Ayrnother morning, Ayrnother walk …

Day 4: Tuesday 27 March (6pm, Ayr)



Dorothy's 'greeting' shirt
 -  the serpent and turtle
represent the spirit of
the Juru people



Alright, I know this is really going to annoy some of you who are hard at work right now, but please remember that I have been walking that treadmill very hard, and for many, many years (27 of them actually, give or take a year or so of intermittent travel). So when I found myself at 6am this morning, jumping out of bed to go for a walk with Shelley, you might be able to empathise a little with my almost uncontrollable desire to skip and shout for joy at how relaxed and full of life I am feeling! Maybe it’s the spirit of the Munda or just getting eight hours of sleep a night, but gosh it feels good to be here!

We spent most of today listening to Dorothy and Renarta share more stories, building our knowledge of their people’s history, customs, struggles and joys – in Dorothy’s words, “yarning”. This education will be all important for when we start work later this week on the business and reconciliation plans. We will be somehow weaving this background into the plans, so we’ve been soaking up as much as possible in anticipation of some challenging days ahead.

Much of the conversation today centred on the importance of kinship. As the eldest of 13 children, Dorothy took on the role of mother to at least six of her brothers and sisters, so her mother could concentrate on the babies. Even when she got married, she took in three to live with her in their early married years.  It’s because of this strong devotion to family that she believes the Smallwood mob all treat her like a ‘queen’ nowadays and we saw firsthand the number of calls and wishes she received throughout the day. There was a lot of disappointment that she wouldn’t be home to Townsville to celebrate with until late tomorrow.

Not all indigenous families are the same, but in Dorothy’s family, her sisters are all known as ‘grandma’ to all the grandchildren, regardless of who their real grandmother is. All her brothers and sisters have special talents and are renowned throughout the area for their respective works, but Dorothy has an important place of respect across even the broader family, so she often gets to make the final call on issues and debates that impact family members.

Lynette also shared her stories of kinship, and being of South Sea Islander descent, she had similar tales to tell. Her parents were around, but Lynette and her brother and sisters were brought up by her aunt’s, so she also has strong feelings of family being much broader than mum, dad and kids. It’s obviously bigger than Lynette’s family as everyone visiting today has called Renarta either ‘Aunty’ or ‘Sis’ at some stage – mind you, she’s such a warm person that I’ve been tempted to call her Aunty too!

Lastly, Renarta told us about life in the community that was settled in the former army huts in Townsville, known as Garbutt, and the sense of family that was developed there. If you can imagine the ocean looking out to Palm Island, then a settlement of tents just back from the beach, followed by a number of tin shacks known as Happy Valley, then a section of rows of neat fibro huts with shared facilities for bath and toilet in between the rows – this last area was Garbutt. All the men in this area would go off to work in the local meat works or public works or even as waterside workers. The women would all stay home and clean and care for children. The kids would run about all day, eating at one another’s houses and in the early evening, some mother would yell at them to all get going home and swing a broom at them – no one minded their kids being yelled at as they all felt a sense of responsibility to act as mother’s to the children, regardless of whether they were theirs or not.

There was no selection process to determine who got to live where, but the lucky families that got to live in a small section of old Queenslanders were designated the ‘upper class’, simply because the housing there was made of wood. The relationships between the families that commenced in Garbutt still hold fast today. Even at funerals, there are comments made if there is no representation from one of those old Garbutt families.

One of the unifying themes of these three indigenous women is their ability to tell a story – they admit themselves that their people have an uncanny ability to mimic a person’s actions or words, whether for good or bad, so that in the telling of a tale you can feel like you were there in the room with the original players.

So with this talent in mind, we thought we were very fortunate to be given homework that involved reading a short book Renarta had written, telling the story of her Dad's life, "Straight From the Yudaman's Mouth" (Yudaman being a horse). The story started with his early childhood in Bowen, to being rounded up with his family and taken to various missions before being settled on Palm Island. He was arrested for famously killing a man in self defence and subsequently released, having been acquitted. He went on to marry, father 14 children of which seven survived, rescue his family from devastating floods, and finally died at the grand old age of 95, with at least 101 descendants across four generations. It was an amazingly optimistic view of life in a time when most of his people were treated only barely better than slaves.  

Not a terribly good photo, but Dorothy and her birthday cake at the Ayr Anzac Memorial Club - our first night out!

It’s been an amazing few days of learning and Shelley and I are both in awe of these ladies and their tremendous spirit. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring!