There is a place named Quelcon near Denmark. This name Quelcon is of Noongar origin, and it means to dodge a spear. The same word was the call of the Noongar eagle man who finding his waterhole covered with the lice of his nephew, the crow, had called on his nephew to dodge the spear he was flinging.
From this one word an epic is born, and a story rests waiting to be told. This place name Quelcon rests like a footprint left by its previous owner and yet remains readily translated by those who know the story of this ancient relationship between eagle and crow, and what went wrong between them.
The crow man aims with his sharpened beak, the spear he holds between his black eyes, and his feathers all shiny hide his thoughts and all he watches.
Yet here in suburbia as green Swan transit buses pass me by I often speak with the crow men I meet. For some crows, they readily introduce themselves as such, and warn you they are watching. Others meanwhile tell you they are curlews or frogs but are crows and attempt to conceal their tracks and intentions.
‘Well, hello,’ he says. ‘I haven’t seen you for a long time...’ and he watches and waits for you to react. ‘I was only thinking of you and wondering how you were getting on,’ (but you know he’s come looking for a song or some article he can snatch and fly away with).
See an eagle man taught the Kingfisher who taught me and the murder of crows know it and seek me out. And the crow who would steal the meat from your mouth if you let him is brazen in his perfected art of politeness.
‘Oh, you’re looking great, do you remember when…’ he tries to placate you with his pleasantries, but look close and you can see his skinny black scaly crow legs and feet, sticking out from beneath his trousers and shoes.
‘I need that song,’ he tells me.’ And, if I get it, I will do what I have never done before, I promise I will share my wealth made from the Kingfisher with the Kingfisher’s family of golden swallows.’
And I am inwardly laughing at his charade. A crow man sharing with golden swallows, unheard of—no way!! But he seems so humble, so sincere, and so I make him promise that he will keep his word, but true to his black feathered lice filled kith and kind, he disappears. Ever the crow he is gone, he disappears into thin air with that song never to be seen or heard from again.
He was true to his kind, in every way a crow, as true as the lice beneath his black suit coat, which flaps in the breeze like crow wings, I should have known, I should have seen him coming, but didn’t. Crows don’t hunt their own meat and are always on the take, they always want a piece of yours.
Now this crow man who calls himself a frog and who sings the songs of the Kingfisher, who taught me, he says he learnt them from around the fires of tradition, from the old ones and fires he had sort out to sit by. But all the while he is singing Aaarrk, aaarrk, aaahhh as he constantly patrols and hunts along the highways looking for his next feed of road kill. But unlike most other hunters of road kill, he knows which way to jump—smart crow that!
Now to the Noongar of old, the crow was one of several moieties or divisions within their clan that once endowed social order and rules over who one could marry and, the social attitudes and expected ways and mores of acting within the group. In the southwest the crow or Waardang was one half of the division and Munitj the white cockatoo was another. Both were nephews of the eagle man. In Kellerberrin there was another moiety of birds. My old teacher was a kingfisher or Djooak and I, his adopted son became in turn the golden swallow, or Birrangaa. Kellerberrin holds to different country from that of the western or southern lands of black crows and white cockatoos, and for us kingfishers and golden swallows our knowledge of crows and cockatoos was supposed to give us a deep and enduring suspicion and awareness of them. The white cockatoo who boasts and the crow man who scavenges and watches had supposedly given the peoples of the east a reason to take care, but how easy we forget.
Now the Noongar legend of the crow names him as one who killed his younger swan wife from an act of rage and then who having been saved from drowning by his uncle an eagle man from the east, the crow tracked his uncle’s hidden source of fresh water and dirtied it with his body biting lice. Old crow nephew of the eagle man couldn’t be trusted. But in the bigger scheme of things the crow and eagle were linked by a relationship, one of uncle and the other of nephew, one of teacher and the other of student.
Now further, this story whilst relating to those Noongar who are crows who try to hide it, like their ancestor who tried to hide the fact that he had stolen and polluted the waters of his uncle all those many years ago is also about my experiences of a crow who masquerades as a Wiilo or stoned curlew; who with long skinny legs, big bulging eyes, is all seeing and remains akin to the crow, well camouflaged.
Now this crow who masquerades as a Wirlo walks on skinny legs, and true to the crow has rarely caught his own meat but has lived depended upon the scavenging of another. Now before I knew this crow was indeed a CROW, singing as a crow, with feathers shining like a crow and with black legs of a crow, I imagined something different. He did not boast like a Maanitj or white cockatoo, well not least initially, for he seemed humble and dedicated. He wore a different feather coat entirely, and I had thought, that he wore feathers like my own, for birds of a feather flock together. I even imagined he wore gold under his wings, but true, you seldom see what is under someone’s wing until they fly above you, but ever since I found his lice floating upon the water of the old man’s rock water hole I learnt from, I have known, too late, that he was not the golden swallow I thought he was, but every bit the crow.
Now the etymology of the name Wirlo might be the one who originates from another’s territory, the stranger who comes unannounced to do harm. Noongars still talk of their fears of the feather-foot beyond the lands of their own who travel from the north or east to unleash their magic upon the unwary. My old teacher, old kingfisher spoke one night in whispers, a Yamatji revenge party was moving through the town on their way to Quairading. We all hunkered down and turned out the lights. Now Wirlo remains one that is respected. He stands among a league of messenger birds well-known for his unwanted and feared messages. My old teacher had a song for that bird, the Wirlo, and he’d sing: wirlo wang mai wang woll ta buddin gaabin ngany mai wang woll...singing, ‘Curlew talk, sound and talk, alarm, I wonder who—who does that song belong to, to whom is that weelo singing, I wonder who?’ For the message was most often one of great clarity, ‘Who is that message for, for whom?’ To the Noongar of Albany, the threat of the Will tribe or Wiil ‘strangers’ from the north was never underestimated.
The Wirlo did bring messages and came as ghosts. Uninvited and unwanted men with messages from the north must always have been their consternation, so what did they think when strangers appeared from the ocean in the south? What were these ghosts with their pale white skin, who brought their diseases and strange ways? The Minang Noongar of Albany attempted to claim them as their own ancestors who had returned from the dead, and perhaps that is why their fear of them was lesser than the fear of the northerners.
Thus to Mokare’s people mimicking the ghost’s red coat’s march upon the shore, the Wiil or WIL was a direction and more, much more. Sure north of Albany, way beyond Bluff Knoll with its meeyowl boolaa, old hill with ‘many eyes’ was watching where the six toed, six fingered blood-eaters went creeping this way and that, gnawing upon raw flesh and whose serrated teeth marked every marrow filled bone on which they fed.
Were the Wiil the ‘Wheel-men’ or their word for all people and things, messages, and threats from the north? To the Minang, the southerners, the Wiilo who went crying in the night, were stoned curlew, bad news bearers who on their wings of fright, were bad news singers forecast bringers of death with messages to fear, foretelling future eaters where a stranger’s shaft of spear might finds its mark and dig their future grave.
Now I don’t know why, for what’s behind that curlew’s eye bulging round like the full moon, but we shouldn’t be afraid of him or his tune. I once shared with a Wiilman, I talked into the night near my smoky fire till this smoke of me shared its scent with him, and he within ear shot, listened and mimicked my smoke, and from the smoke of that fire I showed him where to find the old man’s maia, his hut where he lay and his ngaama rock water hole, fresh and deep, and then this Wiilo shape-shifted, he became a crow man and ever since I have seen some parts of him, floating in the cool clear water, his itching flesh eating lice.
His black feathers and white lice still line the bowl where he drank from, his crow tracks still surround the old man’s rock water hole, and like that place named Quelcon we know it is him, how does he think he can mask his theft of the old man’s water when the tracks of him sit so visible upon the soil and page. For from that old man’s hollow I sometimes read his most recent revelations where his black steps upon the white page convey his attempted footsteps dodging spears.
He would try to hide his tracks but we know it is him. ‘Quelcon’ said the eagle man, ‘Quelcon,’ dodge this spear if you can!
Monday, October 9, 2017
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Kings Park, Kaara Kaata: Stories of the Hill
Kings Park, Kaara Kaata: Stories of the Hill
The sign at the brow of the hill says “Morditch yongka barminy.”
“Good kangaroo hunting” reads the translation, but the words mean hard or strong kangaroo hitting?
So could good hunting, be equated with hard hitting?
Maybe it was the chase, call it a hunter’s craft. But I wonder, with words to redefine: “Kwoppiny yongka ngaadanginy,” also means “good kangaroo hunting,” and how might the hunting be good?
Perhaps it was successful or a place that fed groups on masse, but one wonders further, how might it be good hunting on such a steep incline? Moorditch maybe, hard for hitting, and for chasing the careering yongka grey kangaroo baadanginy jumping; that gray flash bark coloured coated being, hard to hit with the spear between the scrub and stone.
And I wonder, and I am not alone, what of kangaroo pads and pit traps beneath the Jarrah and Tuart shades? Wouldn’t pit traps have presented less a risk in their breaking of an ankle or wounds from a deflecting spear?
Then further, I wonder, perhaps this scene of cliff slope hunting was seen before by European eyes upon the cavern wall, through the tales of Europe’s neo-lithic buffalo hunter driving herds over cliffs. And the stories and inferences of those awaiting below, to feast and feed from the thundering hooves were another’s tale of another place, not of Kaara Kaata. Perhaps to the European mind, this was an image too enticing, too inviting a story to ignore.
For from the veranda of this viewing platform, this expanding view beyond the brow from this ancient weather worn hill speaks of stories that remain. For all matter of stories took place here, right where each one stands, where hordes of tourists now wander, here the Noongar stood watching, looking beyond. Together with his wilgied woman and koolang children, they walked to and from their camp, walked in their millennia of their coming and going.
Right here where you stand they stood watching, searching for signs that were watched for by their gathered tribesmen, Noongar that have lived here for thousands upon thousands of years. Here too the Noongar had once read the signs looking far beyond to their distant blue ranges, beyond the blue river, and below or, set against the blue sky they searched above their heads for the waalitj ‘the eagle’ and waardong 'the crow,' and sought word and the sign in a foreigner’s smoke or, for that of their kin.
Here great flocks of visitors continue to pay homage to this hill, and what the Noongar saw, and those from afar are still watching the signs in the seasonal sighting of the ngoolyarrk, the white-tailed black cockatoo and the yearly gathering of old soldiers and tourists who in their thousands from the world they come, to read the empty spaces and the signs beyond.
For most, their focus is a momentarily thing, they carry cameras aimed at things that sparkle, smiling shining teeth of friends, of flowers kangaroo paws and strange feathered birds, but if one persists in their watching, other signs may appear to them. For here from the brow of this hill named Karra Kaata, a name that means something returned to (some say it is a spider or the red-tailed black cockatoo kaarak), like these gatherings of cockatoo, if one watches from this Kaata – this hill, this head that has eyes, one might see that this head looks east to another, to the Kaata Moorr, to the blue hills Darling Range beyond.
And yarragat ‘above,’ and between them both, between these hills beyond and surrounding them lays the blue sky ‘worl.’ And between them, if you look between them both, ngaadaa-ngat beneath and below lie the blue waters of the beerla djoorr where the rivers flow.
Between both Kaata, between both heads and hills are eyes that watch the waters flow. Here maali and bootalang bathe, both swans and pelican preen and gather. You can watch them for hours, drifting past the Maata garup, knee-deep over their shawls of the derbal yerrigan darpal yaarragat past the sharpened shell blades that lie awaiting and aiming in the shallows. For beware, for deeper is their wounding than the stinging cobbler brings – so be aware of where you tread.
And in the limestone caverns embedded in the hill, within Karra Kaatta near Goonininup the Waargal lays asleep, coiled deep within her subterrainean hollows, she waits to see her people gather and in their language speak. And at Kedalak, at twilight, when trees turn from green to gold and day turns to night, and when the sun gives way to the moon, down below at Spring Street, at Kooyamoolup, there you can hear the chorus of the frogs. But for the song of frogs no signs here stands, no signs identify.
Here another sign needs to be written, but one that never has, of this hill this Kaata kaadidjiny ‘ hill listening’, and Kaata djinaanginy ‘hill looking, hill watching’, in respect of the many millennia of the hill’s watching and waiting for those who might return, to stand in silence, to watch and ponder with eyes all seeing, all hearing from this hill, this ancient hill, this kaat, this head with eyes and ears.
The sign at the brow of the hill says “Morditch yongka barminy.”
“Good kangaroo hunting” reads the translation, but the words mean hard or strong kangaroo hitting?
So could good hunting, be equated with hard hitting?
Maybe it was the chase, call it a hunter’s craft. But I wonder, with words to redefine: “Kwoppiny yongka ngaadanginy,” also means “good kangaroo hunting,” and how might the hunting be good?
Perhaps it was successful or a place that fed groups on masse, but one wonders further, how might it be good hunting on such a steep incline? Moorditch maybe, hard for hitting, and for chasing the careering yongka grey kangaroo baadanginy jumping; that gray flash bark coloured coated being, hard to hit with the spear between the scrub and stone.
And I wonder, and I am not alone, what of kangaroo pads and pit traps beneath the Jarrah and Tuart shades? Wouldn’t pit traps have presented less a risk in their breaking of an ankle or wounds from a deflecting spear?
Then further, I wonder, perhaps this scene of cliff slope hunting was seen before by European eyes upon the cavern wall, through the tales of Europe’s neo-lithic buffalo hunter driving herds over cliffs. And the stories and inferences of those awaiting below, to feast and feed from the thundering hooves were another’s tale of another place, not of Kaara Kaata. Perhaps to the European mind, this was an image too enticing, too inviting a story to ignore.
For from the veranda of this viewing platform, this expanding view beyond the brow from this ancient weather worn hill speaks of stories that remain. For all matter of stories took place here, right where each one stands, where hordes of tourists now wander, here the Noongar stood watching, looking beyond. Together with his wilgied woman and koolang children, they walked to and from their camp, walked in their millennia of their coming and going.
Right here where you stand they stood watching, searching for signs that were watched for by their gathered tribesmen, Noongar that have lived here for thousands upon thousands of years. Here too the Noongar had once read the signs looking far beyond to their distant blue ranges, beyond the blue river, and below or, set against the blue sky they searched above their heads for the waalitj ‘the eagle’ and waardong 'the crow,' and sought word and the sign in a foreigner’s smoke or, for that of their kin.
Here great flocks of visitors continue to pay homage to this hill, and what the Noongar saw, and those from afar are still watching the signs in the seasonal sighting of the ngoolyarrk, the white-tailed black cockatoo and the yearly gathering of old soldiers and tourists who in their thousands from the world they come, to read the empty spaces and the signs beyond.
For most, their focus is a momentarily thing, they carry cameras aimed at things that sparkle, smiling shining teeth of friends, of flowers kangaroo paws and strange feathered birds, but if one persists in their watching, other signs may appear to them. For here from the brow of this hill named Karra Kaata, a name that means something returned to (some say it is a spider or the red-tailed black cockatoo kaarak), like these gatherings of cockatoo, if one watches from this Kaata – this hill, this head that has eyes, one might see that this head looks east to another, to the Kaata Moorr, to the blue hills Darling Range beyond.
And yarragat ‘above,’ and between them both, between these hills beyond and surrounding them lays the blue sky ‘worl.’ And between them, if you look between them both, ngaadaa-ngat beneath and below lie the blue waters of the beerla djoorr where the rivers flow.
Between both Kaata, between both heads and hills are eyes that watch the waters flow. Here maali and bootalang bathe, both swans and pelican preen and gather. You can watch them for hours, drifting past the Maata garup, knee-deep over their shawls of the derbal yerrigan darpal yaarragat past the sharpened shell blades that lie awaiting and aiming in the shallows. For beware, for deeper is their wounding than the stinging cobbler brings – so be aware of where you tread.
And in the limestone caverns embedded in the hill, within Karra Kaatta near Goonininup the Waargal lays asleep, coiled deep within her subterrainean hollows, she waits to see her people gather and in their language speak. And at Kedalak, at twilight, when trees turn from green to gold and day turns to night, and when the sun gives way to the moon, down below at Spring Street, at Kooyamoolup, there you can hear the chorus of the frogs. But for the song of frogs no signs here stands, no signs identify.
Here another sign needs to be written, but one that never has, of this hill this Kaata kaadidjiny ‘ hill listening’, and Kaata djinaanginy ‘hill looking, hill watching’, in respect of the many millennia of the hill’s watching and waiting for those who might return, to stand in silence, to watch and ponder with eyes all seeing, all hearing from this hill, this ancient hill, this kaat, this head with eyes and ears.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Coat of Cliff Humphries
Your old coat. 27:06:2000
There, can you see her? I ask.
There on the horizon
ben-arng with light,
and her ochre stain.
Yet old man I am tired
and feeling cold in your coat.
“Then kaarrla kaalang,
light a fire” he says.
I continue whispering:
Some say it is darkest and coldest
just before dawn.
“Then better kick the coals
to warm ourselves and watch” he says.
I guess old man
you and I must wait.
This new dawn and colour
she will someday come,
but not yet,
and when old ngaarngk bleeds her ochre stain
all will seem momentous
But right now this nyoongar track is cold...
I am alone.
Often on this journey I could despair.
Carrying your coat,
this quest without promise,
it carries much risk.
And at journey’s end
what will I see?
Will your children take your coat from me?
And will it be enough
to warm their backs against the night’s air?
And what if they despair,
what then?
Will your coat be enough for them?
But typically
your answers are few...
And the journey is long...
And me nidja kaadidjiny noonook
waalanginy-ngayanginy:
with you singing the same one song.
And your spirits are many,
they rise and they fall.
And all seem to haunt me
just before dawn.
Just before dawn
when the sky is still black
and the stars are still flickering afar
I know you and your families there watch me
'cause I can see your shapes in the stars.
There, can you see her? I ask.
There on the horizon
ben-arng with light,
and her ochre stain.
Yet old man I am tired
and feeling cold in your coat.
“Then kaarrla kaalang,
light a fire” he says.
I continue whispering:
Some say it is darkest and coldest
just before dawn.
“Then better kick the coals
to warm ourselves and watch” he says.
I guess old man
you and I must wait.
This new dawn and colour
she will someday come,
but not yet,
and when old ngaarngk bleeds her ochre stain
all will seem momentous
But right now this nyoongar track is cold...
I am alone.
Often on this journey I could despair.
Carrying your coat,
this quest without promise,
it carries much risk.
And at journey’s end
what will I see?
Will your children take your coat from me?
And will it be enough
to warm their backs against the night’s air?
And what if they despair,
what then?
Will your coat be enough for them?
But typically
your answers are few...
And the journey is long...
And me nidja kaadidjiny noonook
waalanginy-ngayanginy:
with you singing the same one song.
And your spirits are many,
they rise and they fall.
And all seem to haunt me
just before dawn.
Just before dawn
when the sky is still black
and the stars are still flickering afar
I know you and your families there watch me
'cause I can see your shapes in the stars.
The Noongar Library of Cliff Humphries
Dark eyes 31:01:99
Dark eyes, Nyoongar eyes look me up and down, you worked with that old man - yarn...?
What they want ?
What am I supposed to say - nartj...?
Yeah, I wandered Kellerberrin’s Massingham Street, baarniny...
I just simply followed my feet, then I climbed into his mind - daandanginy...
Like I climbed into his brain - then wandered corridors that took me to old books and a burning flame - kaalanginy...
What did you see - they ask? djinaanginy...
I saw Volumes of his-story , sagas, Noongar literature,
read of secrets, songs, man-u-scripts and those of women - chapters and chapters of centuries...generations - mai ngaattamornong-koorliny...
I’d be there for weeks at a time, and, you see I had the keys to his mind.
I came and went as I pleased.
But, you know I couldn’t afford a ladder, damned step ladder.
That’s all it would have taken, ATSIC’s promised step ladder - but it never came, yay daandaang daabbatiny...
On the top shelf high above my head down his well lit corridors my stumbling feet were led - kair-koodiny
There many volumes were stacked, its antiquity intact, all of it untouched, unread and waiting - kokkinyininy...
Several shelves were out on loan, his memory fading, never to be returned - kairnyak..
This library of his mind, but with so little time.
I tried to tell ‘em, closing time is near - balartminy kaadjaanginy...
On his death bed, before his last dying breath, I looked into his eyes,
my old friend - werrniny...
This whole library, Nyoongar library,
sagas and all - songs and their law were dying.
Then I heard the Nyoongar crying, when their wailing had ceased, mopoke all sorts of birds were flying or was it the wind - yelbiny...
Then I caught the easterly wind come sighing from the land of his birth - benn bordok...
With the sun.
Dark eyes, Nyoongar eyes look me up and down, you worked with that old man - yarn...?
What they want ?
What am I supposed to say - nartj...?
Yeah, I wandered Kellerberrin’s Massingham Street, baarniny...
I just simply followed my feet, then I climbed into his mind - daandanginy...
Like I climbed into his brain - then wandered corridors that took me to old books and a burning flame - kaalanginy...
What did you see - they ask? djinaanginy...
I saw Volumes of his-story , sagas, Noongar literature,
read of secrets, songs, man-u-scripts and those of women - chapters and chapters of centuries...generations - mai ngaattamornong-koorliny...
I’d be there for weeks at a time, and, you see I had the keys to his mind.
I came and went as I pleased.
But, you know I couldn’t afford a ladder, damned step ladder.
That’s all it would have taken, ATSIC’s promised step ladder - but it never came, yay daandaang daabbatiny...
On the top shelf high above my head down his well lit corridors my stumbling feet were led - kair-koodiny
There many volumes were stacked, its antiquity intact, all of it untouched, unread and waiting - kokkinyininy...
Several shelves were out on loan, his memory fading, never to be returned - kairnyak..
This library of his mind, but with so little time.
I tried to tell ‘em, closing time is near - balartminy kaadjaanginy...
On his death bed, before his last dying breath, I looked into his eyes,
my old friend - werrniny...
This whole library, Nyoongar library,
sagas and all - songs and their law were dying.
Then I heard the Nyoongar crying, when their wailing had ceased, mopoke all sorts of birds were flying or was it the wind - yelbiny...
Then I caught the easterly wind come sighing from the land of his birth - benn bordok...
With the sun.
Ode to the Nyoongar language
Ode to the Nyoongar 07:09:98
Nyoongar Nyoorn - Plenty of time
for their dead, no time for their living.
Nah ! Haven’t the time to record old Jack, this
wadjalla system ties us up.
By the way did you hear the
news - old fella’s gone - Oh nyoorn.
His funerals in Pingelly - big mob’ll come
I bet you.
Yeah Nyoongar songs are special, this language -
our mother’s tongue, grandfather’s tongue so special.
Old Flo knew it all, the last of that lot to know
the lore - just hope someone remembered. Yeah this
wadjalla system keeps us busy, big mob
of funerals it drives you...
Jumped up the other day, thought
I heard the mopoke say - nyoorn. Strange how
the spirit seems to sing, especially with word of
death it brings. Yeah old fella’s language
is special, this we know, if only I had time to record
it though.
Nyoongar Nyoorn - Plenty of time
for their dead, no time for their living.
Nah ! Haven’t the time to record old Jack, this
wadjalla system ties us up.
By the way did you hear the
news - old fella’s gone - Oh nyoorn.
His funerals in Pingelly - big mob’ll come
I bet you.
Yeah Nyoongar songs are special, this language -
our mother’s tongue, grandfather’s tongue so special.
Old Flo knew it all, the last of that lot to know
the lore - just hope someone remembered. Yeah this
wadjalla system keeps us busy, big mob
of funerals it drives you...
Jumped up the other day, thought
I heard the mopoke say - nyoorn. Strange how
the spirit seems to sing, especially with word of
death it brings. Yeah old fella’s language
is special, this we know, if only I had time to record
it though.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Noongar by the fire at night time
10th of November 2009 Dark Night
Doolyaa-moornang nidja waariny,
kedalak.
Aali ngaarngk baal nookert ngoorndiny.
Nidja mai baalap nyarni waarngkiny,
kaadidjiny.
"Benang, ngientj kaabeny ngiyang nidja yiddiny,
ngiyang ngany waarngkiny...
Yey wilo-mai waaliny, kaadjaali
gorr-yuaarl-koorliny.
Baal bidiyaa mabarn waarl-koorliny,
ngiyang kwella waarngkiny?
Nyungaara baalap wayerniny,
kaalaa-ngat-boordak-ngat kokinyininy...
Kaadidjiny, kaadidjin-gaa kokinyininy...
Doolyaa-moornang nidja waariny,
kedalak.
Aali ngaarngk baal nookert ngoorndiny.
Nidja mai baalap nyarni waarngkiny,
kaadidjiny.
"Benang, ngientj kaabeny ngiyang nidja yiddiny,
ngiyang ngany waarngkiny...
Yey wilo-mai waaliny, kaadjaali
gorr-yuaarl-koorliny.
Baal bidiyaa mabarn waarl-koorliny,
ngiyang kwella waarngkiny?
Nyungaara baalap wayerniny,
kaalaa-ngat-boordak-ngat kokinyininy...
Kaadidjiny, kaadidjin-gaa kokinyininy...
Monday, July 20, 2009
Nyungar; Noongar, noonaa Moort nganaarng!!
Kaalagap 3:21pm July 20th 2009
Nyungarra! Nyungarra! Windjee nidja Nyungaaraaa!!?
Bookadjaa baalap bookadjaa, kaala-ngat nyininy... mai waangkiny, djurrep-kaadidjiny! One day, when the sun is shining, perhaps in spring, perhaps we might meet again, to sing the songs and speak the words by that fire that we all hope we will one day find welcoming us to sit by.
You know that fire!?!
To play in the smoke, to warm your back, to drink your tea and eat those johnny cakes from the pan and dip those dampers into the juices of the yongka and bacon that sit dookeniny... yuret-ngat dookeniny, daartj noonook benaarnginy, djurrepiny, yep we all dream of that day...
Nyungarra! Nyungarra! Windjee nidja Nyungaaraaa!!?
Bookadjaa baalap bookadjaa, kaala-ngat nyininy... mai waangkiny, djurrep-kaadidjiny! One day, when the sun is shining, perhaps in spring, perhaps we might meet again, to sing the songs and speak the words by that fire that we all hope we will one day find welcoming us to sit by.
You know that fire!?!
To play in the smoke, to warm your back, to drink your tea and eat those johnny cakes from the pan and dip those dampers into the juices of the yongka and bacon that sit dookeniny... yuret-ngat dookeniny, daartj noonook benaarnginy, djurrepiny, yep we all dream of that day...
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Linguistic hooks iny nj
Continuing Verb ends iny nj, doublegee barbs on kangaroo skins.
The Noongar of old were tracked.
Observers watched them, from afar and up close.
The writer's hand of old moved across the page, and our eyes now follow the markings they made, our eyes follow their lines and make sense of their alphabets, sure, even now as aboriginal writers re-present themselves to the world we follow them too.
For the Aboriginal hand that leaves his tracks on the page has swapped one medium for another.
One such writer I regularly track.
He knows this, he knows I am tracking him, so he doesn't give too much away.
I track his linguistic baggage too, baggage that holds to his fur like doublegees attached to the skin of a kangaroo.
I see by the way he is hopping, he is burdened by what he carries.
The linguistic continuing verb endings hook iny nj into him as he goes careering across the page.
And in speech I am kaadidjiny not 'jenny' or 'jinny' not kaad-did-jinny but, I am kaad-did-jing more like him, than to the others I listen to stumbling upon the linguistic hook.
As I said I have seen these linguistic hooks that lie embedded in them, and hold them down, sharp hooks they fester in their flesh like the wooden barbs of the doublegee.
Now the old man who taught me, his lips danced and curled and his tongue was on fire, like kalamai waarngkiny... he would lick his words and send them on their way. How I wish I could speak like him, and track his talk along the tracks and laneways of his old pads of home.
I once wandered with him, we three his missus and me... we travelled to old haunts of his and her people.
Very often when not playing up for me, the anthropologist watching, I heard him whispering or voicing what the old one's used to say...
He was a Master of the linguistic iny nj, their hooks he'd have used as toothpicks, and doublegees had no hold on him.
And he didn't leave words on the page, he didn't have to.
The lands about him were his pages, and his tracks and those of the ancients lay connected.
His palimpsests and theirs lay about him, names, places and happenings and quick was his recall.
Belly laughs made him convulse, till coughing fits over took him...
The land as you know was read by him, read as text.
And his stories remain in his landscapes, his language remains to be awoken, but, I only hope, that his tracks are cleared of the doublegee and hooks that linguists will surely one day lay, hooks like fence snares for hungry kangaroos - hop beneath the wires if you dare
But then, who knows, across the page and onto the earth you will be seeing hearing 'kaadidjing' them bounding free to see-find their way and true form free from the hooks of the linguist inquistition and impaler...
Free from the hook, the nj that too few understand so that now their fur carries jinny-plenty of doublegees...
The Noongar of old were tracked.
Observers watched them, from afar and up close.
The writer's hand of old moved across the page, and our eyes now follow the markings they made, our eyes follow their lines and make sense of their alphabets, sure, even now as aboriginal writers re-present themselves to the world we follow them too.
For the Aboriginal hand that leaves his tracks on the page has swapped one medium for another.
One such writer I regularly track.
He knows this, he knows I am tracking him, so he doesn't give too much away.
I track his linguistic baggage too, baggage that holds to his fur like doublegees attached to the skin of a kangaroo.
I see by the way he is hopping, he is burdened by what he carries.
The linguistic continuing verb endings hook iny nj into him as he goes careering across the page.
And in speech I am kaadidjiny not 'jenny' or 'jinny' not kaad-did-jinny but, I am kaad-did-jing more like him, than to the others I listen to stumbling upon the linguistic hook.
As I said I have seen these linguistic hooks that lie embedded in them, and hold them down, sharp hooks they fester in their flesh like the wooden barbs of the doublegee.
Now the old man who taught me, his lips danced and curled and his tongue was on fire, like kalamai waarngkiny... he would lick his words and send them on their way. How I wish I could speak like him, and track his talk along the tracks and laneways of his old pads of home.
I once wandered with him, we three his missus and me... we travelled to old haunts of his and her people.
Very often when not playing up for me, the anthropologist watching, I heard him whispering or voicing what the old one's used to say...
He was a Master of the linguistic iny nj, their hooks he'd have used as toothpicks, and doublegees had no hold on him.
And he didn't leave words on the page, he didn't have to.
The lands about him were his pages, and his tracks and those of the ancients lay connected.
His palimpsests and theirs lay about him, names, places and happenings and quick was his recall.
Belly laughs made him convulse, till coughing fits over took him...
The land as you know was read by him, read as text.
And his stories remain in his landscapes, his language remains to be awoken, but, I only hope, that his tracks are cleared of the doublegee and hooks that linguists will surely one day lay, hooks like fence snares for hungry kangaroos - hop beneath the wires if you dare
But then, who knows, across the page and onto the earth you will be seeing hearing 'kaadidjing' them bounding free to see-find their way and true form free from the hooks of the linguist inquistition and impaler...
Free from the hook, the nj that too few understand so that now their fur carries jinny-plenty of doublegees...
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Native Title policies
Native Title policy is offal thrown to a legion of lawyers... 22nd March 2009
We want to believe that Indigenous Land Councils offer benefits to Indigenous peoples.
We want to believe that the right of negotiation might bring Indigenous peoples more than simply access to their land, but some kind of economic return from another's want of use...
A while ago I was asked about Native Title, about its policies... and I sat thinking, as I was surrounded by a lawyer and anthropologist, what answer they were expecting...
Are there any right answers here??!
Prior to this meeting I had sat thinking about what Native Title had given to many of Australia's Indigenous peoples... and besides thinking the obvious, the SFA - 'sweet f... all' I had thought whilst sitting there, that Native Title had given Indigenous peoples legions of lawyers and anthropologists... legal and anthropological/historical litigation dressed up as 'benefits' and 'hope' for people, a people, for many, entrenched in poverty.
Yeah right, what kind of benefits are those...??
The right to negotiate when a mining company is breathing down your neck...what kind of negotiations might that be - when rushed into thinking what commercial anthropologists are thinking - when under pressure from lawyers, who are, in turn, under pressure from Mining companies and government administrators...waving fingers and demanding outcomes...
Yep, Native Title has given Indigenous people legions of lawyers.
And what are the policies... ??
The policies are that anthropologists/archaeologists/historians, given limited time, and under pressure, should come up with the 'Indigenous goods' the evidence and the indigenous will to agree and all their hidden memories after an hour or several days of yarning... so their talk can then be thrown into the arena or shark pool where lawyers might feed (read prosper).
I remember having been represented in court by lawyers' Johnston and MacIntyre... when I had climbed a crane at the old Swan Brewery in 1989.
These two lawyers, the latter who later represented Eddie Mabo, spent hours arguing points of law.
Sure, these two weren't what I'd call sharks... they were, more 'givers than takers,' but the Noongar never got an inch of their lands at their site of Goonininup aka 'the old Swan Brewery'.
And whilst the 'Mabo/MacIntyre' case recognised Native Title in the islands off QLD, it didn't translate into something similar on the mainland...or did it???
I mean, Native Title has meant what, exactly??
Has it come to mean the same thing as freehold title??
Can it be sold off by Indigenous 'owners'??
Or can it only be fished from, camped upon, utilised...
And the lawyers... where are they...??
Their business and livelihoods remain the same, there connections will never end.
They have what one might call 'a perpetual lease of association' tied to something that few of us can grasp or understand.
Whilst there are legal questions, the dominant law of the land will always find legal definitions and points of law to contest, resolve and question.
But what and where for for the Indigenous landholder... the land connected... land knower?? (or is that land owner??)
They will always have the right to negotiate... it seems, but only if they are accompanied by a LAWYER...
We want to believe that Indigenous Land Councils offer benefits to Indigenous peoples.
We want to believe that the right of negotiation might bring Indigenous peoples more than simply access to their land, but some kind of economic return from another's want of use...
A while ago I was asked about Native Title, about its policies... and I sat thinking, as I was surrounded by a lawyer and anthropologist, what answer they were expecting...
Are there any right answers here??!
Prior to this meeting I had sat thinking about what Native Title had given to many of Australia's Indigenous peoples... and besides thinking the obvious, the SFA - 'sweet f... all' I had thought whilst sitting there, that Native Title had given Indigenous peoples legions of lawyers and anthropologists... legal and anthropological/historical litigation dressed up as 'benefits' and 'hope' for people, a people, for many, entrenched in poverty.
Yeah right, what kind of benefits are those...??
The right to negotiate when a mining company is breathing down your neck...what kind of negotiations might that be - when rushed into thinking what commercial anthropologists are thinking - when under pressure from lawyers, who are, in turn, under pressure from Mining companies and government administrators...waving fingers and demanding outcomes...
Yep, Native Title has given Indigenous people legions of lawyers.
And what are the policies... ??
The policies are that anthropologists/archaeologists/historians, given limited time, and under pressure, should come up with the 'Indigenous goods' the evidence and the indigenous will to agree and all their hidden memories after an hour or several days of yarning... so their talk can then be thrown into the arena or shark pool where lawyers might feed (read prosper).
I remember having been represented in court by lawyers' Johnston and MacIntyre... when I had climbed a crane at the old Swan Brewery in 1989.
These two lawyers, the latter who later represented Eddie Mabo, spent hours arguing points of law.
Sure, these two weren't what I'd call sharks... they were, more 'givers than takers,' but the Noongar never got an inch of their lands at their site of Goonininup aka 'the old Swan Brewery'.
And whilst the 'Mabo/MacIntyre' case recognised Native Title in the islands off QLD, it didn't translate into something similar on the mainland...or did it???
I mean, Native Title has meant what, exactly??
Has it come to mean the same thing as freehold title??
Can it be sold off by Indigenous 'owners'??
Or can it only be fished from, camped upon, utilised...
And the lawyers... where are they...??
Their business and livelihoods remain the same, there connections will never end.
They have what one might call 'a perpetual lease of association' tied to something that few of us can grasp or understand.
Whilst there are legal questions, the dominant law of the land will always find legal definitions and points of law to contest, resolve and question.
But what and where for for the Indigenous landholder... the land connected... land knower?? (or is that land owner??)
They will always have the right to negotiate... it seems, but only if they are accompanied by a LAWYER...
Monday, February 23, 2009
Kellerberrin Kangaroo and the Moon and SaltLake
Kellerberrin Kangaroo writers of the pan. 23-02-09
Where I lived in Kellerberrin, I often went walking over salt lakes.
Sure, many a time, when the water upon them was low enough, in the company of the older Humphries I scraped salt.
We sold it by the bag or trailer load to farmers.
It was said to improve the condition of their sheep's wool or to do something for their pigs... except I was never quite sure what that was, thinking, perhaps, it went someway to preserving their meat before they met their end.
Anyhow, sometimes I wandered across the lakes by myself, and at other times I travelled with my friend the Kwolyin Noongar and artist, Lindsay Harris.
This one time we travelled to the Humphries lake edge, where several salt pans feed small streamlines that run towards Kwellaliny 'Mt Stirling' in the south.
This one day I noticed a kangaroo track that went out across the middle of the lake, deeply gorging the ground as it went.
This lake bed was a page, and the tracks of the kangaroo - the yongka maam - was text.
I knelt down and read it.
What was it doing in the middle of this lake?
What act of desperation had pushed it from its cover to be here?
Sure enough, I also noted it wasn't alone.
Small, barely visible prints followed and flanked it.
There were its wives and offspring following behind.
In the middle of that lake its paws had gorged the wet mud, and now, ever desperate, its strides appeared laboured.
It was desperate to get away from something... the lake's surface indicated in braille the plans of the yongka family hopping upon its surface.
I suspect it happened at night, perhaps under the light of the moon, when the surface of the lake would have shined and the added glowing lamp-spotlight from the hunter's truck would have illuminated and virtually blinded the kangaroos that strove to make their getaway.
Looking at the prints and writings upon that pan read like the last words of the condemned.
The yongka-maam boomer, I read hopped with muscles straining, perspiring, frantic like a steam train puffing, leading his tribe into oblivion, as the hunter's gun locked his target and the farmer's finger moved, pulled the trigger.
The surface of that lake was not blood stained, there was no evidence that the bullets had found their target.
Nor was the lake bed superimposed by the gate of kangaroo dogs, so perhaps the Noongar weren't the hunters...
There was no evidence of bullets out in the lake save for the bright red cartridges that lay in the salt bush bordering the lake.
I want to believe that, that night, the yongka maam and his koolang yokang woolagat travelling behind him - his family - had made it to the cover of their pad.
I want to believe that the moon man looking down remembered his relationship and words to that yongka in ancient times - 'bones and dust you become, but me, I live forever.'
I want to believe that, that night, both the moon and the yongka family sat staring at one another.
That the moon looked down in praise of the man and his family, that they had made it.
And the yongka, similarly with great reverence, might have stared above in praise of the moon who had lit their path and guided them, safely home.
See the lake bed is a page and the tracks and markings are the words of the one who moves upon it.
Even the strange lines of waterflow communicate the words of storm and season past. With every downpour, with every rain laden storm-cloud, the pages and its slate of memories is washed away to lay in wait for when some other writer might leave a message for those who choose, or know, to read it.
Where I lived in Kellerberrin, I often went walking over salt lakes.
Sure, many a time, when the water upon them was low enough, in the company of the older Humphries I scraped salt.
We sold it by the bag or trailer load to farmers.
It was said to improve the condition of their sheep's wool or to do something for their pigs... except I was never quite sure what that was, thinking, perhaps, it went someway to preserving their meat before they met their end.
Anyhow, sometimes I wandered across the lakes by myself, and at other times I travelled with my friend the Kwolyin Noongar and artist, Lindsay Harris.
This one time we travelled to the Humphries lake edge, where several salt pans feed small streamlines that run towards Kwellaliny 'Mt Stirling' in the south.
This one day I noticed a kangaroo track that went out across the middle of the lake, deeply gorging the ground as it went.
This lake bed was a page, and the tracks of the kangaroo - the yongka maam - was text.
I knelt down and read it.
What was it doing in the middle of this lake?
What act of desperation had pushed it from its cover to be here?
Sure enough, I also noted it wasn't alone.
Small, barely visible prints followed and flanked it.
There were its wives and offspring following behind.
In the middle of that lake its paws had gorged the wet mud, and now, ever desperate, its strides appeared laboured.
It was desperate to get away from something... the lake's surface indicated in braille the plans of the yongka family hopping upon its surface.
I suspect it happened at night, perhaps under the light of the moon, when the surface of the lake would have shined and the added glowing lamp-spotlight from the hunter's truck would have illuminated and virtually blinded the kangaroos that strove to make their getaway.
Looking at the prints and writings upon that pan read like the last words of the condemned.
The yongka-maam boomer, I read hopped with muscles straining, perspiring, frantic like a steam train puffing, leading his tribe into oblivion, as the hunter's gun locked his target and the farmer's finger moved, pulled the trigger.
The surface of that lake was not blood stained, there was no evidence that the bullets had found their target.
Nor was the lake bed superimposed by the gate of kangaroo dogs, so perhaps the Noongar weren't the hunters...
There was no evidence of bullets out in the lake save for the bright red cartridges that lay in the salt bush bordering the lake.
I want to believe that, that night, the yongka maam and his koolang yokang woolagat travelling behind him - his family - had made it to the cover of their pad.
I want to believe that the moon man looking down remembered his relationship and words to that yongka in ancient times - 'bones and dust you become, but me, I live forever.'
I want to believe that, that night, both the moon and the yongka family sat staring at one another.
That the moon looked down in praise of the man and his family, that they had made it.
And the yongka, similarly with great reverence, might have stared above in praise of the moon who had lit their path and guided them, safely home.
See the lake bed is a page and the tracks and markings are the words of the one who moves upon it.
Even the strange lines of waterflow communicate the words of storm and season past. With every downpour, with every rain laden storm-cloud, the pages and its slate of memories is washed away to lay in wait for when some other writer might leave a message for those who choose, or know, to read it.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sovereignty and the word Kaalagap
Sovereignty 22-02-09
Sovereignty, some Noongar mention this word, and I think, it is used by them to argue for what they believe is their perpetual absolute unquestionable right.
But, to me, this word sounds like a word dripping with the perforated intestines of colonialism.
Surely, surely the word: 'Kaalagup' is the better word for the Noongar to use.
One's birthright, the place of one's birth meant everything to the Noongar of old. The country of your mother, tied through your bily, your umbilical chord like the river through the land connects you to places.
Old Cliff's mother was born in Beverley, and that river that runs by Beverley, the same one that runs through York weaves its way right between the hills of Mt Stirling and to the north of Kellerberrin.
Cliff's father was born in Quairading and, his grandfathers in York and Beverley... His kaalagup was part of the track that led through his mother's and father's lands. His children, many of them born in Kellerberrin and Pingelly, the land of their mother, have ties to lands of their kaalagap, and ties that endure to this day.
Sovereignty, some Noongar mention this word, and I think, it is used by them to argue for what they believe is their perpetual absolute unquestionable right.
But, to me, this word sounds like a word dripping with the perforated intestines of colonialism.
Surely, surely the word: 'Kaalagup' is the better word for the Noongar to use.
One's birthright, the place of one's birth meant everything to the Noongar of old. The country of your mother, tied through your bily, your umbilical chord like the river through the land connects you to places.
Old Cliff's mother was born in Beverley, and that river that runs by Beverley, the same one that runs through York weaves its way right between the hills of Mt Stirling and to the north of Kellerberrin.
Cliff's father was born in Quairading and, his grandfathers in York and Beverley... His kaalagup was part of the track that led through his mother's and father's lands. His children, many of them born in Kellerberrin and Pingelly, the land of their mother, have ties to lands of their kaalagap, and ties that endure to this day.
He stole the moon
He stole the moon 22-02=09
Kooraar, kaadjali - far, far away, long ago, such a long time ago!
Yey baal kaadjali bardlanginy, nidja minang Noongar... he was travelling far from his lands.
Yey baal djinaanginy, waam mai kaadidjiny, baalap meeak waangalanginy, they were talking about the moon, these fellas.
Yep, these Noongar of long ago were talking about the moon, sacred business.
And this stranger heard them, talking, in whispers.
He got the part about the moon in the finger nail, baal mai borl baranginy, meeak-mai borl baranginy, borl-worl-koorliny, he crept with this story dtaa-waam donniny, put it upon the lips of another.
This is the way stories are spread, I guess.
Baal meeak baal borl-wort baranginy, upon the lips of another he put him there, a story that never belonged to him, but he took him, that moon.
Yey baal waaliny kaarangabiny - you could hear him crying, calling out from the text on that page: "What am I doing here, I don't belong here, why has he put me in the mouth of another?"
And then that moon whispered from that page: "That Noongar done a lot of things wrong, sure he even stole a song..." "...put that song, like me, upon the lips of another, planted the tree of tradition or, rather, dug it, lifted it from it's native soil and stole from another from what was not his toil..."
The moon kept going...on that page, telling me things, told me to follow that Noongar's textual tracks - like old Chuditch whose wife had an affair with Mr Possum.
Old Wedj recieved gifts of ochre and old Chuditj saw these gifts when he returned to his camp.
Seeing these gifts on the ground, little bits here and there, the textual tracks were clear as day, and he knew with no ounce of a doubt that his wife had a lover. He went away one day and hid himself and he caught them, his wife and her lover... So now I am watching... the desk lamp has replaced the moon lamp.
I follow the moon's advice and I track them.
Like old Noongar did with cleared ground, kept track of strangers to their camp, men of ill intent... looked for their tracks, now I watch for them upon the page...
I know the tracks of my teacher and his family, and I know too the tracks of strangers, carrying off what is not theirs to take...
Kooraar, kaadjali - far, far away, long ago, such a long time ago!
Yey baal kaadjali bardlanginy, nidja minang Noongar... he was travelling far from his lands.
Yey baal djinaanginy, waam mai kaadidjiny, baalap meeak waangalanginy, they were talking about the moon, these fellas.
Yep, these Noongar of long ago were talking about the moon, sacred business.
And this stranger heard them, talking, in whispers.
He got the part about the moon in the finger nail, baal mai borl baranginy, meeak-mai borl baranginy, borl-worl-koorliny, he crept with this story dtaa-waam donniny, put it upon the lips of another.
This is the way stories are spread, I guess.
Baal meeak baal borl-wort baranginy, upon the lips of another he put him there, a story that never belonged to him, but he took him, that moon.
Yey baal waaliny kaarangabiny - you could hear him crying, calling out from the text on that page: "What am I doing here, I don't belong here, why has he put me in the mouth of another?"
And then that moon whispered from that page: "That Noongar done a lot of things wrong, sure he even stole a song..." "...put that song, like me, upon the lips of another, planted the tree of tradition or, rather, dug it, lifted it from it's native soil and stole from another from what was not his toil..."
The moon kept going...on that page, telling me things, told me to follow that Noongar's textual tracks - like old Chuditch whose wife had an affair with Mr Possum.
Old Wedj recieved gifts of ochre and old Chuditj saw these gifts when he returned to his camp.
Seeing these gifts on the ground, little bits here and there, the textual tracks were clear as day, and he knew with no ounce of a doubt that his wife had a lover. He went away one day and hid himself and he caught them, his wife and her lover... So now I am watching... the desk lamp has replaced the moon lamp.
I follow the moon's advice and I track them.
Like old Noongar did with cleared ground, kept track of strangers to their camp, men of ill intent... looked for their tracks, now I watch for them upon the page...
I know the tracks of my teacher and his family, and I know too the tracks of strangers, carrying off what is not theirs to take...
Monday, February 2, 2009
A Kellerberrin Horse
A Kellerberrin Horse 2nd Feb 2009
In my last blog I mentioned a tree, a giant, ancient, grey barked, blue leafed, buttress rooted being, that held sway in my temporary past part of this world.
I did mention horses, but I gave no names.
One was a trotting horse that was a foal trained in these here parts.
Its name was Chico and in the late 1930s, it became the property of my grandfather's brothers.
It was a horse that could not be beaten and such was the West Australian angst of certain, nameless mobsters, my grandfather's brothers had the horse moved interstate.
Now mentioning this horse, I have done so because of the Noongar tales that were once told about the maned legends of the hoof...
Old Noongar called them ngort.
Imagine that, the old horse was a ngort!
And the Noongar word for the fly was a nort, now ain't the two of them similar...??!
But then so too is the Noongar word for stink - nurrt!
Perhaps the horse, so beloved by the Noongar were noted for their smell - and not just to the Noongar, but to the fly who followed the ngort wherever he travelled. Cliff told the yarn about a Noongar who caught a horse called Nellie.
I cannot tell you this whole yarn, but it was a special one of the old man and related to a story and series of songs that happened near Kellerberrin.
Anyway, I guess what I can tell you is that the Noongar rider atop the horse becomes an eagle...
And Cliff's words... vivid in their description, laden with imagery, onomatopoeia and rhythm, Noongar words of the mai - the talk - almost word for word feature in someone else's tale, about one who becomes a hawk when riding a horse!
That 'someone else's tale' was none other than William Shakespeare.
As I said, I cannot tell the whole yarn here.
If I did, other's would surely grab it, and thrust it into the mouths of some other - as some have already done... and share nothing in common with the horse or the fly but only the stink - the nurrt - left behind...
So watch this space, and all will be revealed.
Old man Humphries had a gift, and his story and singing of the horse was one gift of the many he wanted his people to know... and they will, but better it is referenced coming from his mouth than from an imagined other...
Beneath this tree, giant arboreal being there were horses tethered and hobbled... Beneath such a tree was such imagery born...
In my last blog I mentioned a tree, a giant, ancient, grey barked, blue leafed, buttress rooted being, that held sway in my temporary past part of this world.
I did mention horses, but I gave no names.
One was a trotting horse that was a foal trained in these here parts.
Its name was Chico and in the late 1930s, it became the property of my grandfather's brothers.
It was a horse that could not be beaten and such was the West Australian angst of certain, nameless mobsters, my grandfather's brothers had the horse moved interstate.
Now mentioning this horse, I have done so because of the Noongar tales that were once told about the maned legends of the hoof...
Old Noongar called them ngort.
Imagine that, the old horse was a ngort!
And the Noongar word for the fly was a nort, now ain't the two of them similar...??!
But then so too is the Noongar word for stink - nurrt!
Perhaps the horse, so beloved by the Noongar were noted for their smell - and not just to the Noongar, but to the fly who followed the ngort wherever he travelled. Cliff told the yarn about a Noongar who caught a horse called Nellie.
I cannot tell you this whole yarn, but it was a special one of the old man and related to a story and series of songs that happened near Kellerberrin.
Anyway, I guess what I can tell you is that the Noongar rider atop the horse becomes an eagle...
And Cliff's words... vivid in their description, laden with imagery, onomatopoeia and rhythm, Noongar words of the mai - the talk - almost word for word feature in someone else's tale, about one who becomes a hawk when riding a horse!
That 'someone else's tale' was none other than William Shakespeare.
As I said, I cannot tell the whole yarn here.
If I did, other's would surely grab it, and thrust it into the mouths of some other - as some have already done... and share nothing in common with the horse or the fly but only the stink - the nurrt - left behind...
So watch this space, and all will be revealed.
Old man Humphries had a gift, and his story and singing of the horse was one gift of the many he wanted his people to know... and they will, but better it is referenced coming from his mouth than from an imagined other...
Beneath this tree, giant arboreal being there were horses tethered and hobbled... Beneath such a tree was such imagery born...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Old Man Tuart
Old Man Tuart 29th Jan 2009
Where I live was once an old Tuart, he was just a stump when I first came here.
His size was huge, and when alive he must have shaded the wild horses in the district.
I reckon he must have been very old, he might even have been in the vicinity of 800 years.
As I come to think about it now, to the Noongar he was probably a favourite, they probably climbed into his branches for eggs and possum.
Maybe they just rested beneath his branches when hunting duck and djilgies in the nearby lakes.
Imagine that!?
Imagine when Perth was a placename in Scotland.
When Perth belonged to the Picts and this region belonged to the Noongar - Booroo - place of lakes and swamps full with tortoise, kweyaar boolaarr with plenty of frogs, and women folk, whose naked bodies glistened red from oily ochre... and kids laughing, screaming in joy... bitten by a djilgie, thrusting arms into their burrows in the stream banks to pull them out, and duck and lizards hanging limp in the men's noolburn belts - men scraping their spears by their smokey fires, watching for the smoke of others beyond, signals on the horizon... and the shadows getting longer, the sun sinking and in the silence an old man singing!
Imagine when Perth was a place in Scotland!
And this boodjaa smelt of the doolyaar-kaalanginy, the scent from burning leaves. Yep, this old Tuart must have heard any number of sounds - Noongar singing by their fires, warm and snug in their bell hut mias - a far cry from the noise that is now...
And to think, that everywhere in all directions this was true... all sand holds the memory of such fires and old trees, fires that were cooked over, sung over and old trees that shaded the many, now memories in the soil, bone and charcoal beneath the houses of the residents of Perth.
Where I live was once an old Tuart, he was just a stump when I first came here.
His size was huge, and when alive he must have shaded the wild horses in the district.
I reckon he must have been very old, he might even have been in the vicinity of 800 years.
As I come to think about it now, to the Noongar he was probably a favourite, they probably climbed into his branches for eggs and possum.
Maybe they just rested beneath his branches when hunting duck and djilgies in the nearby lakes.
Imagine that!?
Imagine when Perth was a placename in Scotland.
When Perth belonged to the Picts and this region belonged to the Noongar - Booroo - place of lakes and swamps full with tortoise, kweyaar boolaarr with plenty of frogs, and women folk, whose naked bodies glistened red from oily ochre... and kids laughing, screaming in joy... bitten by a djilgie, thrusting arms into their burrows in the stream banks to pull them out, and duck and lizards hanging limp in the men's noolburn belts - men scraping their spears by their smokey fires, watching for the smoke of others beyond, signals on the horizon... and the shadows getting longer, the sun sinking and in the silence an old man singing!
Imagine when Perth was a place in Scotland!
And this boodjaa smelt of the doolyaar-kaalanginy, the scent from burning leaves. Yep, this old Tuart must have heard any number of sounds - Noongar singing by their fires, warm and snug in their bell hut mias - a far cry from the noise that is now...
And to think, that everywhere in all directions this was true... all sand holds the memory of such fires and old trees, fires that were cooked over, sung over and old trees that shaded the many, now memories in the soil, bone and charcoal beneath the houses of the residents of Perth.
Maaman Yira
Maaman Yira 29th Jan 2009
Ngany Kongk, Cliff Humphries, baal waarngk, djurrep kaadidjiny, aalee Maaman yira nidja nyininy!!
Yey bidiyaa maar-yaaragat nyininy - Noongar bidiyaa!!
Baalaa nop, baalaa borong, baal Maaman-aa-maadarn Reverend, baal Maaman waarngk-djurrepiny ngaartamurnong!!
Yey nidja Maaman, ngiyan baal??
Baal Hebrew bidiyaa 'Yahweh' maar yaaragata kep-kurliny...
Noongar/Hebrew bidiyaa keny!
Maar moorn yaaragat!! Maaman bidiyaa djirilmari bwoorr waarngkiny, keniny!!
Kep yaaragat kurliny!!
Ngany Kongk, Cliff Humphries, baal waarngk, djurrep kaadidjiny, aalee Maaman yira nidja nyininy!!
Yey bidiyaa maar-yaaragat nyininy - Noongar bidiyaa!!
Baalaa nop, baalaa borong, baal Maaman-aa-maadarn Reverend, baal Maaman waarngk-djurrepiny ngaartamurnong!!
Yey nidja Maaman, ngiyan baal??
Baal Hebrew bidiyaa 'Yahweh' maar yaaragata kep-kurliny...
Noongar/Hebrew bidiyaa keny!
Maar moorn yaaragat!! Maaman bidiyaa djirilmari bwoorr waarngkiny, keniny!!
Kep yaaragat kurliny!!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Watching the box
Watching the box 6th Jan 2009
This is a tangled web. I cannot find work and with no money I am living on the edge. But I speak with some language, learnt from an old man and his wife. But I have no one to talk to and this language I have learnt is good for nothing.
I am sick of the conversations I have with myself.
We always talk about the same things.
Sometimes I talk to the crows, when I talk to the crows and the willy wagtail I wonder if they can understand me, because there ain't a Noongar in sight I can speak to.
Ngientj nidja keny-nyininy - windji noonagat - boolaarang baalap dwonkbert - woort koorliny, english mai waangkiny!!
What, for why, why, how could you let a language die.
You say the old people didn't want to reveal it - bullshit - nah, no one wanted to listen - that's the truth, no one was prepared to sit around the old kids fire to rest their head within their night-time mia - nahh - couldn't be bothered, nahh don't shit me with your lies...about how the old ones didn't want to reveal it before they died.
When I was shifting gas bottles and collecting wood, where were you?
When I was scraping salt and being torn to shreds where were you?
When I was eating flaps on the fire - where were you?
Yuaart! No you were somewhere inside watching the box.
How could you let a language die?? A disregard for the birds that are singing, a disinterest in all their wisdom bringing.
How could you let it go?
This is a tangled web. I cannot find work and with no money I am living on the edge. But I speak with some language, learnt from an old man and his wife. But I have no one to talk to and this language I have learnt is good for nothing.
I am sick of the conversations I have with myself.
We always talk about the same things.
Sometimes I talk to the crows, when I talk to the crows and the willy wagtail I wonder if they can understand me, because there ain't a Noongar in sight I can speak to.
Ngientj nidja keny-nyininy - windji noonagat - boolaarang baalap dwonkbert - woort koorliny, english mai waangkiny!!
What, for why, why, how could you let a language die.
You say the old people didn't want to reveal it - bullshit - nah, no one wanted to listen - that's the truth, no one was prepared to sit around the old kids fire to rest their head within their night-time mia - nahh - couldn't be bothered, nahh don't shit me with your lies...about how the old ones didn't want to reveal it before they died.
When I was shifting gas bottles and collecting wood, where were you?
When I was scraping salt and being torn to shreds where were you?
When I was eating flaps on the fire - where were you?
Yuaart! No you were somewhere inside watching the box.
How could you let a language die?? A disregard for the birds that are singing, a disinterest in all their wisdom bringing.
How could you let it go?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Avon Catchment Council
Avon Catchment Council 14th December 2008
Yeyi moort-ngaanaarng, kaaram baal Avon Catchment Council, nidja nyitiyang yaaly-bidiyaa-yok, soil scientist, baal ngany mar-waarngkiny: "Yuart! Noonook, one culture, one people, one place..." Yey woort-koorl!
Yeyi baal yaaly-bidiyaa baal kaadidjbert nidja Noongar-aa-boodjaa... yeyi nidja bidiyaa-yok, baal kaataa-waarngkiny....Noongar-aa-noll dalanginy, djuret-bert, yaaly nornabin!!
Yeyi moort-ngaanaarng, kaaram baal Avon Catchment Council, nidja nyitiyang yaaly-bidiyaa-yok, soil scientist, baal ngany mar-waarngkiny: "Yuart! Noonook, one culture, one people, one place..." Yey woort-koorl!
Yeyi baal yaaly-bidiyaa baal kaadidjbert nidja Noongar-aa-boodjaa... yeyi nidja bidiyaa-yok, baal kaataa-waarngkiny....Noongar-aa-noll dalanginy, djuret-bert, yaaly nornabin!!
Meeak: Ali djinang
Ali djinang!! 14th December 2008
Yey baal, meeak bidiyaa baal koombaar, baalaa yok, nidja boodjaa, baal kaalanginy! 38.4 degrees kaalanginy!! Koonkaa-kep kwoordidjiny, yey baal meeak baal boodjaa dandanginy, woolagat, yaaragat ngaardaa-djinaanginy...lover's kaanine-djil - bwoorr nidja maaret baal djoorapiny bilerniny...
Baalang kootjal, doorntjal baalap kwopidaa, this earth and the moon doorntjal keniny, moonyanginy kenyabiny koorliny
Ali djinang!!
Yey baal, meeak bidiyaa baal koombaar, baalaa yok, nidja boodjaa, baal kaalanginy! 38.4 degrees kaalanginy!! Koonkaa-kep kwoordidjiny, yey baal meeak baal boodjaa dandanginy, woolagat, yaaragat ngaardaa-djinaanginy...lover's kaanine-djil - bwoorr nidja maaret baal djoorapiny bilerniny...
Baalang kootjal, doorntjal baalap kwopidaa, this earth and the moon doorntjal keniny, moonyanginy kenyabiny koorliny
Ali djinang!!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Ngaalar Djoolaa Mereny Daartjabin
Ngaalar Djoolaar Mereny-Daartjabin 10-12-08
Ngaalar djoolaar yaalyabin... Wadj-djoolar yaalyabin... Kaaram ngaalaa kaalap Wadjak, yeyi yaaly, boodjaabin djirrilymaari mereny-daartjabin
Ngaalar djoolaar yaalyabin... Wadj-djoolar yaalyabin... Kaaram ngaalaa kaalap Wadjak, yeyi yaaly, boodjaabin djirrilymaari mereny-daartjabin
Monday, December 8, 2008
The soil is the bones of billions
The soil is the bones of billions 9th December 2008
Has anyone thought of what one does when they take a handful of soil?
We gardeners know such things.
Soil ain't soil but the skeletons of billions...
Sure, what we see as humus is the combined breakdown of trees and water mixed from generations and the millenia of turbulent and moon fed movements of life.
And this mixing into the soil of blood and bone is the manure of earth, the perpetual mixing of our ancestors we place into the pots and beds beneath the roots of plants and seedlings.
Look closely and you can see the white slivers of bone, the granules of the infinite ancestral umbilical chords connected to the umpteen lives of people and the things that inspired them.
The soil we walk over we too will become.
The soil speaks to those who still to listen.
"These fingers that turn me over and over I have felt before"
"Not so long ago I felt the wooden waana that turned the soil and dug the goanna from its burrow"
"And these white grains, you would not know it, but I have heard the cry of the humpback and the clicks of the sperm whale, and felt the soft touch of a starfish and felt the explosion of the wave near the shore.
And so, as you plant that rose or petunia, or kangaroo paw remember... it has been planted before, this soil, all of us, but not by you...
Has anyone thought of what one does when they take a handful of soil?
We gardeners know such things.
Soil ain't soil but the skeletons of billions...
Sure, what we see as humus is the combined breakdown of trees and water mixed from generations and the millenia of turbulent and moon fed movements of life.
And this mixing into the soil of blood and bone is the manure of earth, the perpetual mixing of our ancestors we place into the pots and beds beneath the roots of plants and seedlings.
Look closely and you can see the white slivers of bone, the granules of the infinite ancestral umbilical chords connected to the umpteen lives of people and the things that inspired them.
The soil we walk over we too will become.
The soil speaks to those who still to listen.
"These fingers that turn me over and over I have felt before"
"Not so long ago I felt the wooden waana that turned the soil and dug the goanna from its burrow"
"And these white grains, you would not know it, but I have heard the cry of the humpback and the clicks of the sperm whale, and felt the soft touch of a starfish and felt the explosion of the wave near the shore.
And so, as you plant that rose or petunia, or kangaroo paw remember... it has been planted before, this soil, all of us, but not by you...
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