What didn’t you do to bury me?
But you forgot that I was a seed
Anon proverb
NGOORWEEL’S KWORDIDJINY (NGOORWEEL’S BIRTH)
An early morning chill descends over the secluded karleep (camp) as Yoonjep, a young Ballaruk woman from the Beeloo clan moves closer to the karl (fire). As djidar (dawn) breaks in the season of Djilba, Yoonjep begins the early stages of her first-time labour, slowly rocking back and forth alongside the warm cracking karl (fire) prepared by the grandmothers. Special plants have been added to the fire to ensure their granddaughter’s experience of labour is both peaceful and empowered.
Despite her feelings of uncertainty and nervousness, she is well supported here by Woollenan and Yabban, her husband's koorta (wives). She also receives support from her aunties and grandmothers, who are both midwives and custodians of the karbarli (grandmother) Lore. Their presence and assistance are comforting for her first-time labour, knowing they can confidently guide her through the process and later, offer plant medicines such as the leaves of wongin (weeping pittosporum), used as a warm compress to help induce her milk.
As she rocks and breathes through her labour, she listens to the gentle trickle in the nearby brook, flowing down from Djerban (Lesmurdie Falls). Yoonjep’s son’s birth alongside this kep (water) will forever connect him to his Beeloo boodjar (country) and to the Boolya Maaman Kapi Nyiting Dreaming songline he will later learn to sing.
Together the women sing softly in unison for her baby’s relationship to his totems, kinship relationships and to the Koondarm (Dreaming). Songs to remind him that this is the boodjar (country) of his karbarli and daambart (grandmothers and grandfathers). As the babbling water harmonises with her aunties and grandmothers’ soft, hypnotic yedi (songs), their evocative vocals soothe her pain, as much as the warm bibool (paperbark) they place on her lower back during the most painful contractions.
As Yoonjep rests in between the waves of labour pain, she becomes aware of a breeze that lovingly caresses her exhausted body. Gentle voices announce, ‘Ngala Nidjala’ (We are here). The ancestral spirits of her karbarli (grandmothers) are with her, protecting her, giving her the strength to bring forth this new life.
As the labour progresses, Yoonjep is gently guided by her family into a squatting position over a soft depression made in the earth. It's filled with soft grasses, bibool (paperbark), kwongkan (sand) and leaves for her to birth her son into ngaangk boodjar (mother earth). This ritual ensures his belonging and connection to Ngaangk Boodjar, Mother Earth, so that he can always feel her heartbeat in the soles of his djena (feet).
Yoonjep’s birthing ground is set under the kwel (sheoak) tree because of the softness of its needles. Kwel means the tree of names and it knows and remembers every person who has ever walked by or sat underneath it.
Generations of skin shed by these passers-by merge in oneness with this tree of knowledge. When the breeze blows through the leaves, the nyetingar (ancestors) songs can be heard. Birthing her newborn son here will forever link him to a complex web of ancestral energies.
The booyi (smoke) from the karl (fire) begins to swirl in a breeze around Yoonjep as she moans through the final stages of labour, safely delivering her son onto the soft sheets of bibool (paperbark).
Immediately after his birth, the yorga (women) gently roll her newborn son through soft, grey ash powder, sifted and prepared from the charcoal of previous fires. This cleanses him before he is smoked with green gum leaves to ensure a strong and healthy life.
Under the guidance of her aunties, Yoonjep will bury her placenta under a significant boorn (tree) nearby, placing the tree’s seeds over the buried placenta. This creates an unbroken link for her son to return to his birthing tree, connecting him with his ancestors whose placentas were also buried here. When he’s older, he can access this tree portal on a full moon night to reconnect with his nyetingar (ancestors). Remembering this place where he was born becomes part of the song line he will sing whenever he passes by.
After the birth, Yoonjep lifts her newborn son close to her bibi (breast), feeling overwhelmed with waves of deep love and affection she instantly feels towards him.
She softly whispers,
Kaya (Hello). Ngoorweel. Noonook koorliny noonook karla (You have come home). Ngalang koort kwop (Our hearts are happy).
Exhausted, Yoonjep rests, thinking how happy her husband Mooritj will be when he meets their new son. He’s not allowed to be with Yoonjep due to the cultural exclusion of maam (men) from the nooba kwerda (birthing) ritual. He remains back at their family karleep (camp) waiting for a full cycle of the moon to pass before greeting his son. His daambart (grandfather) Munday, the bridiya (leader) of the Beeloo clan, will also be djiripin (happy) knowing this koolang (child) will one day become caretaker of Whadjuk boodjar (country).
Resting, a deep stillness settles over Yoonjep, interrupted only by the djert (birds) who sing a welcoming song to Ngoorweel; a song that links him to all the living beings in his boodjar (country) and to his ancestor’s keny djena (first feet).
KAAMBARNINY NGOORWEEL (INTRODUCING NGOORWEEL)
A blanket of hazy smoke from the nearby smouldering karl (fire) is the stage into which I first breathe life. My previously unused brown meeyal (eyes) open for the first time to greet the loving and warm, brown meeyal (eyes) belonging to my ngaangk (mother).
Green. My first glimpse of ngaangk boodjar (mother earth) is of a smoky green world, lit up by the dawning ngaangk (sun) filtering its light through the sea of boorn (trees) that surrounds my birth ground. My newborn dwangk (ears), having just emerged from a watery world, hear for the first time the djert (birds) dawn chorus signalling my birth. The black wardong (crows) piercing caw matches my cries, welcoming me into boodjar (country).
My relationship with the wardong (crow) is significant to my kinship and skin system to which I now belong. Being born into a Wardong (Crow) moiety gives me a skin name, Ballaruk, the same as my mother Yoonjep. This links me to an ancient system of kinship to ensure my life holds the balance in koord-katak (marriages) and in my relationship to all living things.
When I am an initiated adult, I will only be eligible to marry yok (girls) who belong to the Manatj (White cockatoo) kinship group. In Whadjuk lore, all koolang (babies) adopt their mother’s bloodline. My mother's family line also links me to Yellagonga’s Mooro boodjar, connecting me through kinship lore to Yellagonga as my tribal father. Thanks to these moort (family) connections through koord-katak (marriage), I will be able to travel safely outside of my Beeloo boodjar into other clans’ territories.
My birth in boodjar immediately connects me to an intricate web of relationships with everything and everyone that exists in my world. Even before I came to exist in human form, I was a kaanya (spirit) child. In this way, boodjar recognises my spirit, just as it recognises my nyetingar (ancestors) whose keny djena (first feet) became the traditional custodians of these lands.
My new life is now woven into the Koondarm (Dreaming) and into boodjar with its wirrin (spirits), barna (animals), boorn (trees) djert (birds) and kooboorn (totems). When I am older, a female bridiya (elder) in our moort (family) will inform me of my family totem and my personal totem.
A sudden movement in the bushes signals the arrival of a big, greyish-brown yonga (kangaroo), whose powerful hind legs shift his large, furry body closer to my birth ground to feed on the fresh djooraly (grasses). Its presence signals the beginning of a life long relationship I will have with yonga (kangaroo), my clan’s totem.
For now, all I need is the love and warmth of Yoonjep, my ngaangk (mother) and her bibi (milk) to grow and sustain me. I am now a koolanga nganiak mooning (child who is carried), skin to skin in the warmth and safety of her booka (kangaroo skin cloak).
KAAMBARNINY MUNDAY (INTRODUCING MUNDAY)
It is garrambi (sunset). Munday, leader of the Beeloo clan, stands proud and strong as a Whadjuk warrior alongside his upright kitj (quartz tipped spear) aloft Djerban (Lesmurdie Falls). Silhouetted against a burnt orange sky, he stares down from his rocky throne onto the green world below. His greased red wilgi (ochre) hair and bushy greying narnak (beard) are in stark contrast to the dark brown yonga booka (kangaroo skin cloak) he wears fastened with a birnt (bone pin). His adolescent initiations into manhood can be seen in the ngambarn (scars) that mark his chest and arms and by the moolyart (kangaroo bone) he wears through his nasal septum.
Immersed in the pink and orange panorama, Munday absorbs the last of the sun’s warming rays before it drops behind a rocky ridgeline. On the wet, rocky wall opposite him, dark shadows begin to form, out from which the faces of his nyetingar (ancestors) stare back at him. As he feels their gaze strengthen, Munday begins to sing a yedi (song) and takes in a long and slow and deep breath, drawing energy from their presence.
Torrents of heavy water cascade down the rocky cliff face through to Yule Brook, connecting the Bulya Muminkuppie Nyittiny songline track to the place where his new grandson Ngoorweel has just been born. These songlines sing the journey made by the spiritual ancestors when the land was formed in the Nyittiny (cold time) and about his karbarligarmarn (grandparents’ lands) and everything that exists in it. Songs enable clan groups to remember their nyetingar (ancestors), remembering every person that has ever been born, lived and died along that songline.
As Munday sings alongside the milky, frothing waters of Djerban (Lesmurdie falls), he remembers the giant serpent, Waakal, whose creative energy slithered through here to create bidi (tracks) that became the waterways forming the Moorda ranges (Darling ranges). Koora, koora (long ago) in the Nyittiny (creation time), Waakal emerged from the base of Kartagarrup (Kings Park), moving out yira boodjar (over the earth) and kardap boodjar (under the earth), creating the wirrin (spirits), ngamma (waterholes), boya (rocks) and boorn (trees), shaping the kaart (hills), gullies, bays, lakes and bilya (rivers), including the Derbal Yerrigan (Swan River) and the Djarlgarro Beelier (Canning Rivers). Waakal also created katitjin (knowledge) about the Whadjuk kinship system building a foundation of koorndarn and kaarnya (respect and values) to be upheld by all clans.
Standing above the treeline, Munday looks out over a green carpet of boorn (trees), seeing the booyi (smoke) rise from the many karl (fires) lit by the different Whadjuk clans. In the distance, he can identify the locality of the Mooro and Beeliar clan’s territory, remembering his white-haired and ever-smiling friend Midgegooroo who once governed these Beeliar clan lands. He listens to the deafening roar of the waterfall as it sacrifices itself onto the boya (rocks) below, remembering those who’ve sacrificed their lives in this ongoing battle between the Whadjuk people and the new wedjela (white) invaders.
With a winyarn koort (sad heart), Munday’s big brown meeyal (eyes) well with tears, as he remembers the babbin (friends) and moort (family) he’s lost in this war. Tears fall as Munday becomes overwhelmed by his sadness and the memories of those he's loved and lost.
As the sun disappears over the ridgeline, Munday kneels alongside the muddy banks of the Djerban (Lesmurdie falls). In grief, he digs his maar (hands) deep into his boodjar and calls out to his nyetingar (ancestors) whose keny djena (first feet) roamed freely through this country. He asks for strength to know how to lead his people through these difficult times. As the leader of his clan, he feels overwhelmed by the burden of responsibility he holds to protect the clan families, coupled with the powerlessness to stop what is unfolding before his eyes.
How can he prepare his clan for the changes this wedjela invasion brings? He cries for the loss of his boodjar and for the constant fear of being arrested or killed for breaking the new wedjela laws. He cries in anger at the efforts and attempts he had already made to restore peace by meeting and negotiating with the Governors, only then to be outlawed and have his fellow clan leaders murdered.
These negotiations between Munday and the wedjela governors, James Stirling and Frederick Irwin have been ongoing for many seasons. He's been discussing with them his clan concerns over the loss of their moort (family), hunting grounds, kep (water) and ceremonial lands. These meetings attempt to seek a peaceful resolution but quickly shift to Munday’s passionate pleas to stop the slaughter of so many relatives and neighbouring clan groups.
How many more of my people will you kill in this war that seeks to exterminate us? You have taken over our hunting and fishing grounds and your dogs have driven our kangaroos far away.
He even offers Governor Irwin a long list of the names of his dead clan members who were shot and the names of the wedjela men who shot them. He remembers the Governor’s reply,
The violence will cease when the natives refrain from striking white men with the spear, or from stealing their property. If a black man spears the white man, the white man will shoot the black man.
Confused Munday asked him,
How can the spearing of one wedjela deserve death when it’s an honourable payback under our lore? We are afraid that before long more of our people will be added to this already long death list.
As Munday weeps for Midgegooroo, Yagan, Domjum, and for so many Whadjuk now dead from the power of the wedjela magic fire sticks, pindari-min maya waliny (that make a thundering noise), a foreboding feeling arises knowing their kitj (spear) and kylie (boomerangs) can never compete with these new firesticks.
As the coolness of the evening creeps in, Munday takes solace in the deep resonating sound of a rhythmic call from nyoolang (owl). In the distance, he can hear the shrill cry of the karak (red-tailed black cockatoo) settling in the trees to roost for the evening. A gentle marr (wind) begins to gather in strength bringing the spirit of his nyetingar (ancestors). As the breeze drops, a deep peace settles inside Munday’s koort (heart). He breathes slowly and deeply, knowing his nyetingar (ancestors) will continue to help him negotiate with the wedjela government to protect his boodjar and his people.
MOORITJ (NGOORWEEL’S FATHER)
The bright and sunny mirgadak (morning) lights up the bush into brilliant greens and warm browns, while Mooritj waits nervously under the shade of a giant Marri tree for the return of his wife Yoonjep and his newborn son. Since Ngoorweel's birth, he's been patiently waiting back at his karleep (campsite) for Yoonjep’s moon cycle to be completed. Last evening’s new moon indicates the return of his family is imminent. Mooritj is looking forward to holding his newborn son.
Before his birth, Mooritj's son’s spirit visited him in a koondarm (dream). Spirit children exist before conception and often come in a koondarm to meet their parents or karbarli wer moyran (grandmothers and grandfathers). While Mooritj waits, he remembers the koondarm in which Ngoorweel plays with his grandfather Munday’s kitj (spear) while wearing wedjela clothes and speaking their language. Mooritj is aware that each season boon (hordes) of these pale-skinned adults, their koolangka (children) and their unusual barna (animals) arrive. He now suspects the dream refers to his son’s upbringing being intertwined with both the Whadjuk and wedjela ways.
Mooritj, though stern-looking, is by nature a gentle and quiet man. A deep listener and a deep thinker. Mooritj yearns to be a good father to his son Ngoorweel, the same way Munday has been for him. Mooritj has dreams to one day become a respected bridiya (leader) just like his father, although he now worries about the uncertainty of the clan's future if the wedjela people stay.
Growing up, Mooritj recognised the important leadership role his maam (father) played during the early invasion. He observed how other leaders, like Midgegooroo, leader of the Beeliar clan and his son Yagan, stood up against the wedjela in the many conflicts occurring across the new Swan Valley Colony. While Moortij feels proud to hear of these heroic and brave stories, he also understands the reality that the consequences of this resistance have now resulted in both Midgegooroo and Yagan's death and Munday being outlawed and imprisoned.
In preparation for his wife and son's return, Mooritj has rubbed koomal (possum) fat into his hair and onto his thin, tall body, making it look sleek and shiny. He has also prepared a ceremonial song and dance to perform for his son’s birth. Just as he finishes the preparations by placing his spun possum fur belt around his waist, he hears the group of women calling out to him. He inhales deeply and smiles.