A new Yawulyu for Wirntiki by Janjiya Liddy Nakamarra, Lajamanu, 1984
translated from Warlpiri with Barbara Gibson Nakamarra (1984, 1995) and edited for the CD-ROM Dream trackers (UNESCO, 2000) by Barbara Glowczewski
STORY 1 STORY 2
I received a dream from mirrijiwurrku, the long leg bird. His other name is kumanjayi from a deceased Japanangka. I saw a brother and a sister coming from the West. They were escaping a bush fire. Once their burnt wings cooled down, they went back to their country, Yiningarra.
A big group of Stone Curlews was camping there. Women were sitting with their parraja dishes. They got up to pull out the grass for a ringplace. Then they ate little yiwirnti plums. I dreamt this two years ago (1982) when we went back to Yiningarra for a land claim meeting. In my dream I saw new paintings and heard new songs, a whole new yawulyu.
The male bird I saw in my dream was a little boy, the kurruwalpa of Kenny Hooker Jupurrurla. Everybody knows his spirit is Wirntiki even though he grew up in his father-country of the Wampana Dreaming. I heard little Curlew shouting to gather up his people. They did not hear. So he howled, like the men who call out for a Kajirri gathering. Then a big mob of Stone Curlews came. He howled more and they all joined him on the Yiningarra sand.
The men came in two groups who crossed each other passing around the sitting women. They caught the boys who had to be initiated and they took them in the heart of Yiningarra where they prepared special food for the punyunyu boys, seeds cakes and yams, but no meat.
Meantime, the women were ritually 'burning' one another in the big Yiningarra rockhole. The men made little boomerangs with their wurdamirri barks, and they threw them like today during the fire ceremony. Two lines of boys and men threw their boomerangs at each other, and again the two groups passed each other going past around the women.
Small Curlew came among the new malyarra initiates. A thorn got into his foot. He took it out and went underground, in Yiningarra. The Jakamarra and Jupurrurla Stone Curlews brought back the malyarra boys to their mothers who ritually rubbed their backs as mothers do today at the end of Kajirri.
Crossing the Yams
The Wirntiki Curlews turned East and saw the puurda Yam People who were coming from Yawulawulu, that belongs to Japanangka and Japangardi skin. They walked floating above the ground. When they saw the big Stone Curlew gathering, the Yams hid underground in Lajamanu, not the place where we live now, but another place that belongs to the Fire Dreaming. This is why the Yam Dreaming stops before Yiningarra.
Only one Japanangka, in the shape of a yuparli Bush Banana, continued the underground travel, coming out at Yumurrpa, the place of another puurda Yam Dreaming owned by Jakamarra and Jupurrurla 'skins'. This Yam tried to join the other from Yawuyawulu to the west. But he could not make it and went underground in Jukakarini. Today there are lots of yams in those three places, Lajamanu, Yumurrpa, Jukakarini.
When the Stone Curlews saw the Yams disappear in Lajamanu, they continued the ceremony by performing their men's secret business. I can't talk about it. We can only say the boys were put in a cave where two Kajirri women of Napanangka skin ('wives' of the Jupurrurla boys and 'mothers' of the Jakamarra boys) looked after them.
My kurruwalpa spirit-child comes from this cave. This is where my father and my mother found me; he chose them to be reborn. My father was also conceived in Yiningarra, his own's father Dreaming. So I bear my father's Dreaming and my land is his land.
From Yiningarra, the Stone Curlews went to Jurntu of the Fire Dreaming for which I dreamt a yawulyu and a men's purlapa. My niece Jean Napurrurla who was sleeping next to me in Yiningarra, also dreamt the big Stone Curlew gathering and followed for me their Dreaming trail and the Wakirlpiri Bush Bean trail. Bush Beans and Curlews by Malyungka Jean Napurrurla, Lajamanu,1984
translated from Warlpiri with Barbara Gibson Nakamarra (1984, 1995) and edited for the CD-ROM Dream trackers (UNESCO, 2000) by Barbara Glowczewski
The Wirntiki Curlew Dreaming track begins where the Pirlala Bean Dreaming ends. That is the one the herbal tea ngungkarli is made of. Sleeping besides my aunt, at Yiningarra, I took part in the whole journey of the Stone Curlew people, but before, I followed the Bean people.
The Bean Men and Women left from Lirrawarnupatu, following the smoke westwards. Every time they stopped the women cooked some beans and the resulting smoke guided them. They were eating the flesh of their Dreaming and following the smoke.
One woman picked a dried bean from a tree and threw it on the ground. She opened it and looked at the seeds. The others said, 'Ha! ha! They are bad, black and small. We have to find red seeds!'
They followed the smoke and found some beans suitable for cooking and eating. They walked along the dunes, the Sand Dreaming ngalyarrpa, crossing Jurntu and the Fire Dreaming.
At Mijanu they cooked some more beans and followed the smoke. They walked round Ngarnajarrawana without stopping.
On the way they collected some beans. 'Bad!' they said, throwing them eastwards. 'Too dry!' they said throwing them southwards. 'These are good, they are red!' they said throwing them westwards.
And the Bean people went westwards, till Mantalya where they went under the ground. There, the Curlews came out of the ground and on their journey they walked along the sand dunes. Seeing a woman sitting down there, they said 'Look, a Nangala from the Sand Dreaming... '
That was Prdakara, a spirit-child of the Sand Dreaming who had embodied in the Nangala, mother of Rosy Napaljarri. I recognized her face in my dream. She was grinding seeds.
2. Boomerangs
The Curlews travelled till Mingintangu where they threw little bark boomerangs to announce the Kajirri Ceremony to the men of that country. They caught the young boys for initiation and gave them to the two Kajirri women who took care of them. I am only telling the kankarlu story, I cannot tell the kanunju one, that is secret.
Then the Curlews and the newly initiated went to Manjarrungu, where a Jupurrurla Curlew was howling to gather the men of that country. He was the kurruwalpa embodied in the father of my aunt, Janjiya. After a new ceremony the Curlews took off to a kumanjayi place. I can't say its name because of sorry business.
The Curlew women prepared some seed-damper which they cooked with yams this was the kunari gift of food for the newly initiated. The two Kajirri women took them to the big swamp while the other women gathered in their camp. After having stuck their ritual sticks, kuturu, in the ground they sat down by the side, two by two, and 'burnt' each other.
Then the Curlews went back on their way. They found a waterhole in the sand where they had thrown their bark boomerangs the place is called Parntapi, the ritual name of those boomerangs. Finally they arrived at Yiningarra, my country. The two Kajirri women went to look for food with the initiated. The men were hunting for game in all directions, at Yilyili they cooked the meat for the newly initiated. The women as well went everywhere in the surroundings to hunt for small game. They did their fire ritual again and had a rest.
3. Bush fire
They all left for Kirrirpanta. From far away they saw a bush fire. A spark had fallen down at Wawulja. Little Curlew took off into that direction. When he came back the others exclaimed 'You’re back! And you are alive!' 'Let's go there. We can go closer,' he answered.
They followed him and stopped halfway. Little Curlew went back 'Wait for me, I want to make sure the fire has diminished.'
When he came back they were surprised once again 'How come you have not been burnt?' 'No, we can keep going.'
Then he took off a third time and when he came back he said 'We can try to cross. The spark which has caused the fire fell down at Jurntu.'
All the Curlews crossed the fire. At Mungurrurpa, Mongrel Downs, they cut down bushes trying to stop the fire. But they failed and were burnt. That's why Kenny Hooker Jupurrurla who has the Little Curlew kurruwalpa was born with burnt skin.
The yawulyu dance of the Curlew which my aunt dreamt mimes this episode. When our yukurrukurru boards are put on the ground I go up there and back three times like Little Curlew did when he went towards the fire. And when I pick up the boards from the ground that is the moment when all the Curlews cross the fire and get burnt.
4. They changed skins
The Curlews stopped at Warayarna, south of Rabbit Flat, to recover. When they had escaped the fire from the west the birds sat down on the ground and leaves started to grow under them. They grew and grew, becoming big yiltilpa trees, as you can see them at that site.
Poor Curlews, they were covered with burns and went under the ground forever in the swampland of Wurulyuwanta. But they went further east where they changed their skin names, from Jupurrurla and Jakamarra becoming Japanangka and Japangardi.
That part of the Curlew Dreaming does not belong to my people any more.... I can only tell you that they went very far north up towards Kurlungalinpa, the site of the Initiated Man Dreaming.
When a mother hears a curlew talk 'kuwili kuwili' and she doesn't answer him, her baby will always be tired and will never wake up in time to be fed. This is because the curlew is a strange bird. He always seems to be dizzy on his long feet. He walks as if he were drunk or mad, then he'll suddenly fall down, out of breath, and he stops breathing. He stays like fainted, as if he were asleep, and then suddenly wakes up and flies away.
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