Marie’s first book, Every Secret Thing, was published in September 2009 by the University of Queensland Press.

The publishers blurb says that in Every Secret Thing:

When culture and faith collide…nothing is sacred. In the Aboriginal missions of far northern Australia, it was a battle between saving souls and saving traditional culture. Every Secret Thing is a rough, tough, hilarious portrayal of the Bush Mob and the Mission Mob, and the hapless clergy trying to convert them. In these tales, everyone is fair game. At once playful and sharp, Marie Munkara’s wonderfully original stories cast a taunting new light on the mission era in Australia.

Told with biting wit and riotous humour’ – Judges’ comments, Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards (2008)

For mine Every Secret Thing is one of the best books written about life in the Northern Territory since Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia – that’s a pretty big call but I reckon this book is just as funny, brave and deadly serious as that grumpy old curmudgeon’s masterpiece.

And I’m more than happy for you to disagree – but first read what Marie has to say here – and then go and buy her book.

In this first part of the interview we talk about how she came to write Every Secret Thing, her thoughts about what for me is the fine line of humour that runs through the book and her thoughts on the process of writing.

The Northern Myth – You were born in Arnhem Land but grew up on the Tiwi islands?

Marie Munkara – Yes, I was born on the banks of the Mainoru River in central Arnhem Land and then went to Nguiu on the Tiwi islands when I was about 18 months old. I was sent down south when I was 3 years old and went back to Tiwi when I was 28.

TNM – In September 2008 you won the David Unaipon Award for best unpublished manuscript by an Aboriginal writer person.

MM – Yes and “Every Secret Thing” was published by the University of Queensland Press in early September 2009 and was first launched in Brisbane, where UQP is based, and the Darwin launch was held in early October.

TNM – This is your first book? Are there any more coming? From reading it seems like you’ve got a lot more stories to tell.

MM - Oh, yeah!. There are a few more stories and books coming, don’t you worry about that!

TNM – How does it feel to have that book in your hands after all this time and effort?

MM – It was really amazing (laughs)…it was like giving birth to a child. There it is!

TNM – When people talk to you about it how do you feel?

MM – I’m quite pleased with myself and I’m quite intrigued. Everyone has different impressions about the book. I thought everyone would react the same to the same passages – you know, “That was funny” etc and there are some parts that I didn’t even think twice about. But people come up and say “Oh, that was my favourite part of the book”.

TNM – Do you re-read it or just put it out there and say – its gone now…

MM – No, it is out there, it is done. There are always things you would change – but you just have to put those things to rest and be happy with what you’ve done and move on to the next one.

TNM – When did you start writing and what did you write about when you started?

MM – Well, I’ve always written stories since I was a kid. This was just going to be a short story entry – based on the first chapter of the book – for the NT Literary Awards and it didn’t make it – it wasn’t shortlisted. So I just thought I could add a bit because it didn’t really say all that I wanted to say. Every Secret Thing took me 12 months to write and it was just a fantastic thing – I enjoyed every moment of it.

TNM – What do you do when you write – block out a few hours at a time or just bang away on the keys when you find time?

MM – For me it just becomes a routine – my daughters would go off to school, I’d do a bit of cleaning for half an hour and then sit down and off I go until they come home. Sometimes a bit of an idea would come into my head in the middle of the night but I’m lucky in that I can wake up in the morning and get into it – I don’t forget those ideas.

TNM – Do you show work to other people? Do you talk to other writers about what you are writing?

MM – No, mostly I just go off and do it. Occasionally I’ll get a good friend to read a chapter so that I can get a good idea of where it is going. No-one has ever been negative about it so that has been one good thing. I just get into it.

TNM – What about countrymen and family? You write about some fairly sensitive issues here, have people talked to you about that side of things?

MM – No, no-one in my family has read it yet! I’m just waiting for the responses to the book from them. Initially the material in Every Secret Thing came from things I would hear my family talk about while we were sitting around yarning. We would be laughing about what so and so did and remember when this or that happened. That is where it all started from and those ideas get a life of their own.

TNM – Someone said to me that you were very brave to talk about the personal and sexual issues in Every Secret Thing the way that you do. Do you feel brave?

MM – No, not really. It wasn’t even planned that way. If I had sat down and said “I’ve got to write a story about this business” I wouldn’t be able to do it. I really only wanted to write down some of the funny stuff so that one day my daughters would be able to know what happened and how things were for their mother, grandmother and other people. I didn’t write Every Secret Thing to be brave or funny. It is just something that came out of my head and I had a great lot of fun doing it!

TNM – You take no prisoners with your humour – everyone is up for it. Where does that deep funny side come from?

MM – Well, some of it is probably genetic! (laughs) I didn’t actually set out to make it funny – I just wanted to be sarcastic. Someone said to me recently “It is so hard to write humour, how do you do it?” and I could only respond that “I’m not actually writing to be funny, I’m just writing what is in my head and to be sarcastic.”

TNM – When you write about the anthropologist, for example, and the piss-taking that you have people inflicting on him, that is certainly sarcastic!

MM – That was actually based upon a true set of events. I won’t mention the anthropologist’s name but I’m sure if people put two and five together they will be able to work it out. My grandfather told me that story – and he is one of the characters in there of course.

TNM – Tell me about the writing process. Did you ever feel blocked?

MM – No, never! It just…it was almost like someone else was writing it through me. I never felt blocked and every moment was a joy – it was a really, really wonderful thing. And when I wrote the last sentence I knew that it was the last sentence.

In the next part of the Interview Marie and I will talk about her take on the sexual politics – and related issues – that she writes about in her book. Stay tuned for that because what she has to say about those issues is as interesting as her words and thoughts in Every Secret Thing.

Have you read Every Secret Thing? Have any thoughts or comments you’d like to make about Marie’s words or her book?

Register here and leave a comment!

Mandawuy Yunupingu. Photo by John Elliott, National Portrait Gallery

Mandawuy Yunupingu has fought more than a few battles in his time – most of which he has won hands down.

But, if you believed the title and tone of an article written by Natasha Robinson in The Australian in December last year – Songline fades for Treaty man Mandawuy Yunupingu – you could be forgiven for thinking that Mandawuy had given up hope and that he was soon to “finish up”, as we say up here.

Nothing could be further from the truth – anyone who knows Mandawuy is aware that the last thing he could ever be would be a quitter.

Tomorrow night, Monday 19 October, Jimmy Little, who has had his own battles with renal failure, will present an Australian Story on the ABC that sets out the real stories behind the fight that Mandawuy is having with end-stage renal failure – a curse that disproportionately affects many in Aboriginal Australia and that can only be treated by frequent dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Chart from the Fred Hollows Foundation

This chart produced by the Fred Hollows Foundation gives a stark – though dated – outline of the relative incidence of end-stage renal failure rates between the Aboriginal populations in the Australian States and territories and in the non-Aboriginal population.

The Fred Hollows Foundation says that the rate of death from Kidney Disease among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is:

…approximately nine times the total Australian rate. In the Barkly region of the Northern Territory standardised end-stage renal disease (ESRD) incidence among Indigenous Australians is up to 30 times the national incidence for all Australians. The number of dialysis treatments in the NT is doubling every two years.

…

In end-stage renal disease (ESRD), kidney transplant or dialysis is necessary to maintain life. The health service costs of this rapidly rising epidemic are a major demand on resources. Projected cost of medical services required in the next five years for the treatment of end-stage renal disease in the Northern Territory is estimated to be $50 million.

The current epidemic is probably explained by the confluence of many risk factors over a short time period, associated with dramatic lifestyle changes and serious socioeconomic disadvantage.

I’ve known Mandawuy Yunupingu since the mid nineteen-eighties when I was working as a sound engineer and general factotum for a rowdy bunch of Darwin-based ratbags known as the Swamp Jockeys.

From the dim recesses of memory I recall that Mandawuy turned up one night while we were on tour in Sydney with an old battered guitar, a swag of great songs and a keen desire to get them heard by as many people as possible.

He did a few gigs as a guest with the Jockeys and it was soon pretty clear to us all that he was bound for great things – which he went on to achieve for many years as the frontman of that groundbreaking band called Yothu Yindi.

A testament to Mandawuy’s determination is that he already had a distinguished career as an educator – maybe enough for most of us.

But Mandawuy knew that he could do more to spread his people’s message through his words, music, songs and performances fronting one of the most musically dynamic and politically forceful acts we’ve seen in this country.

Through the work of Yothu Yindi and beyond he has raised awareness of any number of important issues that affect the daily lives of the Yolngu peoples of north-east Arnhem Land and of Aboriginal countrymen and women across Australia.

And these messages weren’t just for blackfellas – they reached out to mainstream Australia as well.

Yothu Yindi was always about more than music.

As their ground-breaking – and chart-topping – Treaty indicates, Yothu Yindi was all about building bridges between cultures and peoples:

Nhima Djatpangarri nhima walangwalang -
Nhe Djatpayatpa nhima gaya nhe-
Matjini…. Yakarray – nhe Djat’pa nhe walang – Gumurrtijararrk Gutjuk -

This land was never given up
This land was never bought and sold
The planting of the Union Jack
Never changed our law at all

Now two rivers run their course
Separated for so long
I’m dreaming of a brighter day
When the waters will be one

Treaty Yeh Treaty Now Treaty Yeh Treaty Now
Treaty Yeh Treaty Now Treaty Yeh Treaty Now

Nhima djatpa nhe walang
Gumurrtjararrk yawirriny Nhe gaya nhe matjini
Gaya nhe matjini Gaya gaya nhe gaya nhe
Matjini walangwalang Nhema djatpa nhe walang – Nhe gumurrtjarrk nhe ya-

Promises – Disappear – Priceless land – Destiny -
Lyrics by Yothu Yindi & Paul Kelly

The Yothu Yindi website explains that the band has deep roots into the land, traditional law and decision-making based on consensus and culture:

The Yolngu members of Yothu Yindi live in the tribal homelands of north-east Arnhem Land 600 kilometres east of the Northern Territory capital of Darwin. Some live in Yirrkala, a coastal community on the Gove Peninsula that was originally established by the Methodist Missionary Society in 1935. Others live in Galiwinku, a former mission on Elcho Island originally established in 1942.

A move pioneered in north-east Arnhem Land, the homeland movement has seen Aboriginal people returning to their traditional lands and lifestyles-relying less on the trappings of Western society and more on traditional activities such as hunting, fishing and cultural and ceremonial education.

Yolngu band members are drawn from two of the sixteen clan groups in the region, the Gumatj and Rirratjingu. The people of the region have had contact with Balanda (Europeans) only over the past sixty years or so. Consequently, their traditional cultural, religious, artistic and ceremonial activities are still among the strongest in the country.

The band’s approach to its career is deeply rooted in traditional decision making processes, so all traditional songs that have been performed or released have been done so as a result of substantial consultation with clan leaders and traditional lawmakers.

Yothu Yindi – the band – has cut back its activities over the past several years.

But Yothu Yindi – the concept and the philosophy – has gone from strength to strength through the work of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, which, among many other things, runs the annual Garma Festival at Gulkula, outside Yirrkala.

You can learn more about the musical work of Mandawuy and Yothu Yindi at the band’s website here, and see what the Yothu Yindi Foundation is up to here.

And have a look at this site to find out about the Garma Festival.

All the Bush Tucker by Norman Cox

The Laarri Gallery is in the small community of Yiyili, an hour or so’s drive west of Fitzroy Crossing in, at this time of year anyway, the dry and hot heart of the Kimberley. A short drive down a rolling dirt road through rocky hills takes you to Yiyili and signs direct you to the gallery carpark near to the Yiyili School.

As you step out of the car a number of large murals in an open shed tell of the history of the town and region and the Gooniyandi people that live and work there.

Yiyili mural

Original Bough Shelter, by Joy Warring

The gallery is in a large and airy room next to the work room where there are usually a few artists working on paintings or artefacts, sitting in the cool with a cup of tea and a yarn, grinding up some local ochres for use in a painting or looking after the kids in the school tuckshop next door.

Inside the gallery there are a large number of paintings, wooden artefacts, painted Boab nuts and a selection of books and publications, including the captivating “Know your Granny” a history of the area in words and pictures that is dedicated to:

…our young people. Know your granny and be proud. In memory of Frank Cox – a respected elder who contributed much towards this book; to his family and his community.

The Foreword is written by the widely regarded artist and community elder Mervyn Street:

Since I was a little kid I’ve been told these stories by my granny and my mother; of how it was since the Kartiya (non-Aboriginal people) came to our country. We need to write it down, draw and paint pictures, while this old man (Frank Cox) and this old woman (Penny Mudeling) and all of us remember. Young people, like Big John, can write songs and music about our history. If we don’t tell it and write it down, no-one will know when we are gone.”

Inside the Laarri Gallery

The very useful and informative Australian Art Collector Magazine’s Aboriginal Art Centres Guide says that the Laarri Gallery is:

…a hidden gem in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, is situated in Yiyili Aboriginal Community between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, just 5 km off the Great Northern Highway. Laarri Gallery was established in a collaboration between Yiyili Community School and Yiyili Community Aboriginal Corporation in 1999. The goal of Laarri Gallery is to provide a place for local artists to work and a space to show. Like other art centres, the money raised from artwork sales goes directly back into the community, not only supporting the artists, but the community at large.

Local knowledge of bush tucker and bush medicine have also become integral themes of Yiyili and Laarri art. The community has produced two award winning artists to date and has fostered the telling of Gooniyandi stories and dreaming through art.

The gallery is open during Western Australian school term dates (appointments are necessary during term one). The gallery offers a large number of paintings, as well as locally produced books and postcards. All paintings come with a story of the work, an artist profile and a certificate of authenticity. Laarri and Yiyili art is unique in the Indigenous art world, there is sure to be something to catch your eye!

Yiyili is a local service centre for the small homelands of Ganinya, Goolgaradah, Kurinyjarn, Moongardie, Pullout Springs and Rocky Springs. Yiyili is on an excision from the once very large Louisa Downs Station which is now owned and operated by locals.

Yiyili has a vibrant and active independent school where the language spoken by all the children and a large majority of the adults is Kriol. Gooniyandi is the traditional language, however, there are only a few fluent speakers in the community and they are elderly people.

Mural by the Yiyili schoolkids

The following comes from the website of the Western Australian Aboriginal Independent Schools:

Yiyili was established in 1981. People had left the station earlier when equal pay issues faced non-Aboriginal station owners and Aborigines were told to leave cattle stations. When people returned, they lived in shelters on the edge of the Margaret River. They also did mustering and fencing on Louisa Downs in return for a space on their traditional land. The school and the community were established simultaneously and a mobile Kindy teacher was employed to conduct classes in a bough shed. In 1986 Yiyili was granted an excision allowing permanent housing and a school building to be erected. A teacher house was built in 1986 and then another in 1988. During 1989 Louisa Downs Station was handed back to the Cox family. It was purchased by ATSIC and leased to the Community for 99 years. The Station employs people from Yiyili and they are mainly members of the Cox family. During 1990 a building that houses the Clinic and the Store was built. A Community Office building was erected in 1996. The Store is owned by the people of Yiyili. A Doctor visits the Community fortnightly and every other fortnight a Community Health Worker visits the Community.

From Geoff Vivian's Kimberley Page

I’ve written about the Tanami Track/Road/Highway here before – but that was based on a couple of years of driving the  short stretch of one hundred horrible kilometres or so of occasionally-maintained dirt road between my home at Yuendumu and the end of the bitumen at Tilmouth Well, two hundred kilometres from Alice.

But this past month I’ve had cause to travel the rest of the road from Yuendumu north-west to where it ends, seven hundred lonely kilometres away, just outside of Halls Creek in Western Australia.

Image from David Grant's Holidays page

There isn’t a lot between the two points – occasional signposts point to station homesteads or outstations set well off the road, a cluster of mine sites – The Granites, Tanami, Coyote – and one roadhouse, Rabbit Flat.

I’ve driven from Lajamanu to Rabbit Flat and Yuendumu before – but twenty or so years ago – and my memory of the state of the road then has faded into a haze of dust.

As I’ve noted previously, one of the major impacts on the Tanami Track is the steady stream of fuel and chemical trucks that service the Granites Mine at about the six hundred kilometre point on the road.

Tanami fuel tanker

These massive trucks can drag loads of up to 140 tonnes and cause an enormous amount of damage to the roadway, which for large stretches of the Tanami Track have never been properly formed and sheeted.

In the long dry season the Tanami Track is a sandy, shifting surface of corrugations, dust and huge potholes, and in the wet the roadway turns into little more than a muddy ditch, with long pools of water lying in the many un-drainable sections of the road that have been cut down below the level of the surrounding countryside by the constant grading required to maintain some similarity to a road.

The Tanami Track falls within the jurisdictions of two large Shire Councils, the Shire of Halls Creek in Western Australia and the recently-constituted Central Desert Shire in the NT.

The Central Desert Shire, which has about 700 kilometres of the Tanami Track in it’s area, has had little to say about road  conditions and how it may affect local communities and businesses.

There is not much in it’s Plan of Management and the web home page is, at the time of writing, out of action.

The NT Government does most of the regular maintenance and is currently spending about $12 million to upgrade and seal a 14 kilometre section at the south-eastern end of the road that regularly floods in the wet season. That work is certainly welcome, but there will still be an awful long stretch of the Tanami Track that will continue to be maintained only by several grader skims a year.

The Halls Creek Shire appears to take its responsibilities to its residents more seriously than governments in the NT do.

Recently the Halls Creek Herald reported on the Shire’s recent efforts. Earlier this year the Shire commissioned a cost benefit analysis on the Tanami from Cummings Economics.

Shire President Lynette (”Jim“) Craig told the Halls Creek Herald that communities along the Tanami Track rely upon it:

“…for their supplies of food, fuel and services and the artists rely on the passing tourists for a substantial proportion of their livelihoods. The current condition of the road deprives them of income as well as adding to the costs of their stores, and the costs of doing business for the mines and stations.”

Shire CEO Warren Olsen told the Halls Creek Herald that:

“The Shire does its best within its resources to maintain and upgrade the road…But without sealing we know that after the wet season you won’t see where the money went, and that’s a heartbreaking waste of scarce materials and taxpayer’s money.”

In June this year the Shire released a report (Regularising Local Government Services in Halls Creek Shire – available by search at the Shire home page) into council services to the communities along the Tanami track.

A major part of that report considers serious legal liability issues for the Shire and the costs and lost economic opportunities arising from the road’s condition.

The report is refreshingly blunt in its assessment of the Shire’s capacity to provide services and of the state of funding from other levels of government required to provide those services.

For me this bluntness is rare and welcome – and certainly worlds away from the kind of comments that I have heard from either the NT Government or from the recently-established Shire councils that operate in remote areas of the NT – where there are similar concerns about roads of of the same nature and magnitude as raised by the Halls Creek Shire but that the NT Shires and the NT Government appear disinterested in.

It is worth quoting from the Halls Creek Shire report at some length:

The Shire of Halls Creek is particularly impecunious; it has a very small rating base and few other revenue opportunities, its remoteness causes it to have a very high cost structure both for labour and for the supply of goods and services, it is responsible for a very large road network that it does not have adequate resources to maintain at an appropriate level (including a major interstate road1 that should more properly be a state or federal responsibility), and its communities have been identified as among the most disadvantaged in Australia – consequently requiring a high level of local government services per capita in order to try to redress the high level of disadvantage.

…

Across the state, the funding available for maintenance of roads to remote communities is woefully inadequate for the work that ought to be performed to maintain the roads in a reasonable condition.

…

The poor state of the Tanami Road is a serious impediment to providing services of all kinds to the communities of Billiluna, Balgo and Mulan (as the poor state of the Duncan Road also impedes the provision of services to the Ringer Soak community).

And there is evidence that the state of the road not only results in highly inflated costs to offset expected damage to vehicles, but that in some instances contractors refuse to tender, or tender at unacceptably high prices, for work that involves use of the road.

There is also evidence that occupational health & safety issues are emerging as a barrier to service provision:

“…we have sought proposals from various contractors to either directly provide services to the communities or to provide backup services in the case of service disruption, we were unable to obtain any prices because potential service providers are unwilling to provide services to communities located along such a vehicle-damaging road.

The Department of Housing…advises that the condition of the road is causing the Department delays in having contractors undertake work in those communities. It appears that contractors regularly report vehicle damage on trips to those communities. While vehicle damage might well explain the reluctance of contractors to service those communities, it is reasonable to assume that it also affects the prices that contractors charge to service the communities.

The Department of Housing also expresses concern for the safety of its officers when they are travelling on the Tanami Road.

Mulan Community Store reports that it suffers from considerable damage to its stock, particularly fruit and vegetables, soft drinks, freezer goods, and some dry goods such as cans – which it attributes to the condition of the Tanami Road. On the morning the Store management wrote its letter to the Shire, they reported destroying 74 cans of Coca Cola due to road damage. They also reported fortnightly losses in the range $250 to $400 due to damage in transport.

The freight company that delivers to the community stores has reportedly given notice that it intends to seek a substantial increase in its rates when its contract expires in September 2009, which will cause food prices to increase and add to hardship in the communities.

The Shire report also notes the direct and indirect economic effects that the road condition ha upon the remote communities in its area, particularly those enterprises that rely upon passing tourist trade.

Warlayirti Artists is the indigenous-owned Art and Culture Centre in Balgo Community. This art centre supports over 200 indigenous artists in the communities of Balgo. Mulan and Billiluna. Other than Centrelink payments and CDEP it is the major provider of the income for many of these artists. In 2007-2008 it contributed $ 1.5 million in direct payments to artists across these communities. The dry season (April to October) is the art centre’s busiest time of the year and when most of the income is earned to sustain the artists through the wet season…significant volumes of artwork are sold directly to tourists and collectors travelling to the Art Centre along the Tanami Track from either Halls Creek or Alice Springs.

Warlayirti Artists report that the condition of the road is discouraging tourist traffic and thereby reducing the potential sales that they would otherwise expect to sustain the local economies. They also report that a builder they had lined up to commence building work has pulled out of the job because of the damage the road is doing to his vehicle and the time it is taking to reach the community.

And the Tanami is also used extensively, particularly during the dry season, to ship cattle out and to carry material for pastoral, mining and exploration activities into the region.

…it is heavily used by road trains and other heavy vehicles that cause considerable damage to the road.

The Shire is in receipt of complaints from various pastoral companies along the road, including the owners and managers of Youga Walla Station, who state (inter alia) that: “Carriers of livestock, general freight and fuel are now refusing to come down the road and deliver our freight. If you can even convince them to come down it will be at a rate of 5 to 10 times the normal going rate. For example I was recently quoted $5500 for one trailer of goods from Halls Creek to the station. I can get the same goods from Adelaide to Halls Creek for $6500. A recent purchase of cattle has had to be stopped due to the carrier refusing to use the Tanami Road. This is obviously having a huge impact on the ability of us to run our business viably . . . We have had staff and visitors who have travelled here from Alice Spring on the Tanami who have commented that the road is in excellent condition until you get to the WA border. This is an entirely unacceptable situation and needs immediate attention.”

Not only is the Tanami Road a huge burden on the Shire of Halls Creek that it cannot afford, but it is an inequitable situation that the Department of Main Roads takes responsibility for two intra-regional roads (both the Great Northern Highway and the Gibb River Road) linking the West Kimberley towns of Derby with the East Kimberley towns of Wyndham and Kununurra, while leaving the Shire of Halls Creek with the burden of this important interstate road.

The Northern Territory end of the Tanami Road is currently being sealed to within 80 km of the state border. Upgrading the Western Australian end of the road to the same standard (at an estimated cost of $60 million) would not only provide the opportunity for alternative modes of service provision to the Tjurabalan communities, but it would also reduce costs significantly to the Shire and to the road users, and facilitate the economic development of Balgo, Mulan and Billiluna by reducing their transportation costs, bringing more tourist traffic, and making businesses in those communities more viable.

…

the estimated cost would be in the order of $60M.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for further news from the north-west about the state of this road – and also whether the NT agencies see fit to change their approach to the parlous state of the road and their reluctance to acquit their responsibilities.

And if you are interested in matters north-west I cannot recommend the many great stories and links at Geoff Vivian’s Kimberley Page highly enough. Not only does Kimberley Page have original contributions from Geoff but it pulls in all manner of articles and links on matters of current and historical interest from around Australia and the globe.

Well worth an hour or two of browsing.

And me, I wimped it – after driving up the road and spending a couple of weeks wandering around the Kimberleys I had the choice of taking the short route (700k’s) via Balgo home to Yuendumu – or going the long way round via Kununurra, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs (approximately 2,500k’s).

I will admit to having lost my bottle on the Tanami Track – and I took the long way home after convincing myself that I had business in Darwin…and not being able to face the likely repair bills to sanity, health and vehicle after dragging it across the horrorshow that is the Tanami Track right now…

Got a story about the Tanami Track – send in a post and tell me, and the rest of us, all about it!

Pilbara languages map from Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre

I’m sitting here in the “Balgo Hilton” waiting for someone to come back from where I’ve just been.

We most likely passed each other on the road sometime yesterday as I struggled up the 530 kilometres of the torture that is known as the Tanami Track from Yuendumu up here to Wirrimanu – formerly known as Balgo.

When I got here and asked after him they told me he’d gone to Yuendumu earlier that day and was expected back here tonight.

So I’ll try to catch up with him early tomorrow.

Meanwhile I’m going through my notes on Aboriginal bird knowledge from around here and the other regions of the north west of western Australia that I’ll be travelling through over the next few weeks.

As I was sorting I came across some excerpts that I’d found in Taruru: Aboriginal Song Poetry From the Pilbara by C.G. Brandenstein and A.P. Thomas and published by Rigby of Adelaide in 1974.

At 92 pages Taruru is a modest work but it is packed with song poems in a number of languages of the Pilbara – which appears, and have a look at the map above, to be one of the most linguistically diverse parts of the country.

To find out more about the language and cultures in this fascinating and far-flung corner of the country the website of the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre is a great place to start.

Here are some of the bird song poems from Taruru:

BIRD’S CALL

Tjalurra in Jindiparndi, by Robert Churnside

Ku?urru murlawarnjgaa juurumarna karnalilila

ku?urru murlawarnjgaa juurumarna tarritogula

The Kurrugu bird-call finds his melody in the morning

Kurrugu bird-call finds his melody in the treehole.

THE CROWS

Tabi in Karierra, by Tjarndai

njalataianna pannina kudii nagunjuru

pilanmannaba takanna.

palakuru pala kardi?iriba pannigu

tinatingala juurra-manjulaba mirrunjgu

palakuru pala waarnarraba warnjga “kaa”

warnda murrumurru tanbatirriiba wurdanjga

They lurk and sit till they see a bone

What they can get, they grab

They hang around, eyeing something off.

Hopping about in the sun,

Conversing: “Kaa, kaa, kaa.”

Then its up to the back of a branch

One after another – what a crowd.

EMU SHOT

Tabi in Ngarluma, by Tjinapirrgarri

maguranagu tundunjarranpiru

maguranagu njali kangaragu

warnjgatinara karruluu padanna

warnjgatinara poolkarrinagu

ilinpinnuru karruluu padanna

ilinpinnuru poolkarrinagu

wibururuba marnjgula jirrgagu

karlinjkarlinjbala

At the bobbing head he aims,

At the bobbing head, at the upper neck.

The shots whistle, hitting the river stones.

The shots whistle, as it lies there riddled.

Feathers leap, hitting the river stones.

Feathers leap, as it lies there riddled.

The emu chicks run to and fro

Coming back again and again.

THE BULBUL BIRD

Tabi in Ngarluma, by Waljbira

Bulbul pannii nurdu,

Bulbul pannii nurdu

murii tinamanma, jabulkurruu karadilipanjuru

Bulbul pannii nurdu,

Bulbul pannii nurdu

murii tinamanma, jabalkurruu karadilipaia

jinda nuru pannii Pabamudunjgana

njaiin wirlimanma, kururdkakanma njuu

jinda nuru pannii Pabamudunjgana

njaiin wirlimanma, kururdaga.

Bulbul is here

Follow the stony creek, your track to northern shores!

Bulbul is here

This pool is “water throughout the year”

Stir my heart and also give it a rest

(rest is missing)

PELICAN AND HERON

Pundut in Jindiparndi

(traditional)

kandanjarrima pilarra!

tamanjgajini padarmarrijanju-peerl!  peerl!  peerl!

hou!

Leave your old leg-spear alone!

Let’s hurl fire-sticks at each other!

Kill!  Kill!  Kill!

THE PEEWIT AND THE WHITE COCKATOO CHICK

Pundut in Jindjiparndi

(traditional)

njaiimbaa karparna mungamunganina

wiluurumarna kardanpadimarna

pirdiranalu tida wadinjani

hou!

I then took it away and improved on it:

White and the neck striped,

Better than the white cockatoo’s chick

Which turned out rather badly.

I don’t have the right keyboard settings to enter some of the linguistic notations (there are several couplings of “n” & “j” (I’ve forgotten the technical term!) above that are usually represented by an “n” with the downstroke of the “j” incorporated into it. There are also several graves, acutes and umlauts that I’ve not been able to enter.

I’ve come across a fair bit of poetry and song-texts in the course of my research and I’ll post a few more of them as I work my way though my notes and research.

The poems from Taruru provide me with some interesting perspectives on how people imagine and record their knowledge of birds.

I struggle to understand the meaning of Pundut’s The Peewit and the White Cockatoo Chick, but a little research may provide some clarity.

Both The Crows and Emu Shot are beautiful and fine-grained descriptions of two common birds – one often seen as an intelligent and engaging pest, the other an important element in local economic and religious life.

And I’m looking for more in other material that von Brandenstein recorded in the north-west. If you know of any other Aboriginal poetry about birds please don’t hesitate to pass it on.

For me this couple of hours before dawn is the best time of day – the stars are at their brightest, the air is cool and clear, the Pied Butcherbirds get an early start on the morning chorus with their mellifluous calls and all the pleasures of the day wait ahead.

In two previous posts here I have explored the work of the Warlpiri artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites and the wonderful work in the exhibition of paintings by people of the Wajarri Yamatji language group from Western Australia’s Murchison region and their exhibition entitled “Ilgarijiri – things belonging to the sky“. Both of those posts illustrate the importance of the Seven Sisters – the Pleiades – in Aboriginal cosmology.

I want to wander through a few further links that I’ve found that reveal what I suspect is just small part of the enormous body of knowledge that Australian Aboriginal people have of our night skies and the wonderful things that live there.

As I’ve said previously – and this may arise from 2009 being the International Year of Astronomy – there seems to be a greater willingness to engage with, or a broader interest in, Indigenous Astronomical Knowledge among the mainstream astronomical science community than there is in many other scientific disciplines – and this could include my own area of interest of ornithology.

But back to the stars!

Questacon provides a popular entry point for the general public to a variety of areas of Australian scientific enquiry and research and has a page dedicated to Aboriginal Astronomy, from which this story of Barnimbir (Venus) the Morning Star from the Yolngu language group of north-east Arnhem land comes:

One day a yam leaf was blown across the warm waters of the sea, north of Australia. It floated from the east, from where the Sun and Morning Star came. A man named Yaolngur found the leaf. The yam plant was very special to him and he decided to travel to the country where it came from – the land of the Morning Star.

He made a very large canoe and told his wives to collect great numbers of water lily bulbs for food and fill many coconut shells with water for drink during his long journey. He rested that night in his home camp and early next morning he set out. He paddled for seven days, sometimes sleeping on small islands, sometimes sleeping at sea. On the last night of his journey he paddled and paddled – he could hear waves crashing on the rocks. Then the sky lit up, the Morning Star rose in the sky and Yaolngur saw land.

He had arrived at the home of the Morning Star. The island was the home of the spirits, home of the Mokois. He had arrived at the island of the dead. Because he was in a strange land, he wanted to make himself strong. By rubbing the sweat from his armpits onto his arms, legs and chest, he made himself powerful. He also rubbed his sweat in his spear thrower.

Carrying his weapons, he went to seek the Morning Star. He had only walked a short way when he saw the ghosts – so many in number that they stood shoulder to shoulder so many that there didn’t seem room for any more. The spirits looked at the decoration of sea gull feathers on his spear thrower and recognised him as a friend. He sang and danced and then said, “I want to see Barnimbir, the Morning Star.”

He walked and found the old woman Marlumbu, who kept the star. At first she didn’t want to it to him, but he sang magic songs and he assured her that he only wanted to see if it was the same as the one his group used in their Morning Star ceremony. Marlumbu took it out and showed him the parts made from seagull feathers and jungle yams. Yaolngur was pleased the Morning Star was the same as his people used.

He handed the Morning Star back to Marlumbu, who released it into the sky. She controlled the flight of Barumbu by holding the string and allowing the Star to travel all over the islands. She cried out directions to the Star to tell it where to travel. Suddenly the string started to hum. It was the sign that the Sun was coming up.

You can find more of the stories if the rich heritage of Aboriginal astronomical observation and story telling at the Questacon Aboriginal Astronomy site.

These stories can also be found in Questacon’s book The Emu in the Sky, a collection of Aboriginal astronomy stories from all around Australia that is available from Questacon for the bargain price of $AU4.30.

The Emu in the sky

Another widespread story is the popular and widespread story of the “Emu in the Sky“.

As this page at Wikipedia notes, the Emu in the Sky story is a:

…tradition that is widespread in Australia…a ‘constellation’ that is defined by dark nebulas (opaque clouds of dust and gas in outer space) that are visible against the milky way background, rather than by stars. The Emu’s head is the very dark Coalsack nebula, next to the Southern Cross; the body and legs are other dark clouds trailing out along the Milky Way to Scorpius.

Just north of Sydney, in the Kuringai National Park, are extensive rock engravings of the Guringai people who live there, including representations of the creator-hero Daramulan and his emu-wife. An engraving at Elvina Track shows an emu in the same pose and orientation as the Emu in the Sky. constellation. On autumn evenings, the emu in the sky stands directly over her portrait, just at the time when it’s time to gather emu eggs. To the Wardaman [people], however, the Coalsack is the head of a lawman.

Macquarie University Adjunct Professor Ray Norris runs a website dedicated to Aboriginal Astronomy.

In the overview to the comprehensive site he says:

The southern sky is striking compared to that of the Northern hemisphere, often dominated by the magnificent river of the Milky Way weaving across the zenith, crossed by numerous dust lanes. For those living in Australia before the advent of streetlights, the night sky would be an important and integral part of their understanding of the world. Naturally, they would notice that particular stars or patterns are seen only at certain times of the year. Furthermore, since many chose to travel in the cool of the night, they would quickly find that stars are useful for navigation.

Across Australia are many different rich and vibrant Aboriginal cultures, each with its own astronomy. But there are common threads. Many have stories of a female Sun who warmed the land, and a male Moon who was once a young slim man (the waxing crescent Moon), but grew fat and lazy (the full Moon). But then he broke the law, and was attacked by his people, resulting in his death (the new Moon). After remaining dead for 3 days, he rose again to repeat the cycle, and continues doing so till this day. The Kuwema people in the Northern Territory say that he grows fat at each full moon by devouring the spirits of those who disobey the tribal laws.

Some Aboriginal people use the sky as a calendar to tell them when it’s time to move to a new place and a new food supply. The Boorong people in Victoria know that when the “Mallee-fowl” constellation (Lyra) disappears in October, to “sit with the Sun”, it’s time to start gathering her eggs on Earth. Other groups know that when Orion first appears in the sky, the Dingo puppies are about to be born.

And you can find an interesting introduction to many aspects of Aboriginal astronomy, links to other articles,  audio programs and events at the ABC’s Big Aussie Starhunt page.

Further north in the Northern Territory, the fascinating accounts of the Astronomical knowledge of the Wardaman language group, who have country to the west and south of Katherine in the Northern Territory, are revealed in the book “Dark Sparklers“, written by Hugh Cairns and Bill Harney, with whom I’m doing some work on my project on Aboriginal bird knowledge.

I don’t agree with many of the statements that Hugh Cairns makes about some aspects of the traditional knowledge of the Wardaman people but notwithstanding those and other reservations the book represents the most comprehensive account of the astronomical beliefs of a single Australian Aboriginal language group that I have been able to find. Dark Sparklers also contains many wonderful stories of other aspects of Wardaman knowledge and belief systems.

A Wardaman rock painting

I’ll leave each of you to make up your own mind about Dark Sparklers but encourage you to forward any further information you might have on projects and research being undertaken elsewhere.

And finally, while it is mainly directed at teachers wanting to use Aboriginal astronomical knowledge in the classrooom there is a great educational resource entitled “Astronomy and Australian Indigenous People” prepared by Adele Pring and produced by the South Australian Education Department that is available as a PDF document here.

Don’t let the educational content put you off – it contains a wealth of information about Aboriginal astronomical knowledge from all over the country.

There is a lot more that I haven’t been able to cover here but I’d be happy to extend the discussion and would welcome your suggestions or links to further information.

Poster for the Ilgarijiri exhibition in Perth

Further to my previous post on Alma Nungarrayi Granite’s paintings from Warlukurlangu Artists at my home town of Yuendumu I found a fascinating set of links between Aboriginal art, the sky and the objects we find there and modern science.

In many ways these links are very similar to the kind of connections that I find in the work that I’m doing on the connections between Aboriginal knowledge and birds – but in the case of Aboriginal astronomical knowledge there seems to be a far more active interest and real curiosity on the part of some astronomers in the Aboriginal equivalent to their work than there is with their counterparts in the the mainstream ornithological scientific community.

And I didn’t know it before I had a close look at this exhibition but 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.

I can’t quite recall how I came across the link to what looks like a an absolute cracker of an exhibition of Aboriginal art from the Geraldton region of Western Australia but I ended up at this blog site for the “Ilgarijiri – things belonging to the sky” exhibition that fired up in April 2009 and has quickly seen an exhibition up and running.

Right now if you are in Perth you can see the show at the exhibition space at the Curtin University.

The Wajarri Yamatji people of the Murchison region of Western Australia are the Native Title claimants over the region including the Murchison Radioastronomy Observatory (MRO), a site being developed as the potential location for the next generation of large radio telescope – the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), as well as SKA precursor telescopes such as the CSIRO Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA).

The focus of “Ilgarijiri – things belonging to the sky” is a collaborative project between artists associated with the Wajarri Yamatji region, via the Y-ART cooperative in Geraldton, and radio astronomers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), based in Perth, Western Australia.

The project brings together Aboriginal artists and scientists to exchange an celebrate different perspectives about the night sky and to explore those perspectives in art.

Here are a few of the images from the exhibition:

Emu Egg time, by Sonya Edney

I’m curious as to whether the reference to “Emu Egg time” in this painting by Sonya Edney is a reference to the changing positions of certain star clusters or constellations over time and if they may serve as an indicator of the right time to harvest Emu eggs in the artist’s homelands.

Quite a few Aboriginal people have told me about their knowledge of certain elements – whether it be the position of objects in the night sky, the flowering of certain plants or the movements of birds and animals in or out of their areas – and that these observations are intertwined with their knowledge and exploitation of the plant and animal worlds around them.

And the following images show, to some degree at least, the pan-continental nature of Aboriginal knowledge and beliefs about prominent constellations and star clusters.

These paintings of the Seven Sisters (also known as Pleiades) are the same subject as discussed in my previous post of Nungarrayi’s vision of the Seven Sisters from here in the Tanami Desert – thousands of kilometres to the east of the Murchison  region.

Seven Sisters, by Gemma Merritt

Seven Sisters by Margaret Danishewsky

Unlike Nungarrayi’s painting I don’t have any of the stories for these images and I’d love to hear more about the content and the artists connections to the land and the sky as they put it down on canvas.

I’ll look out for this exhibition and some further information about the project over the next couple of weeks as I move down the west Australian coast – and if you’ve seen the exhibition I’d love your comments about the art, the artists and the project as a whole.

Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa, Alma Nungarrayi Granites

This small image gives but a very limited impression of the power and majesty of the original of Alma Nungarrayi Granites’ painting of her Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters dreaming).

It is one of a series of large paintings by the Warlpiri artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites, who paints for Warlukurlangu Artists, the locally-owned and operated arts centre here at Yuendumu 300 kilometres or so north-west of Alice Springs in Warlpiri/Anmatyerre country on the southern fringes of the magnificent Tanami Desert.

Nungarrayi comes from a long and proud tradition of Warlpiri artists.

Her father and mother, Paddy Japaljarri Sims and Bessie Nakamarra Sims, are two of the artists that founded Warlukurlangu in the mid-eighties. Artistic talent in the Sims family runs deep and spans the generations – Nungarrayi’s parents Japaljarri and Nakamarra, as well as Nungarrayi and her brothers and sisters all paint with and sell through Warlukurlangu.

Earlier this year Nungarrayi and her daughter Sabrina joined her mother and grandmother in a unique show, entitled “Mother, daughter, granddaughter; Three generations of Yuendumu artists” at Perth’s Kingfisher Gallery . Brother Otto Sims is the chairman of Warlukurlangu.

The rights to paint and the knowledge linked to the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa story have been handed down to Nungarrayi from her father, the last Japaljarri who knows all of the songs and ceremony for the Yiwarra – Milky Way Dreaming.

Nungarrayi’s paintings are powerful multi-level images that draw you in and each raise a hundred or more questions – many of which, for various reasons, will remain unanswered.

I want to take one of Nungarrayi’s Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa – or her other Yanjirlpirri Jukurrpa (Star dreaming) paintings out bush on one of those clear starlight-bright nights that we are so often blessed with out here and lay on my back with the painting at arms length above me and read the painting and the skies beyond together.

And Nungarrayi’s story for this particular painting – well, maybe just one of the many stories embedded in them – is that:

The Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven sisters Dreaming) depicts the story of the seven ancestral Napaljarri
sisters who are found in the night sky today in the cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus, more
commonly known as the Pleiades.

The Pleiades are seven women of the Napaljarri skin group and are often depicted in paintings of this Jukurrpa carrying the Jampijinpa man ‘Wardilyka‘ (the Bustard [Ardeotis australis]) who is in love with the Napaljarri-warnu and who represents the Orion’s Belt cluster of stars.

Jukurra- jukurra, the morning star, is a Jakamarra man who is also in love with the seven Napaljarri sisters and is often shown chasing them across the night sky. In a final attempt to escape from the Jakamarra the
Napaljarri-warnu turned themselves into fire and ascended to the heavens to become stars.

The custodians of the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa are Japaljarri/Jungarrayi men and Napaljarri/Nungarrayi
women. Some parts of the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa are closely associated with men’s sacred ceremonies.

I’m not quite sure if Nungarrayi will be holding any further solo exhibitions in Australia this year but her work is well represented in any number of galleries in Australia and internationally that specialise in quality Aboriginal art.

If you are in Alice Springs this weekend you can do a lot worse than go along to the Aralauen Arts Centre and catch the Desert Mob show that will be opening there Sunday.

My old mate Paul Kelly will be playing a sold-out show in the Araluen Theatre on Saturday night and on Saturday afternoon many of the locally-owned arts centres scattered throughout central Australia will be selling their wares at the Desert Mob marketplace.

This market is a great way to get hold of a range of modestly-priced works of a great variety from some of the 43 art centres that make up DesArt. I don’t know if you’ll be able to pick up any of Nungarrayi’s painting at the Warlukurlangu booth but you could certainly find out more from the Warlukurlangu staff.

The exhibition is described on the Desart website as a:

…showcase[s of] the latest works from each of the participating Art Centres and includes paintings by some of the leading artists in Australia, together with traditional artefacts, weavings, ceramics and other crafts. Each Art Centre exhibits works by some of its senior artists, together with works by emerging younger artists.

And the the marketplace is:

… a large indoor/outdoor market with stalls selling small and low-priced Aboriginal arts and crafts and related products, such as T shirts, bags, books and calendars from Desart member Art Centres. Popular with both locals and tourists, the market offers a chance of some excellent bargains to early browsers.

Me, I’ll be at home watching the football and looking after the dogs while my partner, who works at Warlukurlangu, will working hard in Alice Springs.

Then on Sunday I’m off through the Tanami Track up to the east and west Kimberleys and then on to the Pilbara to talk to people about birds.

It is really tough out here sometimes…

I came across this very happy looking Pelican (Pelecanus cinspicillatus) while I was having lunch along the shore at Merimbula on the NSW far south coast a few weeks ago.

I was passing through the area as part of one of my several long trips around the country to talk to Aboriginal people and groups about what they know about birds, culture and people – for a book to be published by CSIRO Publishing in 2010.

This bird is one of a number of similar sculptures dotted every few hundred metres along the shore of a park that winds along the shores of Merimbula Lake around which the town is built.

These Pelicans are just about the best bird sculptures I have seen. Made out of the scattered bits of metal that we discard in tips, along the road or just leave to rust where they die, they become a whole lot more than the sum of their parts.

In this Pelican I can recognise a couple of car drive shafts, a shovel flange, assorted exhaust pipes and parts, concrete-reinforcing bar and at least one – or a part of – shovel blade.

And here more of the same – mower blades, a toothed gear and parts thereof, car suspension springs…the list goes on.

And this pair is my favourite of the group. Here – for me at least – the sculptor has captured the essential Pelican – the interaction between a pair or the group, the shapes they make, there is a lyrical quality that only comes from long and close observation of these birds in the wild and an almost jealous appreciation of their beauty that presents the challenge to transform that beauty into something beyond a Pelican.

And that is one of the great things about this set of birds on heavy poles driven into the sand and water along the park edge – you can admire the shapes and forms of the birds on their poles – static but at once mobile – and then turn and see the living birds right next to them – flying in like a squadron of heavy seaplanes, skidding to a stop and immediately ploughing the water for food with their massive bills.

A great conjunction of art and nature.

And this White-bellied Sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) and fish keep vigilant watch over Merimbula Beach a bit further along the coast.

I couldn’t find anything along the shoreline or elsewhere that told me anything about who made the birds or who commissioned them. A few days later I was in the Purple Possum cafe (best coffee on the coast, great views, a good gallery, bookshop etc) a few kilometres up the coast at Narooma and saw a smaller version of these scupltures in the window.

I asked Karsten John, the proprietor of the Purple Possum about the sculpture and who made it. He told me that the birds were the work of Richard Moffat, a sculptor based at the small town of Cobargo, 40 kilometres or so south back down the Princes Highway towards Bega. I had to head back down that way to catch up with some people at Bega that I’d missed a couple of days earlier so I called into Cobargo on thw way through. Richard Moffat’s shop was shut when I went through Cobargo later that day – as it was when I passed through again a few days later.

Anyway, now I’m back home at Yuendumu and came across these shots in my camera so I thought I’d try to track down a little more about Richard Moffat and his works. It was more than a pleasant surprise to see that Moffat has a long history as a practitioner and has made some fantastic work over the years.

A you can see from the variety and scale of Richard’s work at his website here, not all of his work is bird-related or on the relatively modest scale of his Pelicans and eagles – but this work ‘Nest‘, installed on Dairy Farmers Hill at the Canberra International Arboretum looks like a wonderful arrangement of work, space and location.

Maybe next time Richard can do an installation 6 metres up in a dead tree? – and have it taken over by real birds.

"Nest" - photo from Richard Moffat

Got any comments about Richard’s work elsewhere – or the sculptures here? Register and leave a comment!

Anyway, en-route to where I am right now – in a motel on the Princes Highway at Sandown in the Melbourne suburbs – I’ve crossed the vast back country of South Australia and western Victoria and later today will head out to Gippsland and eastern Victoria…no – reprise that – it is now a week or so later and I’m on the south coast of NSW in my old stomping grounds of the Shoalhaven…

Formation flying, Alberrie Creek style!

The north of South Australia has a lot of some things – rocks, sand, caravans etc – and a distinct lack of other things – people, good coffee, humour…a lot of people spend a lot of time getting from somewhere with not much to somewhere else with less.

But I did find one little nugget of fun in the south Australian desert – the Mutonia Sculpture Park about 30km west of Maree in the state’s far north. Mutonia is at Alberrie Creek station a few kilometres from Maree and a fair ways down the road from William Creek.

The first sign you get of something unusual is this – what looks like a big square dog rising from the plains.

The dog that sat on the water tank...

I first saw Mutonia when I passed through this way in May this year but failed to appreciate its unique nature then – this time I thought I’d spend a bit more time wandering around.

Mutonia is the brainchild of Robin Cooke. As Esther Lindstrom reported for the South Australian version of the ABC’s Stateline program in 2004:

ROBIN COOKE, SCULPTOR: People’s reaction when they come past here is a mixture of amazement and amusement, fascination, as there are plenty of questions floating around in their heads, I think, as to why and what all this is about. But, basically, it’s all positive — they love it, they jump out of their cars and run around, and they bang on the xylophone and have a look at various pieces from various different angles, and it’s very, very popular. It’s a positive reaction, yes, it’s great.

…

Well, let’s just say that once there is no more waste, I’ll be out of a job. We enjoy utilising waste materials — old aeroplanes, old cars, washing machines, motorbikes, whatever it may be, and juxtaposing these pieces onto each other, as I say, to create a new form.

ESTHER LINDSTROM: The main work dominating Mutonia is a dingo — the locals have dubbed the ‘big dog’.

ROBIN COOKE: The original concept was ‘Dotty the Dingo’, but it’s since become known as the ‘big dog’.

ESTHER LINDSTROM: The dog’s body’s an old water tank from the days of the steam trains and its head’s a classic Chrysler.

ROBIN COOKE: I think the toughest part of the construction was actually positioning the neck beam which is very long — it’s all one piece — and it had to come from the ground up through quite a small hole in the bottom of the tank and around into position, where it was actually front heavy — that thing could have lifted up and taken my head off at any point.