Memory of the Skin of Earth

Art by Lindsay Harris

Memory of the Skin of Earth 6th Nov 2008
Last night I was invited by a friend, Lindsay Harris, to speak and sing at his gallery opening.
I always find such invitations confronting.
I don't like being the spectacle and I can't help but think that doing such a thing, no matter what honesty and conviction I bring to such a space, might still seem a little odd and misinterpreted by those who don't know what I am saying.
My Noongar friend who invited me paints in abstract form.
The topic or his exhibition was ngoorl - skin.
I have written about this previously. Anyhow, as people gathered and my heart beat raced, in walked another Noongar artist of note, Tooga Morrison.
"Ah yes," I thought. "An audience of real scrutiny, an audience of Noongar!"
But then so too they are ngany moort, maadarn, ngoodjyar!!
And so, when the gallery owner called everyone present to be silent, she introduced my friend the artist and then introduced me.
All went silent and I began.
I don't know whether it was the paintings or the nod of my friend, but I began and talked about the ngoorl, the skin, and what rests beneath it.
I first told of my teacher, the late Cliff Humphries, my wonderful old friend who had showed me the ngoorl on top of his hand.
How he'd pinch it and there it would remain, upright...
And I asked the wadjalla there in gathered to think of this skin and of what once lived here upon it.
I asked them if they could imagine the trees that stood here, the giant jarrah and Marri - djirralmaari nidja yaarkiny!!
And I told them that here people moved, continued to move.
Here a fire glowed and smoke blue trailed from the hot coals that someone tended and cooked upon, nidja daartj dookerniny, yongka daartj ngaarniny... Yum!
And then I mentioned the willy wagtail djitti-djitti I had seen dancing the day before.
Had they seen it too? I asked them.
And then alerting them to the presence of the Noongar amongst them, that they were still here, I sang the song of the djitti-djitti an imitation of the mai - the sound - and movement, weaving its elongated tail and body in flight, in dance, flicking, hunting, joy!
I then told them how the dingo had moved in between this space chasing the tracks of the yongka djen-daalanginy, djen benaanginy sniffing at the tracks and then I sang the song of the dingo and then I moved the conversation to the east, to where I said the smoke trail was floating, booy moornong koorliny... and the white gums, salmon gums and jam that stood there and the woorep, white owl guardians that rested in their branches.
I then sang the song of the owl, and said to those present.
To understand the art here before you, you need to go see it.
To stand atop the hills, the boya goombaa - the ancient monoliths of granite and to look bookadja kaadjali djinaanginy...
To see the water atop the granite, the tracks below.
All of it I said, I had seen.
And if they would only do the same then the art they had just purchased would take on an entirely different meaning and feel.
And then the songs and stories concluded. And no one spoke.
Afterwards we went out for a meal.
My Noongar ngoonden he paid for my meal.
A dish of lamb cooked tender, and the conversations around that table were vibrant and full of colour, resembling the art that had hung from the walls.
Tooga said to me before I started. "Tim, it is good you tell 'em because it will give them a feel, give them a sense of feeling" and I think I knew what he meant. Because I felt it and this was our shared hope, that the wadjalla might feel it, and then respect it too.