MAAMBA RESERVE
Bonar (seasons) pass. Time heals my grieving koort (heart) after the painful loss of Gootalan and Welberan. I know and trust we will be reunited once again when I leave this world to join them in Kurannup.
Not long after their funerals, I resigned from being a manatj to spend more time with my moort. I want to be able to offer more support to my clan in the ongoing challenges we continue to face.
For the Whadjuk clans, the season of Djilba brings great change to our lives. For those of us who have survived invasion, murder, diseases, malnutrition, imprisonment and the missions, the wedjela government has recently delivered a new plan that separates our people into a reserve, out of sight from the newly established city of Boorloo (Perth), now a federated state in the Commonwealth of Australia.
Bishop Hale and Premier John Forrest have granted our people some land at Welshpool in my family's Beeloo boodjar. This becomes a final resting camp for the bridiya (elders) in a reserve we call Maamba. Here, a small farming settlement offers a new home for many Whadjuk, Ballardong, Binjareb and Wardandi homeless and hungry families. They arrive from the new wedjela towns of Guildford, Helena Valley, Perth, Northam, York, Beverley, Gingin and Busselton. Unlike the keny djena (first feet) of our nyetingar (ancestors), we can no longer continue any seasonal movement through the bidi (paths) that cut across our boodjar homelands.
I am now an elderly maam with a long, grey narnak (beard). I camp here at Welshpool Maamba with my moort (family) watching the ebb and flow of many bonar (seasons) pass me by. Living in my Beeloo boodjar, even though it is a government reserve, allows me to remain connected to my fathers and grandfathers' boodjar. Here I grew from a boy into an elder on this land and each feature of this place is as familiar to me as the moolymari (faces) of my moort. I recognise all the springs, boorn (trees), creeks, plants, barna (animals) and bidi (paths).
Sadly for many of the Yued, Wardandi and Ballardong clans who reside here, they are dispossessed from their karleep (home camps) and sit weeping with sad koort (hearts) living away from the familiarity of their boodjar.
The Maamba reserve has been established away from any wedjela settlements, to discourage our families access to the highly populated wedjela areas. As we no longer have a chance to hunt and gather any of our traditional foods, Henry Prinsep the Chief Protector of our families has set up a ration station where we’re offered flour and tea. At the reserve, malnutrition continues to be rife amongst our old people as these rations have recently been halved. These wedjela bosses try to explain to me how fewer rations will stop our people from becoming lazy.
Along with my wife Yoolyeenan, my children and grandchildren, Timbul, my niece Fanny Balbuk, Monop, Ngilgi, Woolber and Banyap all live together with us at this camp. My babbin (friend) Monop is always very vocal here at Maamba, acting as a mediator for the bworan karbarli (old men and women).
A Mineng bridiya (elder) called Nebinyan camps here too. He is a respected song man who performs some of his songs for a wedjela we call Karbarli (Daisy Bates). She’s set up a tent here to listen and record the stories of the bworan karbali waangkiny (old men and women talking). I share with her some of my beliefs and traditions, remembering how my daambart (grandfather) Munday taught me about the usefulness of the wedjela paper talk to record and pass on information.
Despite the situation, all the clans continue to hold tight to their cultural beliefs, practising ceremony, dances, language and kinship relations to continue the lore that’s been handed to us. One time the clans arrange a traditional keniny (dance) to perform for a visit by the Duke and Duchess of York and Cornwell.
We gather at Nanak (Success Hill) where we used to gather in large numbers for dancing, singing and feasting. Nanak (Success Hill) is an important site because the giant serpent Waakal created a natural spring on the side of the hill called Waggalgattak before it slithered back into the Derbal Yerrigan bilya (Swan River). Painted up with wilgi (ochre), we perform a koomba keniny (big dance) amongst ourselves at a kedalak keniny (night time corroboree) making our koort (hearts) feel moorditj (strong).
At Maamba, the boylyada maam (medicine men) continue to heal the bworan karbali (old men and women). I send my koolangka (children) out to look for kondill (kunzea) shrubs, whose pinky-purple flowers appear late in Djilba. When crushed into a poultice they are good to use on the old people’s arthritic joints.
My niece Fanny Balbuk continues to prepare wilgie (ochre) for ceremonies, to ensure its availability for trade. Despite her age, Balbuk still honours her responsibility entrusted to her by her grandparents as the caretaker of the wilgie pit.
Just as Djilba comes to an end, Maamba reserve becomes the place where many of the senior yorga and maam (women and men) end their last days before passing to the moodjar (Christmas tree) and onto the spiritual realm of Kurannup.
I recall Karbarli teaching me how our meeyal (eyes) will tell us what season it is, as boodjar (country) always speaks to us. I observe the Balga boorn (grass tree) stalks flowering and the moodjar tree's bright orange flowers, an indicator that the Djilba season is ending. Deep inside my koort (heart), I understand that the season of my life is ending, too.
As a bworan (old man), I’m not afraid of gnoytj (death) but saddened to see bworan karbali (old men and women) dying outside their boodjar in the djanga house (hospital /spirit house). Djanga (hospital /spirit house) is where the minditj (sickness) lives and where the djanga (spirits) are trapped. I’m determined for my spirit to pass in my boodjar rather than in the Royal Perth hospital where the wedjela take the old people.
Dying in my boodjar ensures I can get to the moodjar tree before leaving for Kurannap, my final spiritual resting place. There on the shore waiting to greet me will be my beloved Gootalan, my wives, Karbarli (grandma), my mother, Yoondjep, father, Mooritj, grandfather Munday, my sisters, brothers and my babbin (friends) Midgegooroo and Yagan. Then my spirit will kalyakoorl (forever) be free.
The night before I die, a cool kedalak (evening) descends upon the small group of us who sit quietly under a thin crescent meeka (moon). A sliver of its light is barely visible through the darkening boorn (trees). In the darkness, our karl burns with hot embers that create a reddish glow on our ageing moolymari (faces). Everyone looks tired as we warm ourselves around the karl.
For some of the bridiya (elders), anger and worry sit heavy on their brows and their lips are set tight in anger. Together we sit quietly watching the fire burn low, waiting for the yonga (kangaroo) tails to cook, reflecting on the changes to our boodjar since the wedjela came. Remembering people we’ve loved and lost.
In the stillness of our smoky campfire, we sit in silence watching the smoke plumes curl and spiral upwards higher and higher into the night sky. There are no other sounds apart from the occasional crackle of the embers, the wind in the gum trees and the trickle of the nearby creek. Peace descends upon us as we sit here belonging in our boodjar, as did generations of our nyetingar (ancestors) before us. I can feel them with us in the breeze. I close my eyes and breathe in the harmony offered at this moment.
CYCLE OF LIFE
Breathlessly I whisper to my boodjar,
Noonook boorda djinang, boordawan (goodbye, see you later).
As I near the final stages of my life, djidar (dawn) breaks the long night’s darkness with an eerie blue light. A blanket of grey, hazy smoke from the smouldering embers of the karl hovers above the Maamba reserve.
My last glimpse of my beautiful boodjar is of a smoky green world, lit up by a dawning yellow ngaangk (sun) filtering its light in the sea of green boorn (trees) surrounding my death ground.
My eyes witness the last dawn as I farewell my Whadjuk boodjar. I see the vibrant orange blossoms on the Moodjar boorn (tree), feeling reassured that this is where my spirit will rest before its journey to Kurannup. I have never broken a branch or flower from the Moodjar boorn (tree), nor sat under its shade because it is the kaanya (spirit) tree, the tree of souls, and its winnaitch (forbidden).
I become aware of the maam-marang (wind) caressing my skin. I breathe for one last time the sweet scent of the dawn. The trees awaken to the djert (birds) dawn chorus. Everything in boodjar comes alive just as the caw of a black wardong signals my time.
As I’m carried on a cart to the djanga house (hospital), I pass over a babbling creek close to the moodjar tree and hear the kep (water) flowing down from Djerban (Lesmurdie Falls) for one last time. As I cross the creek, my kaanya (spirit) releases to begin its journey to Kurannup, ensuring I never arrive at the djanga (hospital).
My birth name was Ngoorweel. My adult name was Joobaitch.
I was a Ballaruk Wardongmat maam from the Whadjuk Beeloo clan, who birthed and died in my boodjar. My death connected me to the intricate web of ancestral relationships with everything and everyone that still exists. My spirit was woven into the Koondarm (Dreaming), the lore, and the boodjar, with its birds, animals, spirits, rocks, trees and waterways.
I became a leader amongst my clan, teaching respect for everything that grew and lived in boodjar, honouring the lore given by the Waakal in the Koondarm (Dreaming). By recording some of my katitjin and wangkiny (knowledge and language) on 'paper talk' I ensured my descendants were given this katitjin (knowledge) to become moorditj (strong), not only remembering the keny djena (first feet) who walked in this boodjar but ensuring their descendants djena koorliny danjoo boodjar-ang (walk together belonging to country).
My death became a seed in boodjar to bring hope and fruit for the survival of Whadjuk Nyoongar culture.
They tried to bury us but they forgot we were seeds.
KWOONERT (seeds)
They tried to bury them
Invasion
Colonisation
Extermination
Blood in bilya (rivers)
Burnt bodies
Buried bones
Oppression
Dispossession
Deprivation
Boodjar fenced
Boorn (trees) felled
Bushtucker fouled
Obliteration
Annihilation
Decimation
Powerless moort (families)
Punishing minditj (sickness)
Poisonous mills
Imprisoned
Chained
Shackled
Suffocating laws
Stolen love
Silenced languages
Denigration
Subjugation
Persecution
But everything they buried was a seed
Hibernation
Dormancy
Expectancy
Kwoonert enshrined in Boodjar
Kwoonert entombed with Ancestors
Kwoonert encapsulated in Dreaming
Rebirth
Renewal
Revival
What was once dormant, now germinates
Earth. Wind. Fire. Water. Sun.
Remembering
Reawakening
Resurgence
Resurrection
They tried to bury them, they forgot they were kwoonert (seeds).