Much has happened since I wrote the Iast blog so I hope I don’t forget anything important. Ive been walking up around Cumborah again and found some astonishing trees. The problem is that since the 3G shut down there is bugga all mobile service up there so no geotags on my phone photos. When this happens I have to guess where I saw the TinTs when I enter their longitude & latitude data in the excel spreadsheet. With 3G there was geo-data for some photos at least but not now. Unfortunately I may ever see this big old wilga in box (below) again. I met up with a photographer in Orange who has a special camera that will fix this problem so hopefully he will be out this way next autumn/ winter when the light is better.
The amount of big old scartrees up around the Gali gurranaa camp has to be seen to be believed. When Im uploading them into the ‘big’ archive I literally run out of adjectives to describe them. Why so many 6ft+ scars? Darryl Ferguson a TO (Traditional Owner) from Lightning ridge says the ridges were a walkway like the sandhills here. Travellers coming thru to the Narran lakes would congregate there because of the natural springs. In dry years surface water was scarce so the only options away from the rivers were the wells or the springs. I think the people made artificial channels so the water ran downhill from the springs. Hard to prove & given there is no interest from the Land councils or Elders there will never be any research into this. So the big old scarred trees around Cumborah remain a private pleasure for me that words simply fail to describe.
Speaking of TOs, who should be considered a Traditional Owner? (I borrowed the TO abbreviation from Sandra Winsor at Gulargambone who knows how to talk the talk as well as walk the walk with CMTs) Approximately half the population of Walgett, one quarter of Lightning ridge one third of Coonamble and 15% of the Warren township identify as Indigenous. Are all these people TOs? Old Ted Fields wrote in 2001 “The station (Gingie) had a camp where the Walfords, Beales & Crans lived & worked. They camped in the sandhills just North west or North of the homestead” Rhonda Ashby’s mother & aunt were working at Guiseley & Allan Tighe’s family were at Rostrevor, both neighbouring properties. The Peters family worked at Morella just up the road for many years and both Doreen & Priscilla are descendants. What about Jarrod & Froggie who are often out here catching yabbies to use for bait or Ducky & Matt Dennis who cut firewood. The question of who is & who isn’t a TO is not straight forward. Below are Doreen Peters & Darryl Ferguson who came out last week to select a spot to hold a cultural training get-together for staff from the Walgett Community college. Both Doreen & Darryl have been here a few times now & I consider them TOs
Darryl & Doreen have different ideas about tribal names than most of the literature today. They say the people who lived here were the “Gamilaraay” whereas those around Walgett & eastwards were “Gamilaroi”. Further east the people were “Gomeroi”. They think that “Euahlayi” was a language group not a tribal group. Those North of the big Warrambool around Lightning ridge were “Yuwaalaraay” & those living to the NthWest around Cumborah and Goodooga were “Yuwaalayaay”. Im not sure if I have that right but the point is that different TOs have different opinions & ideas about lots of things. All societies change, as far as I know the Europeans are no longer burning witches? I don’t think the court of King Charles orders evisceration & dismemberment as punishments like some of his predecessors did. The thing with colonisation is that massive change was forced on native cultures in a sink or swim manner within a few generations. The recollections of the ‘swimmers’ descendants may differ due to the trauma of dispossession & dislocation that’s all.
The other significant thing that happened this month was the publishing of Micaela Hambrett’s article https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-09/culturally-modified-trees-a-national-treasure-in-outback-nsw/104557536 Micaela was out here a few months ago to visit the CMTs & did a great job balancing the various opinions of Steve & Jen & Rhonda & Priscilla & myself re their importance both culturally & nationally. Micaela did a follow up recording on ABC central west radio containing interviews with everyone including some audio of Allan Tighe I had recorded back in 2021 re the cultural reasons for TinTs. I never knew & still don’t know why it took Allo over 2 years to share his 50 yr old memory with me.
Could be race based, could be sex based or could be Ive got other shit going on in my life atm based?
