Bradley John - Singing Saltwater Country

Singing
SALTWATER
COUNTRY

Singing
SALTWATER
COUNTRY
Journey to the Songlines of Carpentaria

JOHN BRADLEY
with Yanyuwa families

Don and Jemima Miller, Dinah Norman, Annie Karrakayn, Old Isaac Isaac Walayungkuma, Dinny and Eileen McDinny, Johnson and Maureen Timothy, Old Tim, Judy, Mussolini and Roddy Harvey, Old Pyro Dirdiyalama and Topsy, Steve Johnston, Clara Johnston, Graham and Gloria Friday, Bella Charlie, Amy Friday, Jerry Brown, Nora Jalirduma, Ida Ninganga, Old Owen, Elma Brown, Ginger Bunaja, Roy Friday, Tom Friday, Tommy Peter Crooked River, Tommy Reilly, Old Leo Yulungurri, Leo Finlay, Mack Manguji, Stanley Matthews, Whylo McKinnon, Old Ricket and Dulcie Walwalmara, Tyson and Rosie Marikbalinyaand all their families

First published in 2010

Copyright John Bradley, Dinah Norman, Leonard Norman, Jemima Miller,
Graham Friday and Yanyuwa families 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
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Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 241 9

Consulting Publisher: Jackie Yowell
Internal design by Lisa White
Maps by Nona Cameron
Set in 11/15 pt Minion by Post Pre-press Group, Australia
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper in this book is FSC certified. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the worlds forests.

Photo : Rock painting of a sea turtle at Babangki on Vanderlin Island
(Photo: John Bradley)

This book has been written to the memory of all those Yanyuwa
men and women who knew and loved their country and the
kujika which still flows through it.

In particular it is dedicated to the memory of

DON MILLER (19371989),
my kardirdi (uncle) and first teacher of Yanyuwa language,
Law, ceremony and country,

and

JOHNSON TIMOTHY (19301994),
my jababa (big brother), who quietly and with great dignity
taught me about the Law that travels through the sea and
from island to island.

These words and thoughts are also dedicated to the memory of

ASHER CAMERON-BRADLEY (19932006),
my son, who also sensed the power and enchantment
of Yanyuwa country and its songs.
May his memory always be a blessing.

CONTENTS

Colour section

Kujika paths

: South-west Gulf of Carpentaria and the Sir Edmund Pellew Group of Islands

In January 1980 I arrived at Borroloola in the midst of wet-season downpour. I had travelled in a light plane for four hours on a flight from Darwin and landed on an airstrip that was red clay. I remember thinking, Can earth really be that colour? I was a yet-to-be-tried schoolteacher of twenty, a long way from my home in rural Victoria. I had no idea then that over the next thirty years Yanyuwa country was to become a second home for me, with a second family, a second language, and ultimately a whole new world view. Many paths led me on this journey, but the most intriguing was the one signposted with the word kujikawhich I was to learn was a Yanyuwa way of knowing, which, by singing, lifts and holds and animates both country and kin. Bruce Chatwin did not publish his book Songlines until 1987, so there was almost no public awareness about Aboriginal sacred songs or how they were key to rich, complex and intricately related knowledge systems.

The Yanyuwa elders whom I came to know loved their kujika as a most precious repository of knowledge. They had been singing their country as their old people had taught them, part of a continuum of many, many generations. But even in 1980 the old men and women whom I came to know were worried about their kujika, wondering who would be left that could sing them, that could wandayarrafollow the paths of the songs through the land and the sea. The twentieth century had brought a tidal wave of change which left no space for the deep introspection and knowledge required to learn and sing kujika.

At the time of writing this book I know of only eleven people alive who can still speak Yanyuwa, with all its various forms, some of whom remember when it was once their sole form of communication, and can still understand and communicate the significance of kujika. I share some of their knowledge only because of the trust, intimacy and teaching with which my Yanyuwa mentors privileged me. In exchange, they wished me to record, capturesomehow savesomething of their precious kujika, and the deep knowledge these carry of Yanyuwa ways of life. Their hope was that future generations might still be able to know something of the wisdom that sustained their ancestors and country for millennia.

This book is part of our efforts to record knowledge about kujika (a major part, though there are several components to the project, including dictionary, illustrated atlas, sound archive and website, as discussed below and detailed in Notes for further reading). While this book is a part of my journey of coming to know, the knowledge presented belongs to the Yanyuwa women and men who spent many, many hours teaching my ears to listen and my other senses to know country and, eventually, to sing it. They are co-authors of this book, as listed on the title page, and are acknowledged in detail later in this preface.

The book is also a personal and a professional reflection. It speaks of rich human relationships experienced over three decades, and it is also a story of discoveryof new ways to sense and feel, as well as a whole new way of understanding the land of my birth. It is my project but also my pleasure to share something of what I learned with other Australians who seek a deeper understanding of our continents Indigenous peoples.