Heartsick for Country

by Sally Morgan

  [40] Place near Skeleton Point.

  [41] L Marika and B Yunipungu, ‘Gathering’ Elders, Wisdom from, Australia’s Indigenous Leaders, P McConchie (ed.), The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, 2003, p. 41.

  [42] A W Nona, ‘The Sea’, Elders, Wisdom from Australia’s Indigenous Leaders, p. 82.

  [43] Australian Museum Online (2004), ‘Spirituality’, Indigenous Australia’, viewed 7 June, 2007, http://www.dreamtime.net.au/indigenous/ spirituality.cfm

  [44] ibid.

  [45] R Whitehurst, Noongar Dictionary, Noongar to English and English to Noongar, Excelsior Print, Bunbury, WA, 1992, p 23.

  [46] M Hart, A Story of Fire, Continued, Aboriginal Christianity, New Creation Publications Inc., Blackwood, SA, 1997, p. 11.

  [47] ibid., p. xiii.

  [48] S Cornell and J P Kalt, Sovereignty and Nation-Building: The Development Challenge in Indian Country Today, 2006, 21/08/2006. http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/docs/CornellKalt%20Sov-NB.pdf

  [49] K Healy, Social Work Theories in Context, Creating Frameworks for Practice, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, USA, 2005, p. 83

  [50] ibid p. 83.

  [51] Op. cit. at Note 19, p. 85.

  [52] ibid.

  [53] V McLennan and F Khavarpour 2004, Culturally appropriate health promotion: its meaning and application in Aboriginal communities, Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 15(3), viewed 20 June 2007, http://www.healthpromotion.org.au/docs/mclennan_article.pdf, p. 238.

  [54] ibid.

  [55] J Walley, oral history interview with L Collard, Western Australia, 2002.

  [56] Welcome or hello, everyone.

  [57] Nyungar language group.

  [58] Knowledge.

  [59] Country, family and knowledge.

  [60] People from the South-West of Western Australia.

  [61] White people.

  [62] Long long ago.

  [63]http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/multimedia/nyungar/

  [64] T Bennell, oral history interview with L Collard, Western Australia, 1978.

  [65] A P Elkin, The Australian Aborigines: How to Understand Them, Angus & Robertson, Australia, p. 241, pp. 260–61.

  [66] G F Moore, A Descriptive Vocabularly of the Language in Common Use Amongst the Aborigines of Western Australia; with Copious Meanings, Embodying much Interesting Information Regarding the Habits, Manners and Customs of the Natives, and the Natural History of the Country, Wm S Orr & Co, 1842, p. 75.

  [67] T Bennell, . revised edn, Glenyse Collard (ed. and compiled), Nyungar Language Centre, Bunbury, 1993. Oral history interviews with L Collard: T Bennell, 1978a; S Garlett, 2002; J Hayden, 2002; D Winmar, 2002.

  [68] Ngulak Ngarnk Nidja Boodja: Our Mother This Land, T Mia and S Morgan (eds), Centre for Indigenous History and the Arts, University of Western Australia, 2000; http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ multimedia/nyungar/.

  [69] Woman.

  [70] T Bennell, oral history Interview with L Collard, Western Australia, 1978.

  [71] Child/children.

  [72] Mother, blood/bloodline.

  [73] Sylvia J Hallam and Lois Tilbrook (eds), Aborigines of the Southwest region, 1829–1840. The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians, vol 8, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1990; S Hallam, ‘Aboriginal Women as Providers; the 1830’s on the Swan’, Aboriginal History, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 38–53, 1991; R Van den Berg, Nyoongar People of Australia; perspectives on Racism and Multiculturalism, Royal Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, 2002, p. xii.

  [74] Mother.

  [75] R M Lyon, ‘A Glance at the Manners, and Language of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Western Australia; With a Short Vocabularly,’ Perth Gazette, 1833, p. 9, and Western Australian Journal, vol 1, no 13, p. 51–52, 30 March 1833.

  [76] S Garlett, oral history interview with L Collard, Western Australia, 2000; ‘Goonininup; A Site Complex on the Southern Side of Mount Eliza’, An Historical Perspective of Land Use and Associations in the Old Swan Brewery area, Perth, West Australian Museum, 1989.

  [77] D Batesin , Aboriginal Perth: Bibbulmun Biographies and Legends, P J Bridge (ed.), Hesperian Press, Victoria Park, WA 1992; D Bates in The Native Tribes of Western Australia, I White (ed.) National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1985; T Bennell, 1993, op. cit.; E Bennell and A Thomas, Aboriginal Legends from the Bibulmum Tribe, Rigby, Adelaide, 1980; P Baines, ‘A Litany for Land’, in Aboriginal Legends from the Bibulmum Tribe, in ‘Settled’ Australia, I Keen (ed.), Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1988, pp 227–249; D Winmar, oral history interview with L Collard, Western Australia, 2002; E Kickett, The Trails of the Rainbow Serpents, Chatham Road Publications, Midland, WA, 1995.

  [78] T Bennell, 1993, op. cit.; E Bennell and A Thomas, 1980, op. cit.; P Baines, 1988, op. cit.; D Winmar, 2002, op. cit.; E Kickett, 1995, op. cit.

  [79] Means both goodbye and hello.

  [80] T Bennell, 1978, op. cit.

  [81] On 21 June 2007, the Howard government announced its intention to use Commonwealth powers to impose a number of emergency measures; this response followed the Northern Territory government’s Broad Inquiry into the protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse (2007), a report known as Little Children Are Sacred http://www.nt.gov.au/dcm/ inquirysaac/pdf/bipacsa_final_report.pdf—and an announcement by Noel Pearson, Director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, on 19 June, about plans to impose measures in Cape York, Queensland, which would withhold welfare payments in situations where children were not attending school and where also there were notifications of child abuse.

  [82] An Aboriginal word, meaning Aboriginal, the term is used extensively throughout the southern parts of South Australia.

  [83] Means country.

  [84] The Kupa Pita Kunkgas are a group of Aboriginal women Elders living in Coober Pedy. They were active during the 1990s in speaking publicly about the cultural significance of country and the destructive impact the building of a nuclear waste dump would have on their lands. Eileen Brown is a Yangkuntjara Elder and this interview was translated by Waniwa Lester.

  [85] The expansion of the Roxby Downs uranium mine, already the largest uranium mine in the world, was announced during 2006 by the South Australian state government, granting BHP Billiton approval for further expansion.

  [86] In May 2007, the Northern Land Council began negotiations with the federal government Education, Science and Training Minister Julie Bishop to allow a nuclear waste site to be situated on the traditional lands of the Muckaty community in the Northern Territory.

  [87] From the mid-1990s the Kungkas waged a campaign to stop a nuclear waste dump being sited in their traditional lands. The campaign was ultimately successful and the federal government now lists Aboriginal lands in the Northern Territory as one of its options for the dump.

  [88] Inma means ceremonial dance and singing; Kungka is women.

  [89] British Nuclear Weapons testing, nine were exploded in South Australia in 1956–58.

  [90] This conference was convened by the Cape York Institute and held in Cairns, 25–26 June 2007.

  [91] T Koch, ‘Get Parents Who Shield Abusers: Pearson’, The Australian, 26 June, 2007, p. 1.

  [92] R A Dickson, Ships Registered in Western Australia from 1856, vol. 3, West Australian Maritime Museum, Fremantle, 1994, p. 44.

  [93] E Merewether to Governor Macquarie, 11 December 1848, cited in: Documents in the History of Aboriginal Education in New South Wales, Fletcher, J J, p. 37, Southwood Press, 1989.

  [94] M Dodson, First Report to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commission, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1993, p. 7.

  [95] Wunda was the name given to the white people when they first arrived in our country. Wunda is a Gumilaroi word denoting spirits, and my people believed that when they first saw white people that they were spirits returning fr
om the other side.

  [96] G Dixon, Holocaust Revisited—Killing Time, Centre for Indigenous History and the Arts, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, 2003, p. 82.

  [97]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberte,_egalite,_fraternite

  [98]http://en.wikipedia.org/lunar_plaques

  [99]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/extraterrestial_real_estate

  [100] V Collingridge, Captain Cook: Obsession and Betrayal in the New World, Ebury Press, UK, 2002, p. 5. 101 http://www.imbd.com/title/tt00765759/quotes

  [102] A Kwaymullina, ‘Living together in country: Creation, terra nullius and the trouble with tradition’, The Trouble with Tradition: Native Title and Cultural Change,S Young, Federation Press, Melbourne (to be published in Dec 2008).

  [103] J Cook, Captain Cook’s Journal 1768–1771, Australiana Facsimile Edition no. 188, Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide, 1968, p. 244.

  Glossary

  Variations in the spelling of some Aboriginal words in this book reflect local community variations. (Table I)

  boodjar: land.

  boodjarri: pregnant woman.

  Boordier: Elders.

  coolaman: wooden dish/bowl for carrying food/water/baby.

  gadiya: white person/people.

  gnumma (hole): fresh water collected in a hole in the rock.

  karrdar: goanna.

  Kunanyi: Mount Wellington.

  Lupaylana: Betsy Island, near where the Derwent River enters Storm Bay.

  Nipaluna: the Derwent River and area around the city of Hobart.

  num: the ghosts of palawa ancestors. A word used for white people who, when they first arrived, were considered to be spirits.

  numlagger: ‘the white man comes’, from the poetry of Jim Everett.

  Midgerigoo: respected Nyungar Elder of the Swan River coastal plain.

  rowra: a powerful spirit, capable of great harm.

  tunapri manta: old knowledge (law).

  tyerlore: island wives, palawa women taken by European sealers and held on the islands in the Bass Strait.

  Yagan: respected Nyungar warrior from the Swan River coastal plain.

  Yellagonga: respected Elder of the Swan River coastal plain.

  yorkga: Nyungar woman.

  TABLE I

  Acknowledgements

  This anthology is an initiative of the Centre for Indigenous History and the Arts, School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia. Our heartfelt thanks go to all the courageous contributors who have generously shared their feelings and experiences of their own countries in this publication.

  Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina