Learning Another Way

I am writing this from our son Robert and his wife Biddy’s house at the Nauiyu community on the Daly River in the Northern Territory where they live and work and where Glenys and I are spending a couple of weeks. Biddy is a MalakMalak woman whose family has lived in this area for generations. The Northern Territory is one possible entry point to the Australian continent of the Aboriginal people who came here through modern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Good archaeological evidence here shows human occupation at least 40,000 years ago, so it is likely that Biddy’s ancestors have occupied this area for a very long time.

It is only in recent years that Biddy’s language has been in written form so for all those centuries, the MalakMalak people’s learning, their history and their communication has been only oral, but no less comprehensive because of that. Eight years ago, Biddy expressed the desire to record the MalakMalak names and uses of plants and animals that had been passed on to her by her parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. The Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory expressed interest and in 1995, work began by recording, using interpreters, the information associated with paintings Biddy had done of MalakMalak bush foods and fibre crafts made from plants. The work grew to include Biddy’s sisters Kitty Waliwararra, Frances Miljat, Helen Kuwarda and Rita Pirak; her brother Albert Muyung and two Madngala elders.

MalakMalak and Madngala names and uses of plants and animals, scientific names and common English names for 223 plants and 210 animals were identified and a book was published in 2001 in which this information was gathered together with 143 illustrations, many of which were done by Adi Dunlop, the daughter of Alban and Grace!

Thus some important knowledge that had been in the MalakMalak community from time immemorial was made available to a wider audience and preserved. The book represents a tiny bit of the knowledge passed on orally from generation to generation and used to inform and instruct on the foods, medicines and crafts which were vital to the maintenance and enhancement of life, health and culture of the MalakMalak and Madngala people.

It has been prepared by the custodians of this knowledge to conserve and pass on this ancient and valuable wisdom. The authors note, however, that there are many other layers of traditional knowledge relating to the natural world that are not presented in the book because they are sacred or secret.

Knowledge can be held and passed on in many ways. This little story helps us to understand that Aboriginal people have knowledge and learning that has been passed on by word of mouth for centuries and to some of which we can now have access.

G.L.

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