In a large shed on the edge of the town of Derby, Western Australia, piles of produce and ice are sweating in the sun waiting to be squeezed into Eskies bound for a five-hour journey to the Ngallagunda community in the central Kimberley plateau.
There’s about 20 of us who watch on, they include generations of Ngarinyin people who today, are scattered around towns and communities within the Kimberley. It’ll take us about a day’s worth of driving along the famous (or infamous) Gibb River Road to get there.
Wilinggin country (of the Ngarinyin people) covers a huge expanse of 63,000 sq km. It’s an achingly beautiful landscape of sandstone ranges, rivers, rocky gorges and boab-dotted savannah country.
Children play in the shallows of Munkajarra Wetlands, on the outskirts of Derby, WA. This is Nyikina Mangala country but allows Ngarinyin people who live in Derby and couldn’t make the five-hour trip to community an opportunity to participate in this project.
The mission is to gather generations of traditional owners to conclude what has been a two-year project to revitalise traditional harvesting and bushcraft making practices of the Ngarinyin people, whose connection to country dates back 60,000 years.
Top: Wunggurr ranger and Ngarinyin man Emilio Nulgit on Wilinggin country after harvesting bark off a stringybark tree.
Middle: Harvested spinifex grass from Wilinggin country. This will be burnt down to ashes and then used to make a wax for moulding on to the mouthpiece of a didgeridoo.
Bottom: Wunggurr ranger Malcom carries stringybark harvested from country to the troop carriers. The vehicles will be loaded up with harvested materials destined for camp where the hard work begins.
After a sleep, a feed and countless cups of tea, a 10-day bush harvesting task commences, led in large part by elders Chloe Nulgit and Philip Duckhole AKA “Cracker”. We follow in convoy as they traverse the bush searching for the right tree or material. On the list of tools to make are boomerangs, coolamon, clap sticks, ceremonial hat and didgeridoo, specific to how Ngarinyin people have crafted and used them over thousands of years.
Ngarinyin woman and elder Chloe Nulgit with some of her handiwork (in progress). This string is a product of stringybark harvested from Wilinggin country.
Cracker is silent and contemplative as he assesses the timber. Younger generations including members of the Wilinggin ranger team (Wunggurr Rangers), then take to task-cutting and harvesting bark or timber.
Chloe, Cracker’s partner is a strong Ngarinyin woman. She can have an unyielding gaze coupled with a cheeky smile when she wants to give it, but when asked about her culture, her passion is palpable:
Left: Hands of Phillip Duckhole AKA Cracker sanding the beginnings of a didgeridoo, a process that takes hours of hard work. Right: Hands of Gary Nulgit inspecting the smoothed-out surface of a boomerang, the two-toned timber of a Yellow Hakea (hakea aborescens).
Left: A blade of spinifex grass, the wax is extracted by burning down a whole bush, and used to mould the mouthpiece of a didgeridoo. Right: The result of sanding down the timber of a clap stick – a fine, velvety substance – Cracker is checking the sawdust. When the sawdust is green and sticky, the wood is still too moist to work further with. It has to be dried out slowly before he will continue filing it into shape.
“I used to watch my old people do things. And I said to myself, I’m gonna try it one day, I have to try it. We saw other people down the road doing things too. We used to ask them, ‘how you make it?’ And they’d say you cut ‘em that tree, that tree or whatever tree. And me and Cracker said to ourselves we’ll try it. And we did. We got it the first time around. We went back and we showed this old man, and he said ‘you got ‘em’.”
Ngarinyin elder Phillip Duckhole AKA Cracker sanding a didgeridoo at camp.
And this project is crucial, it comes off the back of a long period of disconnection between traditional owners. It’s one of several achievements of the Ngarinyin people since native title determination in 2004, including major carbon and fire management projects and a woman ranger program.
The work is hard yakka. Some of the processes are drawn out and tiring, in particular the carving and sanding for clap sticks and boomerang. The result however, is a magical sound of the clap stick that Cracker tests along the way.
Top: Renita Bid (front) with younger generations of Ngarinyin people Janaya Nulgit and Kimberley Nulgit harvesting sap.
Bottom: This sap will be melted in water and used overnight as an adhesive.
There is a gap in published materials on traditional Aboriginal bushcrafts from anywhere in Australia, making this book one of the first to be dedicated to this topic. The drive from Ngarinyin people to sustain traditional harvesting and crafting practices is strong as the crafts that they taught are now regarded as endangered. The book will become a critical resource for future generations to cultivate wider appreciation in craft practices, while an augmented reality-based app will bring the book to life by showing instructional videos of harvesting and making and activating sound recordings of proper language pronunciation.
Clintisha Bangmorre picks up stringybark after soaking in the Munkajarra Wetlands. This will be gently waved over a campfire to make it pliable and ‘bent’ into shape for a ceremonial hat.
On this trip, Emilio Nulgit (Chloe’s grandson) has participated in making of boomerang and clap sticks, learning from Cracker as he goes along.
“I’ll show [my son] everything, all the songs, dance, dreamtime stories. I’ll pass everything on down to him. I hope to show more young people, pass this knowledge on. Keep the culture strong so we can keep it for many, many years to come.”
For some elders, they are unable to make the long trip to community. So the second half of the trip is back in Derby. Here, we meet Matthew Martin. Matthew is a Ngarinyin elder who learned his Country by travelling across it with his family as a young child, and then later working as a stockman. Matthew has joined us to record pronunciation of traditional practices and tools. The language is used mostly by the great-grandparental generation.
Elder Ngarinyin man, Matthew Martin. As part of the project, Matthew recorded pronunciation of traditional practices and tools. The language is used mostly by the great-grandparental generation.
“Clap sticks when they hitting, it wake up the Country, it comes alive. It wakes up the old spirits, the culture comes alive. It makes that Country fresh again. The old ancestors are happy when they hear the sound of clap sticks and dancing.”
