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CHAPTER 1
Mum
Our mother, Gaymala, became Wuymirri, the Whale, as she lay in hospital. This was back in 2005. She was sick and knew she was going to pass away soon. She started talking in her sleep and Banbapuy, our youngest sister, was there. Banbapuy quickly wrote down the words. In this verse Mum was talking in Gumatj, her clan language, about her märi-pulu, her mothers' mothers' clan. She was speaking as the spirit on that journey. They are the words that started this book:
Narra yukurra nhäma monuk gapu, gäma yukurra narranha bala nuylili barrku gulula,
Narra yukurra Dhäwulwulyun Yiwarrnha.
Nupan Marrawulwul Gunbilknha,
Nilinyu yurru marina rrambanina Mirrinyuna Marrawatpatthun.
I can see the salt water carrying me, moving together with the current;
Carrying me further into the depths of the ocean, where the foundation of my bloodline lies.
Here my grandmother and I, together we paddle, following the sea breeze, to finish our journey, across the calm, mercurial waters towards the horizon, our final destination.
Mum's words speak of the part of Wuymirri's journey where she, as the Whale, dives down into the depths of the ocean, knowing the hunters will soon be coming. Mum is describing what happens and also describing herself, where she will go, soon. She isn't saying that she is dying, that she will go away. She won't tell us that. But she is using the deep meaning of the language. We know this because she taught us the meaning of this language as she brought us up.
When we heard those words we knew straight away that we had to take her away from the hospital. When people are sick, or dying, we talk about being on the journey. This is the message they give to the family and the family knows straight away, it is time.
Our dhäruk, our language, has many, many layers. One layer is the language used for everyday talk. A second layer is for more formal interactions, for approaching people in the right way. It is used to make people in a ceremony understand what to do and how to relate to each other. If a conflict is going on, the second language is a way of getting the families back together, to remember how they relate to each other. The third layer, the deepest layer, is the hidden language and is only for those who understand, the ones who are taught, only those who have reached that level. This is the level for keening and singing. It is much deeper. We are speaking the same language but with different words. When you understand the second layer, you understand what the Elder was talking about, you have the knowledge to understand the hidden language. Mum was one who could speak and keen milkarri with the hidden language, the deepest layer, she was the liya-närra'mirr.
She was telling us in a different way that the time had come close. She didn't say the hunters were coming. She said, using deep language, 'I am going now with my grandmother, we are paddling into the ocean, we will dive into the depths of the ocean.' She was letting us know the hunters would hunt. But she didn't need to say that last part. We knew straight away. So we took her out of the hospital. She needed to be at home.
* * *
The language that is in us, it is so deep. It is a beautiful way to describe things, from the beginning of life, to the end of life's journey. It is very beautiful and very powerful. These songspirals have been sung and cried through the tears of milkarri forever. Songspirals are about a particular person, their deep and true being. But they are not only about that person, they are also about the person's connections, their connections with nature, their connections with places, their relationships. Mum's spirit went back to the ocean. And she went with her grandmother. Her mothers' mother is her märi, she is the gutharra, grandchild, and this relationship is märi-gutharra. That is our backbone, quite literally our backbone. For us, our backbone is our mothers' mothers' clan. We point to our backbone as a visual sign of this important kin relationship. Everyone has their backbone. That is why she was with her grandmother. Her grandmother carries her.
Wuymirri, the Whale Songspiral, is a Warramirri songspiral, our great-grandmother's songspiral, and one we share with you now. We share it to start our book and to start our journey together. You can see how important it is to us, how our mum's life and death help to keep that songspiral alive. You can see how that songspiral keeps Mum and us alive too, how our hearing and keening the Wuymirri songspiral for this book keeps Wuymirri alive, and Country. As you read and learn, as you sound out those words, you become part and parcel of the songspiral, part and parcel of bringing the world into existence.
Songspirals are always personal and always about Country, about places and our relationships with them. Songspirals sing the actual land and the sea. Wuymirri talks about the whale, it talks about the boat that journeys through the water. It talks about the places that the whales and boat pass through, the journey's route. And in that is the route of our lives, our beings, our connections with Country.
* * *
For us, this songspiral and this book are intensely personal, emotional and meaningful. They are for Mum. They are for all mothers, any mother, Yolnu or näpaki — Indigenous or non-Indigenous. Every mother, whether black, white or from a different background, cries with sorrow, love, happiness, joy and heartache. These are always expressed with tears. Tears represent a being or a belonging, a beginning or an end, a journey. When there is a newborn we cry, because there is a new being; we cry happy tears and also sad, as we think of the generations that have gone.
All the women who have written this book are mothers, we feel that connection. We feel those emotions. In a Yolnu world, we are all mothers, in relationship with things as a mother, and that includes men too. Men are in a child–mother relationship with other beings, both as a child and as a mother. We call this the yothu–yindi relationship and we will tell you more about that later. We understand how urgently, critically and fundamentally important it is to bring life, to sustain and nurture life. Just as our grandmothers are our backbone, the songspirals are our anchor.
When women keen the milkarri of Wuymirri they are telling a story. Wuymirri is about a journey. It is the last journey of a person's soul. It is about a whale, but it is also about sitting there, being on the boat, going along, singing about those places. Looking at the things the person saw in their life. It is the spirit's final journey. It is looking, travelling, for the last time; watching the whales, out in the ocean.
We share Wuymirri with you to give you a sense of its meaning. Remember, the translation is partial, it tells what it tells, not everything. We go through each stanza to give you a sense of some of the layers, the complexities of the language and meaning. The meanings of this song are deep and intense, so we will devote a full chapter to each stanza, explaining a small part of its deep meaning.
* * *
We are sharing Wuymirri because of our connection to our mother and her märi-pulu. There are a lot of people who are connected to Wuymirri and we acknowledge them and the different parts we all play in keeping Wuymirri alive. We are connected to this songspiral because our great-grandmother Bamatja and her brother Daymanu are of the Warramirri clan. Our mother keened the milkarri of Wuymirri because she had the authority as the Gutharra, granddaughter, of Bamatja. Bamatja and Daymanu are her backbone.
The Wuymirri we share now is in Gumatj language and comes from a recording of our mum doing milkarri of it a long time ago. Our mum's younger sister Djerrknu helped us transcribe and translate it, and we all sat around the recording together, listening to it so carefully, playing it over and over again on our smartphones, learning and teaching so much. As she is the sister of our mother, Djerrknu is our mum too. In our gurrutu, our kinship system, all our mother's sisters are our mothers and all our father's brothers are our fathers. So that means that all our mother's sisters' children are our brothers and sisters and all our sisters' children are our children too.
Djerrknu shared her own versions of Wuymirri in Gumatj and Warramirri clan languages that we include at the end of this part of the book. We sat, too, with Djamu Yumbulul, the Wäna Watanu (custodian) of this songspiral, who guided us, gave his permission, and shared more deep insights and understandings, and Gawiniyawuy Wangurra, our niece, another direct descendant of Bamatja, our Warramirri great-grandmother from the Wessel Islands, a chain of islands extending north into the Arafura Sea towards Papua New Guinea.
The language of songspirals is deep and complex, not the language of our every day but of ceremony. This is language that doesn't change. It must be the oldest language. Gaymala has the deep knowledge needed to be able to communicate many layers. Our mother is crying the ancestral boat, an ancient Macassan boat, and beneath the boat is the whale. She is singing about the boat, and as she does so she sings herself as a navigator, as someone with deep knowledge. And she is singing about the boat passing the land. She knows whom those lands belong to. She is singing about herself, and about what is beneath, the whale. The whale is following her, she is passing through the whale sanctuary. She is interpreting the whale's movement. When she shared her milkarri in the hospital, as she knew she was dying, she cried milkarri of the whale, she was the whale. So all the words have two, three meanings — where she was, where she was standing and where she will go.
For ceremony, we need to gather the families, the ones with the right connections and relationships. Before the ceremony starts, before we put ochre on our body to dance the songspiral, we must wait for the guidance of the Djungaya.
Each songspiral has many Djungaya. The Djungaya could be a woman or a man. The role is passed down through a family, we get it through our family line from our mother. For a particular ceremony, a Djungaya with the appropriate knowledge is chosen. In this role, the Djungaya will make sure the clan is not doing the songspiral the wrong way; the song must be on the right track, in order. They are the caretaker for the songspiral and director for the ceremony. The Djungaya are messengers who coordinate the ceremony. They direct the use of the clay for the bodies of the dancers. They protect the clans by making sure the right order is followed. Even if the Djungaya is a younger person, if they have the knowledge they can still direct the songspiral. We need the right dance, the right song, someone who knows the right ceremony. In our family, the Djungaya for this songspiral are our son Djäwa's wife, Rita Wopurrwuy Gondarra, and her brothers and sisters.
There are other vital roles too for the songspirals. The Gutharra are the grandchildren of the land through the maternal line, the daughters' children. The Gutharra are there to strengthen the backbone of the märi-pulu, the grandmother clan. The grandchildren may be old or young, women or men. It is gurrutu, a kinship relationship. In a public ceremony the grandmother clan will say, 'Manymak Gutharra, Grandchild, thank you for coming and strengthening your märi-pulu, your grandmother clan.'
The Gutharra, the grandchildren of the clan, from our family include Rita's children, Rriwit, Dimathaya and Butjarri, as well as some of our other grandchildren, Maminydjama, Yambirrwuy, Nyinanyina and many others.
The most fundamental role is the Dalkarra or Djirrikay, the trustees of knowledge for the ceremony. Dalkarra is from the Dhuwa moiety, and Djirrikay is Yirritja moiety. We will explain what these moieties, these groups, are in the next chapter. The role of the Dalkarra and Djirrikay is to announce, in the presence of all, the sacred deep names, the ritual recitation of power names, Birkarr'yun. Dalkarra and Djirrikay hold the power. They know the rules. They are like the top of the university, the leaders. The Dalkarra or Djirrikay are there as the professors, the doctors, to ensure that the power remains tight, that the songspiral is not loosened. They understand the spirit of the land, sea and river. The Dalkarra or Djirrikay could be the Wäna Watanu or the Gutharra. They could also be the Djungaya.
For the songspiral we must recite the deep names, the sacred names and meanings. If we don't have the sacred names, we have nothing. We can't fool around with the songspirals. For Wuymirri, we must call out mamidal, which signifies the deep connection between the hunter and the whale, between the hunter and the hunted, the respect. Only the select few can hunt whale, only the Warramirri clan, because of the ways the whale and the clan are related to and reflect one another. Mamidal is the hunter's feeling about the whale and about catching it, and the whale feeling the hunter too. The feelings between the hunter and the whale are very strong, the two are bound in one. Mamidal also signifies the power of the whale beneath the sea. We also have the deep names of the body parts: bintha and dhanbulyun, which are the head; bila, the tail; warriwatpa, the fins and the whale paddling beneath the sea. The fins of the whale are like the paddle of the hunter. Warriwatpa means the same thing on different levels: one is the hunter paddling and the other, deep beneath, the whale.
We claim the spirit of the land and the journey of the ocean and the pure river that flows. We have the important roles, the Wäna Watanu, the Djirrikay or Dalkarra, the Djungaya and the Gutharra. When the Rom (the Law), the movement of the song, the energy and the power come together with the sounds and actions of the dancers, with the yidaki (didgeridoo), the bilma (clapsticks), the sounds of the women keening milkarri and the deeper timbre of the men, the Djirrikay or Dalkarra is ready to call out the names: where the journey will start and where the journey will end.
This is an important gift that we share with you, it was a precious sharing of milkarri by our mother, Gaymala. It is a particular honour to be entrusted with the responsibility to appropriately give and receive the knowledges and responsibilities that come with these songspirals. We hope that you appreciate the generosity and trust that is being placed in you.
* * *
1.
Nuruku miyamanarawu Dhangala aaaaaaaa ...
Wana nyerrpu miyaman nunha marrtji Banupanu.
Miyaman marrtji Balwarri Nepaway, Maywundjiwuy.
Of that body of water I sing, I sing of the body of water.
The arm of the paddler is knowledgeable, over there is Banupanu.
I am singing about Balwarri, the whale, Nepaway, the open sea.
2.
Bawaywuynu miyamara Dhululwuynuru;
Bawaywuynu miyamara Rrawululwuynuru;
Nuruku miyaman narra marrtji Rrawulwulwuynu.
Of the place between sunrise and sunset I sing,
Where the whales swim with open mouths, scooping water, filtering fish;
A pod of whales, flipping and jumping, playing and roaming;
A gathering of many people;
For that I sing towards Rrawulwul, the place where the whales are feeding.
I sing for those people, the ones far away.
3.
Nhinana narra Rrawulwulwuyun mala maypa.
Aa'a — Dhululnura Balwarri, Balwarri,
Nepaway, Baway'yu miyaman nunha marrtji Dhangala.
I sit comfortably, feed comfortably as part of a big pod, filtering food,
sifting the water through my mouth, one among many whales.
Oh, dear whales, whales, the open sea, between sunrise and sunset,
singing of that place over there, eastward, always to the horizon.
I sing towards Dhangala, I see myself, standing tall and straight like the mast of my boat, a flag, my journey, Dhangala.
4.
Nuruku narra miyaman Nulpurrwuynu,
Dhululwuynu, Balwarriwuynu, neee — mitji maypa Balwarri.
For that I am singing Nulpurrwuynu;
I sing of the body of water.
Dhululwuynu, Balwarriwuynu, a place of many whales;
Yes, a clan, a pod of many whales.
CHAPTER 2
Country
Nuruku miyamanarawu Dhangala aaaaaaaa ...
Wana nyerrpu miyaman nunha marrtji Banupanu.
Miyaman marrtji Balwarri Nepaway, Maywundjiwuy.
Of that body of water I sing, I sing of the body of water.
The arm of the paddler is knowledgeable, over there is Banupanu.
I am singing about Balwarri, the whale, Nepaway, the open sea.
* * *
When Yolnu people sing of water, we are singing our deep knowledge of water. We are singing our connection to water. We sing of that body and of our own body, our own bodies of water. For we are not singing of something that is separate from us. We are not singing about water but singing water itself. Of that body of water we sing. We sing of the body of water.
Nuruku miyamanarawu Dhanggala aaaaaaaa.
And when we sing of that water, we remake that water, and we remake ourselves and our connections with water and all else that is Country.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Song Spirals"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Djawundil Maymuru, Sarah Wright, Sandie Suchet-Pearson and Kate Lloyd.
Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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