Bill Harney

Shooting star Bush Yam Dreaming It’s about shooting star dreaming, wild onion and all other bush yam. That’s a shooting star dreaming… Now this star lights all the area of the night, like a moon. Then you see all these yam, wild onion coming up there, we call it gayalarrin. But first I should have started with that Marilng, that (Shooting Star) Dreaming at Yingalarri (Delemere) area up top … Actually Shooting Star was made by the falcon. He sang a song (and created it) with a little mud, and soon, as it was dark and everyone sat silent, they saw the big light go up, and the big shooting star flew across. Falcon made it now and lit the whole country up like a moon. Shooting Star Dreaming is over at a place at Mt Gregory in Gregory National Park, Barnangga-ya. That’s where the falcon is now. You can see that (Shooting Star rock), it’s like a spear point. The flat top, if you were there you see it properly, it’s like a spear point. That’s the shooting star that went up with a point it. He went up and light everything up all over. When the bright light comes on from the Marling in the darkness, you can see the porcupine called gawalyan walking about, looking for little ants-termites called ngardan. Those termites leave little eggs, see the little egg, one, two three. Then the porcupine eats the eggs and also eats the ants himself too. When we used to kill the porcupine to eat, you could taste the ants. The ants are like medicine. The porcupine has a lot of flesh inside and when we eat that, it’s curing all the diseases in your body. They’re the best cure. That’s why Aborigines in the past didn’t have any cancer or anything, because they eat that. That sea eagle there, we call it diwana, collecting little fruit from fig tree and drops them in the water to make the fish or turtle come up. Then he dive bomb them and picks them up with his feet and takes ‘im up into the sky and inland, dropping them off there and then eats the lot. It’s mainly the sea eagle that gathered up the bush tucker like this one here called mardulg, like a bush cucumber. Now all these bush cucumbers he dropped them in different places for other little fish to eat in little springs. The fish rise up to look, to see what’s going on and sea eagle will get the bigger ones like perch or something like that. Then he went across and dropped off these paddy melons. That one there and that one there. He dropped them off in the black soil areas for the emu to come along and eat. Then the diamond dove, the little dove over here, little white one, they come along and eat the paddy melon. Then the other one, the white circle here and there with the yellow in the middle, is a pine melon that again grows in the back soil, or red soil. Wardaman name is gainbela. Then there’s mardulg (wild cucumber). You see the other leaf? When they’re like this black, and go yellow with the white when they start to get cooked up. It’s like a potato, grows in thousands in the red soil country like a sweet potato. We get a lot of them still growing today. It’s called wayida. When they collect all this together here they have a ceremony. Yes Diamond Dove collected this and bring along here, and they sit round in this little circle, like a ground oven to cook everything in there. This one here (top left) is a Black-headed python, he’s a normal one, he’s not dangerous, he comes along, they all come along from my country there at Flora River. A place called Yirgolya. His name is Warlujabi (Walijabi) that’s the name of the Back-headed Python. Black-headed Python created the big rivers, cut up the gorges and made many channels. He came from Gerdan, a place called Gerdan, it’s Flora River right up on top and he went to a place in my country called Galadji. Then when he was at Galadji. See all these little yams, this one here is from the long yam fruit called megerrman. And he said to King Brown called Yirlorloban (top right), Warlujabi said to King brown, ‘You put that yam in your mouth, that wayida and gawkawili here, you bight it hard and I’ll sing.’ And when he sang all the juice from that yam went into his teeth and gave him that poison, because he said, ’You’ve got no arms to fight, so I’ll give you poison. Not like me, I can’t kill somebody.’ That’s what Warlujabi said, ‘but you, Ill give you poison.’ And he sang that song called yarrirndi. And all the milk off the yam went into his teeth and became poison. This one got the most strongest powerful poison, that King Brown called Yirlorloban. Now Blue Tongue headed across to the Black-headed Python who said, ‘Because you’re so small, you can’t fight, kill anybody, but Ill give you good teeth.’ And he gave him like stainless steel teeth, like a razor, so if he bight you he’ll snap you in half, your little finger! And he sang his skin to become slippery so when another snake come along try to kill him, he can wrap around him all right, but old blue tongue will slip off, he’s got a very slippery skin. So The Black Head Python sang him to give him that very greasy skin. He said to him you can swim across in flood water time you wont get washed off, water will fly over you wont get washed away. This little Blue Tongue is called Burariman. There’s two blue tongues see one’s a left handed one, this is the left hand one burariman. Like a human, you find a left handed human and a right handed human. He’s the one who invented all the boomerang and made it so you can throw it and sing a song with it. Another blue tongue called yalnga. That’s a grey one that’s a different one see, we might come across his later I don’t know. But anyway he gave them all the song and little burariman was happy and go away. Then Burariman came across over here, where they going to do the dancing and all the designs for the Dreaming. That’s the two Dreaming now (two circular shapes far right). The Dreaming in Mount Hogarth area in that area at Innesvale, Menggen and Willeroo. Now they design it this buwarraja (dreaming) for men and women; those two together… That’s a Gujingga a male one (ceremony) and a Bandimi up top, woman’s one. They’re just looking far apart, they stay together. The design they put on their neck is called garrardada (neck harness), like wearing a necklace. That means you keep you mouth silent, not make a noise, (it indicates) respect (for) country where you’re going into. People take the lead and give shout and tell ‘im we’re coming or other strange people. Then the Water Python (Rainbow Serpent) he doesn’t get upset and make the people sick. Gives them the clearance see. That’s why you got to wear that one, gerrardada. Then over here there’s the little lijarri the one for collecting all the food, a little coolamon called lijarri. This one here, the big one for collecting food and take him to jerrin (camp oven) to roast. This one here, another little lijarri, can be a floater (used) in the billabong by a woman or a kid diving in, collecting freshwater mussels from the river. One is made from the shitwood tree. The little floating one that’s made out of the corkwood tree. It’s floating in the river and they just pick up the mussels and dropping them in, it’s like a little canoe. It’s an easy way to store them and taking them down to the oven. This little long one there, that’s a little swamp yam called walanung. Well the swamp yam is also is next to the mussel place, they collect all them, they go into the coolamon and carry them all back to the ground oven and cook them all up there. Well cooking up the food is the Diamond Dove and the Bar-shouldered Pigeon. Well he’s not there but Bar-shouldered Pigeon is included with the Diamond Dove. They’re the ones cooking up the food for the ceremony. They’re responsible. That’s dreaming design of the painting, what it means, where you go, what you collect, where you put it, all that sort of thing. And little leaf here you call it gulid. Today white man use it like orange juice, that’s a green plum and on top of him, along there two and two is the billy goat plum again they collect that to eat, got a lot of vitamin inside to keep you going all the way. (Diamond Dove and Bar-shouldered Pigeon) they created all those food all together, they carried them and stored them, put like a fig tree and put it in the river, and all the other food they dropped them, made it happen. But they didn’t plant any seed, but they sang songs and that’s why if you take the food up the little roots still there it will still grow again. In the Dreamtime, this mob did it, they sang a song to put ‘im in there and made it grow, so when we go along collect the food and the roots are still there, regenerate and come up again. They’re very clever the Diamond Dove and Bar-shouldered Pigeon. Created the coloured pigment, sang the songs to create the food and make it grow, the Bar-shouldered and the Diamond Dove. Diamond Dove and Bar-shouldered pigeon created bush tucker. They created all the food, not only them but other little beetles went in too, the glow beetle and all that. Glow beetle went in but I didn’t have (paint) the glow beetle in there. He’s the one that cooks all the food like the wild current and white currents, black currents and the black plum. You see him in the night, he’s flickering to notify everyone that the food’s ready to eat. Then all the background you can see all the red soil it becomes bright red. The bright red comes on called liwin that’s the red ochre. All the yellow one it comes up called gilirringa; yellow ochre through the country. The white one is called banjan; the white pigment. Then the black one you see is because this old lady old Warludjabi the one who made it, made it from a special type of wood called galina, a mimosa tree. The bark off that is like the Black headed python, he stayed black all the time. They get the ash off the bark, the powdered one will come off all black like ochre. The outside of the bark its already burned up outside. It’s really thick and you just peel off a little bit and put it in a pot and it’s like ochre. Warlujabi made that and he made all the song and gave him to King Brown. Gave him all the poison called mawuyagave him the poison teeth right through to his bone. Then old what’s his name, he was bald on his back, the echidna. (the lovebirds) put it all over his back and he’s got spikes on his back. There was this little bird called lovebird you’ll see them all siting in a line in a tree they were the ones that made all the spinifex. What they did was they saw his back was bare and they brought all this little spinifex and put it all over his back so he’s got spikes on his back. We call that bird janbaljanbal. (Bill Harney April 8 2015)