PastMasters

Indigenous Australian religion is still poorly understood in academia. As anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss said back in 1962, it is not clear what it means when Aboriginal people say “The life of a bat is the life of a man, and the life of an owl is a woman’s life”. What he did say was that the totem was much more than a symbol of a group or a physical resource. Rather, totems were “good to think with.” While at Shepherdson College in the 1980s, PM Ian McIntosh worked with Warramiri elder David Burrumarra to create a comprehensive list of the totemic significance of every fish, bird, animal, reptile, tree, plant, insect and so on. The project was to be a resource for Yolngu kids and it was called the ‘totemic embrace.’ The kids learned that the white cockatoo is a totem for the Dhuwa moiety Rirratjingu clan, but through a different story it was a symbol for the entire Yirritja moiety. They learned that the dingo is Dhuwa in Dhuwa lands and Yirritja in Yirritja lands, and why the galpan (catfish) is ceremonially important to everyone. And so on. During their conversations, IM documented the clan affiliations of the totems, and whether there was a ceremony, sacred design, or story, connected with them. Burrumarra was a towering intellect and the annotations in IMs field notes give a sense of the process. For example, when IM mentioned the freshwater mussel Djarrgit, Burrumarra reminisced about his life in the early 1930s at Caledon Bay with Wongggu (the King of Arnhem Land). He remembered Wonggu singing for that shellfish, and said that while it might be small, it has a big story. Several short essays on the totemic embrace can be found in the free e-book ‘Between Two Worlds’ available on the PM website.

We reported on Darwin’s Buffalo Creek last week but I just found this wonderful drone image. The tide gets much lower than this and Yolngu women venture for a considerable distance along the sand and mud flats towards Micket Creek to collect all manner of bush tucker, including oysters and mussels, mud crabs and mangrove worms and, if they were really hungry, ‘long bums’. Then they bring them back and all enjoy a great feast by the Casuarina (‘whistling’) trees. I used to enjoy casting a net for prawns on the high tide or seeking an elusive barra. But this whole area is under threat. Saving Buffalo Creek involves addressing severe sewage and wastewater pollution, managing nearby residential development at Lee Point, and protecting local wildlife habitats. Buffalo Creek is located in the Casuarina Coastal Reserve but it is one of the most polluted waterways in the region, leading to high toxic bioaccumulation in local marine life. Expanding residential developments along Lee Point Road is increasing stormwater runoff and habitat disruption for local species. There is a concerted effort underway to save Lee Point. See https://saveleepoint.org.au

Everyone knows that the city of Darwin is named for Charles Darwin and that Palmerston was the first name of the city. You might also know that the suburbs are named after Aboriginal clans, like Anula (Yanyula), Wanguri (Wangurri), Nakara, Wagaman, and so on. But did you know that the street names also have significance? Alawa streets are named after workers killed in the bombing of Darwin in WW2. Anula streets are named after early NT mining and mineral fields, and Wulagi streets are named for native birds etc.

The famed Australian-born British navigator Phillip Parker King (1791-1856)—who charted vast portions of the Australian coastline—has a commemorative plaque in his honour in the historic town of Stroud, NSW, where he once lived. But the most substantial memorial is not in Australia. Rather, it is in Chile in the Magellan Straits of Patagonia. In May 2008, this memorial was inaugurated in San Juan de la Posesión Bay. The site marks the historic base of the British hydrographic expedition (1826-1830) and includes a historic local naval cemetery. PP King commanded the survey vessel HMS Adventure and, in company with HMS Beagle, spent five years surveying the convoluted coastline here. King also put together a unique collection of Patagonian objects purchased from local tribes in Tierra del Fuego which were later donated to the British Museum.

Cape Don is located at the tip of the Cobourg Peninsula. It was named in 1818 by explorer Phillip Parker King after the Lieutenant-Governor of Gibraltar, George Don. The area is most famous for its historic Cape Don Light, built during the "Golden Age of Australian Lighthouses" between 1915 and 1917 to guide ships through the Dundas Strait. Located in Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, it is Australia's northernmost traditional lighthouse. It was manned until 1983 and is now fully automated.

Bill Day (1940-2023) was an anthropologist and activist on behalf of the Larrakia of Darwin. He forged a nation-wide reputation for his fieldwork and camaraderie with the traditional owners. Between 1971 and 1983, Day wrote 64 issues of his uncompromising ‘Bunji’ (‘comrade’) newsletter on the fight for recognition, land rights, and compensation for loss of the Larrakia estate. He later assembled these in his underground classic, ‘Bunji: A story of the Gwalwa Daraniki Movement’ (Aboriginal Studies Press). Gwalwa Daraniki means ‘our land.’ For 12 years, Day and a determined group of Larrakia and their supporters, fought for land rights, especially for the coastal land at Kulaluk, midway berween downtown Darwin and the northern suburbs which was then being primed for development. In 1979, it became the first urban land in Australia returned to Indigenous peoples.

The Kenbi land claim (named for the Crocodile Dreaming) identified numerous Dreaming tracks in and around Darwin Harbour linking Larrakia country with neighbouring clans. Some link freshwater sites on the Cox Peninsula to Kulaluk, Old Man Rock, and then on to Shoal Bay and the East Alligator region. The W***y Wagtail, Tawny Frogmouth, bailer shell, and so on, are all associated with Dreaming sites in the area known by the Larrakia as Garramilla (Darwin). Then there is the frog cave at Casuarina, a special freshwater spring (now covered) in Parap, and a sacred site underneath the former Kormilda College in Berrimah. So many. According to Larrakia elder and activist Topsy Secretary—shown here with Pat Dodson—there used to be a Mermaid Dreaming site on a sandbar off Cullen Bay. The mermaid once swam around and played there, she said, but now the sandbank is gone and so is it. Topsy didn’t believe the mermaid would come back because of the developments at Cullen Bay and the excessive noise of boats and construction. The colourful coastal rocks at Nightcliff are also linked to sacred Larrakia creation stories and songlines. Across Indigenous Australia, such yellow rocks are frequently associated with women’s business, creation stories, and the sun.

Named by the Australian Army in the 1940s, Darwin’s Buffalo Creek lies on the traditional country of the saltwater Larrakia people. It is located near Lee Point (known as Binybara) and is part of a rich ecological network with deep historical significance. Today it’s also popular for fishing and birdwatching. Here, in Shoal Bay, our colleague Billy Boustead found one of the few pieces of evidence of a possible Portuguese presence in the region, an old earthenware vessel. See our website for more details. www.pastmasters.org.au

For thousands of years, the Larrakia have told the story of ‘old man rock’, the king of the sea, known as Dariba Nungalinya. It sits off Casuarina Beach in Darwin and is the body of a powerful Dreaming ancestor. This was a ceremonial site for the Larrakia, and they would talk to him as they passed. They would ask him for tucker, saying “Nungalinya, majawa nganyuk.”
Silas Roberts, the first chairman of the NLC, said that there were originally two old men, but one stayed near Oenpelli. The other came along the coast and into Darwin via Koolpinyah, and then he lay down in the intertidal zone with his hu**ed craggy brown back being fully revealed only at very low tides.
First with the war and then with the development of the northern suburbs came the humbug. School groups on marine biology classes, drinking clubs, divers, fishermen, and the Surf Lifesaving Club’s Old Man Rock Race. Some Larrakia blamed the anger of the old man for Cyclone Tracy in 1974. He’d had enough humbug. They believe he has the power to make earthquakes and tidal waves and, as a Dreaming place, it had to be respected. In 1982 the rock became a registered sacred site under Larrakia control once again.
Photo: Ken Hodge

British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace identified the Wallace Line in 1859 after discovering a distinct boundary between Bali and Lombok (and up through the Makassar Strait), despite the island’s close proximity and having similar climates. On the western side, you have Asian rhinos and tigers etc., while on the eastern side, PNG and Australian species predominate. In his collecting spree, Wallace would send his assistants in canoes like this in search of Birds of Paradise in the Bird’s Head region of West Papua around Amberbaki. Like Charles Darwin’s Galapagos finches, these rare and beautiful birds proved vital for the development of his theory of natural selection.