The wooden Egg made me sick

by Barbara Gibson 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

 

The other night, after Yakiriya told you the Yankirri Dreaming, I dreamt I was sitting with her and some ancestral women. We were getting ready for a ceremony and a crowd of white people were taking a photo of us!

My mother-in-law called me, very angry, and said she did not want to be photographed by all these white people. But I answered,

'Don't worry, they are going to give us a truck!'

 

The next day I had to go to Yuendumu for a royalty meeting where I was intending to claim compensation from the mining company for my traditional land-rights over the Granites area!

 

My dream continued by revealing to me two new Dreaming songs, one for Emu and one for Rain. They were given to me by the female egg. Poor fellow, he is alone now that Yakiriya gave you the male one. I made them both years ago for her that is why the egg sang for me, making me sick even before my dream. I was cold and I did not know why. When I took the plane, I was feeling worse.

 

When I came back from the meeting, I told Yakiriya, 

'It is emu, the cracking foot, who made me feel so sick in my stomach! I was carrying his two songs in the plane!'

 

 

2. Two new songs

 

Yakiriya was in the dream with two other Nangala who were singing the new Emu song

 

Karnaganja nangu nangu mangurrularna mangurrungurru

 

Karnaganja means the parents of the egg, nangu nangu is the waterhole they saw, and the rest means that they had a rest there. All the singing women of my dream, me included, were painted with the Rain Dreaming.

 

Two Napanangka, Betty and Nyilirpina, erected the mangaya stick, right in the spot where Emu and his wife brooded their eggs. I was dancing with the other women and we were singing the new Rain song

 

Muraninginti kutakuta jurrdungku jurrdungku luwarninya

 

Muraninginti means the other side, that is, west from the Emu trail; kutakuta is the storm; and jurrdujurrdu, the sand whirlwind. Finally luwarni, throwing, refers to the bolt of lightning.

 

 

3. The sand storm

 

Suddenly, a cloud of sand rushed upon us. A very strong wind lifted the sand. We were covered with dust. And it started to rain. Because we were singing the Rain Dreaming, he was sending us the sand storm and the lightning.

 

All the women ran to the bush shelters which formed a circle around the dancing ground.

'Come here, there is too much dust!' I shouted to the two Napanangka.

 

But they continued to dance to get the sacred stick they had previously erected. And they joined us to hide it.

 

This is when I woke up, in the middle of the night. I thought about our old Rain and Emu yawulyu. I thought about two Nangala now deceased. They used to be the bosses of these rituals, being custodians of the Rain Dreaming from Kulpulunu and the Emu Dreaming in that region where the couple discovered the miyaka nuts. These two women taught me, like in school. All the Kulpulunu mob was my family because my father-clan would visit them every dry season. Thinking about these two elders, I felt very sad.

 

 

4. Journey to the sea

 

Falling asleep again, I went back into the same dream. The sand storm was over. There was only a small group of women now, two Nakamarra, my sister Beryl and myself, Yakiriya and another Nangala, one Nampijinpa and Betty Napanangka who was leading. We danced up to the Kuraja swamp, near Katherine. All around there, black stones called “ black clouds ” are the trace of the Rain Dreaming. They also refer to the salt water, the sea further north (Darwin).

 

The Rain Dreaming paintings we had on our chests turned into Emu paintings. 

'Now you are going to track the Emeu Dreaming up to the salt water,' Napanangka said.

 

She took a big wooden dish that she painted with the Emu Dreaming. We danced far away to Jikaya, a place with many small waterholes. Each of us was dancing and dipping her foot into the holes, pulling it out as soon as the water was coming up. It was fun we tasted the water of all the holes with our feet!

 

We danced all night. At dawn, just before the day rose, we saw the sea, the huge black salt water. 

'This is where you have to finish because the Emu brother and sister disappeared here,' Napanangka said. 

 

So each of us tasted the sea with a foot like we had done in Jikaya. Gigantic waves lifted up and I got scared. Suddenly we found ourselves back in the 'black clouds' waterhole near Katherine (200 km south of the sea). I saw a ring place there and a crowd of ancestral women whose faces I could not recognise.

 

 

5. The dish

 

I woke up. The sun was rising. The Dreaming women had shown me the whole Ancestral Dreaming for Rain and Emu right up to where the two trails finish far away from the Warlpiri country. We dance and sing all this trail during the manmaking Law. We dance all day and night. Before dark we sing Kulpulunu, a site crossed by Rain and Emu. Around midnight the songs bring us to Jikaya. And at dawn we sing and dance the arrival to the sea where the two Emu children bodies are resting for ever.

 

We paint all this journey on the ritual parraja dish.

 

We dance with the dish and in the ground we erect the mangaya stick painted with black and white lines, representing, as on the dish, the sea and the clouds.