January 4, 2009 – 1:23 pm
The Luurn (Red-backed Kingfisher) Tjukurrpa is of prime importance to the groups of the western deserts region, since it represents one expression of a major initiation cycle, Tingarri, a Law bequeathed to them by Luurn and other ancestral beings.
By Bob Gosford
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Also posted in Animals, Birds, Birds and people, Ethnoornithology
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Tagged Balgo, Lurnpa, Luurn, Luurnpa, Red-backed Kingfisher, Sylvie Poirier, Tjukurrpa, Wirrimanu, Yuendumu
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December 31, 2008 – 11:08 am
Eater-of-all-the-budgerigars is another name for the King Brown, he climbs up to get at them in a bloodwood tree, for example, or in a ghost gum, in a hollow. He puts his mouth into the hollow and then eats up all the little budgerigars.
December 8, 2008 – 8:24 am
We saw this beautiful snake earlier this year in a creekbed in the borefield 15 or so kilometres west of town. Last Sunday afternoon one of its relatives killed one of our favourite little dogs, Boot-boots.
November 13, 2008 – 8:51 pm
The traditional relationship between Aboriginal people and dingoes as companions and hunting aides has changed and many communities are have real problems with non-dingo dog health and numbers…but there are some that are really taking steps to do something about these problems…
November 12, 2008 – 9:14 pm
This is a story about the ordinary and how easily we can slip from appreciating the beauty in those things we see every day or that we are told are pests and how we elevate our regard for the rare over the commonplace.
The Magpie Lark Grallina cyanoleuca is one of our most common birds, found [...]
November 12, 2008 – 1:59 pm
Greens Senator Rachel Siewert has labelled the NT intervention safe house initiative a “massive stuff-up.”
15 months after Former Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough’s promise to provide safe houses at part of the NT intervention, not one of the 16 shipping-container based safe houses has opened its door for clients and no staff have been appointed [...]
October 31, 2008 – 6:53 pm
WARNING – this road eats cars…and trucks…and road trains…and caravans…and just about everything else that travels across it!!
The Tanami Road/Track/Highway (take your pick) runs for just over 1,000 kilometres from just north of Alice Springs in the NT through to Halls Creek in WA. The first 200 kilometres to the crossing at the dry-as-a-bone-at-this-time-of-year Napperby [...]
October 29, 2008 – 1:38 pm
As I walked up the road yesterday morning to get some milk, I spotted Peggy Napaljarri Brown, Jenny Macklin’s best new friend and Valerie Napaljarri Martin sitting in the shade of a tree outside the ramshackle office of the Yuendumu Mining Company. Next to her sat Harry Jakamarra Nelson.
They all have better things to be [...]
October 28, 2008 – 3:54 pm
“I’ve found a friend!” Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin tells Crikey as she walks arm-in-arm across the dusty main street of Yuendumu with Peggy Nampijinpa Brown.
Jenny and Nampijinpa have just been to visit the several hundred people who have come down from their sorry business at West Camp where they are mourning the recent [...]
October 23, 2008 – 3:37 pm
When Stipendiary Magistrate John Birch’s Court caravan rolled into Yuendumu late last week he bought a new model of the law into town with him. Community Courts, as distinct from the regular Magistrates Court being held in a community, have been around in the Territory since 2005 but until last week had only been active [...]
