chapter 5 Slowly piecing together my identity
“Y
eah girl, what you wanna know, hey? Ask your old man anything.”
His voice sounded so clear and so close. Wow! I couldn’t believe that Mum put me and Dad in touch with each other. She must’ve had a soft spot for him after all.
SAMPLE
Mum had to put me in touch with Dad though, cos she had told me all I needed to know about her side of the family but it was Dad’s right and responsibility to teach us about his side. Mum said that with some mobs it’s the father’s side that determines totem, language and country. But I’ve also heard that down this way the Murris follow
their mother’s side first. I suppose it’s different for Blackfellas all over though. I wondered what it was like for the Torres Strait Islander mob, which parent was it that gave them their first identity or whether it mattered at all. Still, I was just glad that I was finally getting to talk to Dad a bit.
“Um … yeah Dad, we doing stuff at school and we have to talk about who we are and where we’re from and stuff and, well, I kinda need to find out a little more bout your side, das all.”
“Yeah … well, ask away, girl.”
“Well, like, um, what’s your totem?”
“Goanna, scrub turkey and the elements, you know, rain and wind and stuff.”
“Well, can you tell me something about them?”
“I’ll tell you about rain, wind and water, cos they all go together you know. It stirs up a storm.
That’s how come our mob can sing and dance and call out for rain. We can call out for rain and tell it stop. I’ll tell you one day properly about
identity how they really the one business. For now I’ll tell you more ’bout wind. That wind is the telltale one now. Wind is the traveller or the messenger, wind brings everyone together. Wind travels from one place to the next, stirring everything and everyone up. Wind is sneaky and powerful, wind can soothe you and then he can turn around and hurt you. Wind can touch and speak to whoever he wants. He can tickle the belly of clouds and make ’em laugh so they open up and send rain down to us or he can shoo them away from certain parts a country to go somewhere else. He travels all over and sees everything. You should sit and listen to him every now and then baby, like the birds, they listen to wind all the time, they dance with wind and talk to wind. Wind carries messages from old people, from our ancestors. I hope you stop and listen every now and then. Do you? Are you aware of old man wind? You should be, cos when you were born, wind was there, that old fella blew on you, blew on your head and your belly. You should know him.”
SAMPLE
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t believe Dad was telling me everything I’d kinda felt and known and been aware of for as long as I could remember. Wind was the one constant that had always been around me, never really too far off. Wind made my belly want to fly, wind spoke to me as I was falling off to sleep at night or sitting or walking by myself. I remembered what Mum always reminded me about the day I was born. That wind was there like he knew I had been born. I realised that’s why I loved the storms so much, this was when wind was most active.
“You there, bub, you listening?”
“Yeah, Dad. Um, is there a wind dance or something, like do our mob have a wind dance?”
“Bub, most of our songs and dances have been lost. When the government stepped in and messed with our mob, wanting to control us and everything, they took us away from our tribal country and moved us around, just throwing a lot of us together with other mobs on missions and reserves. They stopped our mobs from singing, dancing and speaking our language. We bit
identity
mixed up now but we’ve held on to some things and we have to treat the little knowledge we got left like it’s real precious, cos that’s what it is girly, it’s precious. And this little bit of knowledge that I do know, I’ll share with you. I’ll teach you the language that I still know and some of the stories that we’ve managed to pass down. I can still teach you later about scrub turkey and goanna but this wind and rain is the one you should learn about now. What you do with this knowledge is up to you. As long as you don’t do the wrong thing, and you’ll know if you do the wrong thing, cos you’ll feel it. You won’t feel right if you misuse the knowledge, you understand, bub?”
I know exactly what I’m going to do, I thought to myself. I’d take everything Dad was telling me and create a dance. I’d base it on old man wind.
It wouldn’t be a traditional dance cos, like Dad said, most of the dances have been lost or forgotten, but this dance would be based on our culture. And just like when you buy a mixed up ice-cream thingy, if you get the right flavours and ingredients together then it’ll taste real good, well,
this dance was gonna be like that. I’d throw in the right sounds and moves from our cultural way of dancing and the Whitefella style, then the dance would be good because the mix’d be done right. This dance was gonna be about wind, for wind, to wind. To tell him I could feel him and that I thought he was deadly cos he’s so old, he’d been around for so long and yet he was still with us, following us through life, no matter if he travelled from country to the bush to the city. He was still the same, and he’d seen a lot, so he must know heaps about everything.
SAMPLE
I felt that Dad had told me enough for now. I knew that he’d continue to tell me stuff as long as I kept asking, but I had to get off this phone, otherwise Mum was gonna freak out at me for running the bill up. I quickly asked one more question, as I knew this was probably the most important one.
“Yeah, I get it Dad. I still got heaps a questions but it’s right for now. But before you go can you quickly tell me where we from? Like where’s our Country?”
identity
“Country is all that Taroom area girl. The Dawson River runs through our Country. Our Country takes up a lot of them ranges. When we get together one day I’ll tell you properly about where the boundaries are. We also got connections to Brisbane area as well, with the Yugerra mob.
That’s on my father’s side, your grandfather. I can teach you more properly later one day, ay?”
Wow. Dad had given me plenty of info and I realised that we did have connections to the Brisbane area as well. There was so much that I didn’t know about being Murri, about being Black, about being me. I felt so proud, so good.
“Thanks, Dad,” was all I could manage.
SAMPLE
“Anytime, girl. Look, if I can get some dollars together I’ll catch the train down to watch ya dance, hey? Will you like that? If you want I can come down a bit early so you can show me what you’ll be doing. I’m sorry I can’t give you a traditional dance, bub, but I do have some things I want to share with you. OK?”
“It’s all good, Dad. If you can come down early and work with me a little that’ll be good.” I knew that between Dad and Miss M I’d have enough moves to help me create.
“Yarnarndi. That means goodbye. You say it now?” Dad instructed.
“Yeah, um, yarnarndi … see ya,” I repeated, pronouncing the word slowly and carefully. It felt good saying it. I felt a lump in my throat.
SAMPLE
chapter 6
Dancing my story
The classes with Miss M continued to make me stronger. I felt myself getting better. I knew most of the different terms Miss used. I knew the positions of the arms and feet in classical. I knew what neutral position or second parallel was. I understood the contractions from, who’s that old woman from America now? Oh yeah, Martha Graham. Miss always said, “It’s like someone’s kicking you in your tummy and you’re reacting to that, then you release and make your back real straight.” Miss would make us do heaps of these contractions to start the classes off. I could feel my stomach muscles getting stronger too. Miss always said to hold yourself straight and
upright and tall by imagining there’s a thin gold thread running through the centre of your body and out through the tip of your head and that if you collapsed your core (your deep belly) then the gold thread would snap and that’s what you must not let happen. I always remembered that instruction no matter what I was doing. Doing this kept my body straight and tall and strong.
“You ready for tonight, bub?” asked Miss Philo, the school principal, as she scooted past me. I liked Miss Philo. I thought we were blessed to have a school principal that spent time with us, talking to us and stuff. She was always interested in us and how we were going, she was more like the school mum in my opinion. And I always noticed her feet—she walked in first position turn out.
“Yeah Miss, I can’t wait.”
She smiled and kept walking.
Dad did turn up a week early and spent time with me, showing steps and even some songs