Learning Garawa

At Waanyi Garawa’s annual Culture Camp Aunty Nancy passes, on language and with it, the knowledge to care for Country.

It’s a two-day drive from Darwin to Robinson River, north-east Northern Territory, the remote Gulf of Carpentaria. The road leading there is long, and at times, tiresome, but every kilometre is worth it. The Bush Heritage team and the Northern Land Council are headed towards the gulf to help support the Garawa and Waanyi Garawa Rangers to run their annual Waanyi Garawa Biodiversity and Culture Camp, as they have since 2016.

Camps bring people together to pass on culture, look after Country and importantly, learn language. For the Waanyi-Garawa community, language is central to ecology, spirituality, and place. When communities are away from Country, reconnecting with language necessitates the survival of knowledge.

The road fades to rough gravel after the remote town of Borroloola, and the team are welcomed to Rhumbarriya clan Country at Limestone Creek, near its junction with Robinson River by Garawa Senior Ranger Karen Noble on behalf of her family and clan. The savannah woodlands are scarred by fires after the harsh dry season, except for bright green pandanas that line the riverbank.

While excited kids go out searching for Redclaw Crayfish, Aunty Nancy McDinny yarns with the other aunties. Nancy is a force, one of the oldest living Garawa Elders and a keeper of language and stories. She is a linguist, educator, and artist.

“My Garawa name is Yukurwal and my skin is Nangalama”, she says. “I grew up speaking Garawa, no English.”

“When we first went to school, and teachers used to ask us, what is your name? We would just sit there and look at her because we didn’t know English, but we learnt slowly.”

For Nancy, her native language is not just about basic communication, it’s the way the land works and how plants and animals interact with the environment.

“We started speaking English, so we lost Garawa a bit. When I go back for holidays and weekends, hunting and eating from the land again, sitting down with my dad and my grandmother, I started learning again.”

Her experience has inspired her to teach and tell stories. She has been leading the kids to create a guide to the seasons of Garawa Country: what foods are available in which seasons and the indicators of when to hunt and harvest.

“I think to read and write in Garawa out in the bush is everything,” says Nancy. “You’re on the land to learn about your culture.”

The kids have had a swim in the river, and dusk provides relief from the day’s dry heat. Over the course of the last four days, they have learnt about the animals that inhabit the area, looked for lizards and helped with the annual bird survey. As the sunset turns the camp orange, the flies finally cease, night birds begin to call and the kids chase one another.

After dinner, there is dancing, and Aunty Nancy explains the stories behind each dance to the kids. One story is about the bright constellations above – about a man left suspended in the sky after being thrust out of a tree over a love triangle. They laugh hysterically.

Nancy then reflects on the camp, and shares what it was like for her as a child, and the importance of keeping culture and language alive.

“We used to walk from that camp to this camp and have a corrobboree at night. We really loved when we were kids, dancing and learning, at the same time how to sing and tell stories. We had good life walking, healthy eating, bush tucker, no shop food, no vehicle, just on foot.

We don’t want our language, our culture, to get lost. One day you kids will be here dancing and singing with your children, on this land.”

We thank and acknowledge the Rhumbarriya Traditional Custodians who welcomed us to their Country and shared this special time with us. Our podcast Big Sky Country featured the following episode with sounds and stories from the Culture Camp.