yindyamarra: respect, be gentle, polite, honour, do slowly
winhanganha: know, think, remember
Many people have asked me why, as a non-indigenous woman, I enrolled in a Graduate Certificate of Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage. After all, I’m not a teacher or a health-worker. My motivation was instinctive, so it is taking me some time to understand it myself. When I heard there was a course that I could do that taught Wiradjuri language, I responded immediately. If I had known about it earlier, I would have signed up then. I knew I needed to learn the language of the land where I have lived most of my life, and I have always felt that it is simply respectful to speak the language of the country where you are. Also, I was frustrated with not knowing the names for things, the true names of plants, animals and other natural phenomena; and I knew this was a blockage to my really connecting and understanding my responsibilities to manage the land. But, of course, it was more than this for, as Wiradjuri know, you cannot learn the language without learning the culture, and without building relationships with the people.
So for me the question is not why I enrolled. My question is why has it taken me so long to find my way through the silence I always encountered when seeking to understand the history of this country and my place in it; why have I taken such a convoluted path to learning that which I always suspected I needed to learn about the country where I lived, but which was just out of reach?
The answer, of course, is that I was not ready to fully listen.
As a child I grew up close to the earth, or ‘in the bush’ as we say. My family were semi-nomadic bee-keepers, and we spent weeks or months camped in various remote locations – road reserves, stock reserves, government forests or National Parks, and sometimes a farmer’s back paddock. I was immersed in the natural world, and responded to it. As I grew, though, I was drawn away from this closeness to the earth – to the world of school, of work, of planning for the future, of the aspirational desire to be socially and materially better-off than previous generations. By the time I was fifteen, I was living in the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney preparing, along with my sister, to be the first university-educated generation of my family.
It was not an easy transition, and the main reason, for me, was not the obvious one of accommodating the change from a rural to an urban mindset – from country to city – but the loss of meaning that came from the lack of connection. From not knowing where I belonged. Or, more precisely, from not belonging. I was a classic case of ‘you can take the girl out of the bush, but you can’t take the bush out of the girl’ – and this in a girl from a family who had never ‘owned’ land, only a house in the town of Tumut, our base.
I grew up in Tumut during the last years of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. For years, I could recite statistics about the dams and the hydro-electric scheme we regularly visited on school excursions; but I’ve forgotten most of them now. I do know Blowering Dam was built in 1968, and Talbingo, just upstream – and the last of the big dams – was completed in 1972, the year before I started school. Both Talbingo and the Jounama Pondage at its base are used in the production of hydro-electricity, meaning they are prone to rapid fluctuations in water levels; but once the water reaches Blowering, it is released at gradual, measured rates into the Tumut river, which is the major tributary of the Murrumbidgee. So this lake is ideal for recreational use, and is more easily accessible than the bigger reservoir upstream.
Sundays in summer in my childhood we often went water-skiing on Blowering Dam with family friends who owned a speed-boat. Even at the time, I found it bizarre. The shores of the lake are gravel, treeless, lifeless because of the constant change in water levels. Further up grass would sometimes try to grow on areas that had been above water for some time; but there was no soil, so it was difficult for even the hardiest plants. We would sit in the gravel, in the blazing sun and – it seemed to me – pretend that this was the good life; practicing a wilful blindness to the carnage that had been wreaked around us by the damming of one of the most beautiful and fertile valleys in Australia.
It looks little different now, and it still makes me sad to view it. Over the years, I have imagined the removal of the Blowering dam wall. All my life I have felt intensely that it should not be – I mourn that I never knew the valley before it was drowned. I’d still be happy to see that wall dismantled, for I feel that water should be shared, stored and used within the landscape, constantly cycling throughout country. Water, used properly, brings life not death.
It seems I have moved a long way from the question with which I began, but this background may explain some of the resonance I felt upon hearing the story of Gugaa, the goanna, the totem of the Wiradjuri people – a story that belongs in that landscape of my childhood and has been there since the beginning.
The country was in drought and sad. All the animals were suffering. Even the birds were falling from the trees. Only the goannas were flat and sleek. Everyone thought they had a secret supply of water. The Goanna Men were greedy but the Goanna wives shared what water they had with those who were thirsty.
The Goanna Women planned to find out where the water was hidden. The youngest and most brave of the Goanna Women secretly followed the Goanna Men up the mountain. She stayed all night, fell asleep and then awoke in horror to find herself surrounded by little bush spirit men. To her surprise, the spirit men offered to help her because she was generous and courageous. They took her to the secret sweet water place and told her how to force her yam stick into the side of the mountain.
The stick went in easily. Then she heard a roar and ran as fast as her feet could carry her. Behind her, a great gushing flood of water rushed down the valley. All the land now had water and the animals were happy once more.
That river came to be called the Murrumbidgee.
I first heard this story told by Uncle James Ingram on the banks of the Murrumbidgee at Wagga. He told it to the entire student cohort, and added a comment at the end about the matriarchal structure of Wiradjuri culture that made fellow Wiradjuri laugh. I am not qualified to comment on that, except to say that the stories operate on many levels, for those with different responsibilities and understandings. Sometimes stories are gender-specific, or can be told only by certain kin. The version I reproduce here was kindly given to me by Lloyd Dolan at Ngungilanha, the Indigenous Student Centre at Charles Sturt University’s Wagga campus. I am aware it is also available on the website called Welcome to Country, with an ending where the goanna wives abandon their husbands. This story is therefore freely available and so I can repeat it here.
When I first heard this story, I responded physically. I felt a wave of recognition. This is a story that connects me to the places I’ve lived all along the Murrumbidgee valley. It immediately evoked the reality of our failure to manage our water resources – calling out the powerful selfishness that prevails. At the same time it provides a template for how we should manage water in this country, underlining the need to share water with every living thing. Water is not a static thing to be locked up, it is dynamic, moving through all life at the pace required. The water belongs in country – in the landscape, in the bellies of people and animals, in trees and grasses, in the micro-organisms in the earth, in the winter fogs along the river. In the rainclouds.
But, on reflection, I realise that at another level, the story speaks about the importance in Wiradjuri culture of sharing. It is not just about sharing water, it is about sharing as a fundamental value in the Wiradjuri worldview. It also speaks to the balancing relationship of men and women, and the importance of each individual doing what they can to contribute to the whole. It values women, particularly their generosity and courage. Why is it the youngest goanna wife who risks going up the mountains to release the water for everyone? Is it because she has no children yet? Is it because young women have a powerful sense of justice? Are they the bravest? Are they the most generous? Whatever the answer to these question it is clear we need the courage and the generosity of a young goanna wife with a big, sharp stick and the ability to be guided by the spirits of the land. The obvious next question is about my generosity and my bravery. Mmm.
It seems to me this story answers to many current pertinent issues in the wider Australian society – inequality, water management, the disrespect of women – in a timeless and time-honoured way. It would seem worthwhile to listen for that reason alone. But it goes deeper again; and so I find my way to the answer to the question of why I enrolled in the course. I am seeking a deeper connection with a living landscape. See how the story brings the country alive. The bush spirit men in the mountains, ready to assist the generous and courageous. The gugaa wives down in the valley trying to keep everything alive, while the gugaa men retreat to the mountains to grow sleek and powerful in their selfishness. Now, when I travel around the country, I know some of the inhabitants. I am more at home.
I know this story. I have lived it, because I have lived in this land. It seems that, on some level, I was listening, but not at an active level, distracted by the background noise of the dominant Western worldview. I knew country was speaking, but was unable to interpret what I heard in any meaningful way. Now I see more. I hear more. And I am more connected.
Although my ancestors came from other lands, Wiradjuri culture has given me a way to connect with this land, by listening to the stories, by learning the language, the song lines, the story lines, learning about the art, craft and tools – when you see a woman’s yam stick the story makes absolute sense. I am intrigued that the word winhanganha means both to know, to think and to remember, because the course has reminded me of what I knew as a child but had forgotten as an adult – that it is through relationships that we belong to this land. It is through culture and through language and through relationships with Wiradjuri people who can teach us the proper ways of connecting that we can learn to live in a deeper relationship with country. Relationships with country are based on mutual interactions of listening and responding in the same way relationships with people are. Learning the language, learning the culture, allows me to understand and communicate better. This is foundational to a sense of belonging to a place, which seems to be a fundamental human need. But it also grounds my identity. It is through connections, mutual responsibilities and a sense of belonging to a web of life around me that I can relax and be myself. Belonging affirms the self in a healthy way, giving me the sense of being a part of something bigger that myself – another fundamental human need for psychological health. I am here to learn to connect more fully with both country and community, to be more responsible, generous and courageous, and to support the growth of these ideals.
It is an honour to be involved in the course. Wiradjuri people did not have to offer it to those of us who do not have Wiradjuri heritage. It speaks volumes for their generosity and courage that they do. I have felt included and welcomed, even when I have made mistakes. The kindness of the Wiradjuri people I have met has been humbling and heartbreaking, especially in the light of the history. The fact that enough of the language exists for it to be reawakened and to inform the cultural rebuilding of the Wiradjuri nation is a precious gift, a healing gift they freely share with us that is all the richer for being undeserved – and which those truly seeking to be at home in this land deeply appreciate.
With acknowledgement to Dr Uncle Stan Grant (senior), Dr John Rutter and Lloyd Dolan.
Riparian 