that this was a significant rule, because I see now how it worked as the social glue that held Noongar networks together.
Reciprocity was the key, a given, that if broken meant that all other relationships were jeopardized.
Steel Bullet's ill-treatment of those whose interpretation of this rule differed to his own reflects how significant the rule of reciprocity was once perceived by the Noongar around him.
His stories were once well-known.
Individualism, a characteristic of present populations has meant that old ways of reciprocity have largely been ignored.
Together with the loss of the Noongar language the break down of reciprocity reflects the dynamic nature of a people struggling with the forces of the dominant society that sits all around them.
It would do all of us a great deal of good, I think, to see the worth of old Noongar ways.
In this generation of financial greed how are our actions any different to the kind of things that put Steel Bullet offside?
We need to return to the old social glue that if we share more the wealth we have amassed with our neighbours, perhaps we will succeed in sharing our stories too.
And perhaps in our sharing of stories, in making time to talk, we might also begin sharing the old language that carried such values of reciprocity: the Noongar mai.