Marcus Dijarama Pascoe

The An-mujolkuwa clan lie a few kilometres in from the mouth of the Blyth River, on the eastern bank. The
An-mujolkuwa clan belongs to a larger ‘family’ which all speak the Burarra language.
The Wangarra spirits that inhabit the clan waterhole are also reborn as new members of the clan. The
birth of a child is always announced in a dream, when the spirit of the new child makes itself known to the
child’s father. The spirit comes from the clan waterhole, and ‘gets hold’ of the mother when she is out
collecting.
When a person dies, the various ceremonies that are associated with the stages of the body’s disposal are
concerned with making sure that the dead person’s spirit finds its way back to the clan waterhole from
where it came. Hence the incarnation of a human being can be seen as one form of a clan spirit in the
cycle of it leaving and returning to the clan waterhole. Because these spirits are themselves part of the
power of the Ancestral Beings who created it rested in the land, so too are the clan members who are the
human forms of these spirits.
The Wangarra are linked to Ji-marda, an outstation in clan lands, and the waterhole nearby. The Anmujalkuwa Wangarra are associated with the Lorrkon mortuary ceremony. Humans are said to have
learnt how to perform this ritual from the Wangarra.