Cirrus@Austlit

'Just to north of Darwin is the country of the Tiwi people, spread over Bathurst and Melville Islands. These two new books give voice to Tiwi oral traditions and to the power and resonance within that tradition of orality that encompasses song, narrative, and the ways in which they sustain family and relationships to ancestors and to kin.' (Introduction)

'…ngabaya painted all this, you know when we were kids we would come here and look and sometimes the paintings would change, they were always changing.” Annie a-Karrakayny

'Fully illustrated, Jakarda Wuka (Too Many Stories) draws on a combined 70+ years of collaborative research involving Yanyuwa Elders, anthropologists, and an archaeologist to tell a unique story about the rock art from Yanyuwa Country in northern Australia’s southwest Gulf of Carpentaria.  

'Australia’s rock art is recognised globally for its antiquity, abundance, distinctive motifs and the deep and abiding knowledge Indigenous people continue to hold for these powerful symbols. However, books about Australian rock art jointly written by Indigenous communities, anthropologists, and archaeologists are extremely rare.

'Combining Yanyuwa and western knowledge, the authors embark on a journey to reveal the true meaning of Yanyuwa rock art. At the heart of this book is the understanding that a painting is not just a painting, nor is it an isolated phenomenon or a static representation. What underpins Yanyuwa perceptions of their rock art is kinship, because people are kin to everything and everywhere on Country.

'Jakarda Wuka highlights the multidimensional nature of Yanyuwa rock art: it is an active social agent in the landscape, capable of changing according to different circumstances and events, connected to the epic travels and songs of Ancestral Beings (Dreamings), and related to various aspects of Yanyuwa life such as ceremony, health and wellbeing, identity, and narratives concerning past and present-day events.

'In a time where Indigenous communities, archaeologists, and anthropologists are seeking new ways to work together and better engage with Indigenous knowledges to interpret the “archaeological record”, Jakarda Wuka delivers a masterful and profound narrative of Yanyuwa Country and its rock art.' (Publication summary)

'In July 2015 I sat with a senior Yanyuwa woman named Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi, who has been my teacher of Yanyuwa language and of Yanyuwa ways of knowing the land and sea she calls home, and of her family both human and non-human, for the last 35 years. On this particular day we were proofing a very long text for inclusion into the soon to be published encyclopedia of her language. We were resting, and in the silence she asked in Yanyuwa "Can my country hear English?" To which I responded, "What do you think?" Dinah sat for a while and then quietly said, "I do not think it does, it can only hear Yanyuwa". She left the conversation there and yet it stayed with me, there was in this conversation a deeper understanding of an existential crisis for Dinah. At 85 she is the oldest speaker of her language; there are two other women speakers, who are 76 and 65.'  (Introduction)

'A lyrical story for the very young about birds featuring Indigenous artwork by Balarinji and aerial views of Australia's distinctive landscape.

'What's that there? That's the rushing river's curly bend, cried the sea eagle perched on a knotted branch, swaying. There, look! What's that there? That's the cliff face sharp with sun-scorched stones, glinting, shrilled the hawk, gliding on summer winds. There, look!

'An exhilarating celebration of the Australian landscape as seen from the sky featuring vibrant illustrations by Balarinji, Australia's leading Indigenous design studio.' (Publication Summary)

'Throughout history, anthropologists have confronted a number of uncomfortable truths around the supposed nature of reality. The anthropological maxim, "through the study of others we learn more about ourselves" has been sorely tested en route. Arguably, this challenge reached culmination during the 1970s and 80s, with several prominent social commentators from Geertz to Clifford suggesting that anthropologists had, in both past and present, been much more concerned with the study of 'others' than of 'ourselves' (Nader 1964:289). In essence, this reflexive critique suggested that ethnographers were in the business of writing fiction and more insidiously came to the field equipped with a set of assumptions and presuppositions about the world in all its variety. These universal verities functioned to reduce all subjects of study into conformity with the observer's sense of what was real and of import and what was not and inconsequential.' (Publication summary)

This story is the second part of the Tiger Shark Dreaming song line of kujika. Out on the open sea from the Wearyan River mouth, the Tiger Shark sing dolphins, dugongs, whales and other creatures that live in Yanyuwa country.

This is 'John Bradley's compelling account of three decades living with the Yanyuwa people of the Gulf of Carpentaria and of how the elders revealed to him the ancient songlines of their Dreaming.

At twenty John Bradley was sent to teach Aboriginal children in a school at remote Borroloola, on the Gulf of Carpentaria in far north Australia. But it is the teacher who is educated by the Yanyuwa elders and their families. Over three decades he learns their language and their country, becoming intimately drawn into other ways of being, both practical and spiritual. With passion and pride they teach him their songlines, relating what they know and value - ancestors, kin, allegiances; places, plants, animals; seasons, ceremonies, stories - and the spirit that sustains all.

As we follow John Bradley on his journey, we begin to see that the songlines are keys to the authority and continuity held by Aboriginal Law. We begin to understand why, when country can no longer be sung, the Yanyuwa feel it so deeply. And what such loss means to us all' (publisher website, sighted 7/08/2010).

The Spirit People have travelled a long way and they are exhausted. They blame their weariness onto their leader, an old Spirit Man. They growl and swear at him and eventually he grows weary of their complaints and he destroys then in a most unexpected fashion.

The Crow and Chicken Hawk Dreamings argue and fight over who should possess the fire and the water.

'This animation is told in the form of classic Yanyuwa Dreaming narration. The animation details the journey of the Groper (a-Kuridi) around South West Island. It describes the various other Ancestral Dreaming beings that she meets and her responses to them as well as showing acts of creation that are still highly significant today. The animation details the significance of place names, kinship and the role of song lines in story telling and their relationship to country. This animation is an outside, public, telling of a story that is very important to the Yanyuwa Wuyaliya clan.'

Source: Monash Country Lines Archive.

Wangilatha Wangu nga Kiyawatha (Singing Songs and Telling Stories) is based on a book of  songs and stories written and illustrated by Brendan Kennedy in Tati Tati, Mutti Mutti, Latji Latji and Wadi Wadi languages of North Western Victoria around Robinvale, 2014.