Tanya Holland and Roslyn Boles are descendants of a Wiradjuri hero who — with his friend — risked everything to save the lives of 69 people in Australia's deadliest flood.
The two women joined hundreds of people from across Australia in a corroboree at Gundagai in the New South Wales Riverina region to celebrate the selflessness of Yarri and his friend Jacky Jacky in the town's 1852 flood.
Over three days, in a canoe made of bark and a rowboat, the two men saved 69 people — one-third of Gundagai's population — from drowning.
"It was dark and cold and rainy and they could hear the people on the roofs, they could hear houses being washed away and people calling out. It must've been horrendous," Ms Boles said.
"You wouldn't be able to see where they were, you'd just have to listen for them and just how much danger that would've been."
"[Yarri] was only capable of moving one person at a time, but I think he was squeezing a few in, but then when Jacky Jacky came, he's slighter larger, so he could carry a couple more people," Ms Holland said.
Between 80 and 100 lives were lost in the disaster, which was Australia's deadliest flood.
The two men braved the floodwaters despite warning settlers not to build their town in a particular part of the floodplain.
The one lesson they want people to learn from the historic event is that "people are people, it doesn't matter what colour you are".
Adversity and persecution
Wiradjuri man Bill Leigh, whose mother was part of the Stolen Generations, said the two men saved lives despite those from their own communities being taken.
Mr Leigh said he often wondered whether there were more Aboriginal people involved in the rescue — and there are historical references to two other men.
"They might've gotten washed away, but there's no record of them," he said.
Peter Smith, a Wiradjuri elder at Gundagai, said the "enormity of the situation was unbelievable".
"They had to go in with their canoe, grab the people, bring them back, then they'd have to go back upstream and use the stream of the flooded river to go back down," he said.
"They went out and saved all the people they could and they didn't see any colour or anything, they just went out and saved the people, even with the sort of adversity they would've been dealing with at the time.
Re-igniting culture
Wiradjuri/Wolgalu man Joe Williams, a former South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league player, said Gundagai elders reached out to him to see if he could organise a corroboree to mark the 170th anniversary.
"My family originate from over in Brungle, so it's about coming home for me and bringing some special wisdom and dance and story back to the area," Mr Williams said.
"It's about living in two worlds and learning the old ways."
Mr Williams said a fundamental part of that was showcasing the culture through storytelling.
"It's about building relationships and how to do that is to educate the young people about the truth. The truth of this nation has been an ugly one," he said.
"What we need to do is start living in the uncomfortable parts and teaching people how to act and think and behave better when we see people with differences.
"It can't be the oldest continual culture in the world if we don't continue the old practices."
