March, 2012

Bininj Gunwok is a name used for a chain of six mutually intelligible dialects which stretch from Kakadu National Park in the Top End of the Northern Territory south to Pine Creek and Manyallaluk, across the Arnhem Land plateau and east to the Mann, Liverpool and Cadell Rivers districts and as far east as some outstations south of Ramingining in central Arnhem Land.

A few days ago I posted a link on Facebook to a short piece in the Herald Sun about the tragic death of the rarest of Australia’s raptors, the White-phase Grey Goshawk, in the Victorian city of Bendigo. This is Robert’s wonderful tribute to that bird – written in prescience perhaps long ago but unchanged but for the last line.

Bilingual education can take different forms, but the underlying principle is the development and ongoing maintenance of knowledge and capacity in both languages. I have always supported and fought for that principle in the context of those Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory where there is a dominant regional language which has community endorsement as the language to be taught in school in addition to English.

Put Spangled and Drongo together and you’ve really got a name that gives more than the sum of its parts and that rolls off the tough with a laughing question. This morning I had a lay-in on a cool-almost-dry-season morning listening to one chatter senselessly outside my window for an hour or so. Now it would give a call call like a half-stifled sneeze, then some scolding raucous chatter reminiscent of a strangled cat followed by what sounds like a wire being tunelessly plucked and stretched.

Before and since European contact the Najig and Guyanggan Nganawirdbird groups have remained in Mataranka and surrounding communities on Elsey station, at Jilkminggan and throughout the Roper Valley. Their attachment to country through residence, spiritual life, ceremony, site protection and use of resources remains strong. Processes of change are recognised but are not seen by them to contradict their view of the constancy of the totemic landscape and their connection to it.

Roy Slaven and I have had a bit of a go at training young Ian Thorpe. Thorpie hasn’t responded to the half house-bricks at all well. Roy has this technique where he just stands on the pool deck and throws half-house bricks – obviously trying to hit their feet – he gets incredible results using the half house-brick technique (patent pending) Thorpie hasn’t responded to those efforts at all well – he’s got bruises all over his shins and ankles and this is causing him to go a lot slower and hence the very poor results over the weekend.

Kakadu in the wet. It was a great trip – no less so because of the trip home to Darwin through one of the wildest rain and thunder storms I’ve seen in many a year. Here is what i saw through my windscreen for much of that drive. But what impressed most were the contrasts between the ugly glory of the Ranger uranium mine – smack in the middle of Kakadu – and the landscape that surrounds it.

Do Amaral was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 and his condition was deteriorating when he re-nominated to contest March 17 presidential elections. The party had begun to fragment upon learning of do Amaral’s condition and may struggle without his charismatic leadership. President Ramos-Horta said that ASDT members who had pushed do Amaral to run for the presidency, knowing he was critically ill, had ‘no moral integrity’.

Andrew may be gone but won’t be forgotten – there are plans for an annual writers’ retreat in the town and those of us lucky enough to pass through Larrimah from time to time will be be stopping in to share a drink or ten with Andrew – again. And the NT Writers’ Centre is accepting donations for the Writers’ Retreat …