Jurlak Lintarrwaji Ngujkaji Ngarrungkap Tankuwaji – Gurindji Bird Knowledge

Karrkany-ju-ma ngumpit nguyina panana kurnpirlirn-pirrji. Karnti ngurla-nyanta nyanuny puya-ngarna yuwanana. Nyamu-wa nyila-ma ngumpit-ma panana karrkany-ju-ma karrinyana nyangunyangu na. This bird makes Aboriginal people into traditional healers. It does this by throwing a stick at someone’s body. When bird hits the person with a stick, they become a traditional healer or ‘clever man’.

A few years ago I was delighted to write a post on a wonderful series of posters prepared by my friend Myf Turpin (and many others) as part of the Charles Darwin University “Cultural Signs of Central Australia” project (that now sadly seems to have gone offline).

As I wrote at the time, the posters:

… displayed some of the bird knowledge in the Arrernte, Anmatyerr, Alyawarr and Kaytetye languages spoken throughout central Australia.

Individually they portray 25 or so birds found in the areas in which each language is spoken. As a set they reveal the depth of knowledge that Aboriginal people have of the birds that they hunt, share campsites and townships with and which are spiritually important or are involved in or related to traditional ceremonies and beliefs.

I’ve carted sets of those posters halfway around the world and back to display at conferences and meetings and they’ve always been the subject of great attention and warm responses. I reckon that the theme presents a great template that could be transferred to just about any individual language or group of languages but I’ve not seen anyone adapt the template to any other languages beyond the original set of four posters.

Until now.

Late last year I was contacted by Felicity Meakins, a linguist at the University of Queensland and who works in the Victoria River district of the NT (among other places). Felicity was working on a poster project and wanted to use some of the pictures that I’d provided to Myf’s earlier projects.

The end result is the excellent poster titled in Gurindji “Jurlak lintarrwaji ngujkaji ngarrungkap tankuwaji” or in English “Birds that signal information, birds that can be dangerous, birds with favourite foods” that arrived in the post last week.

The cultural signs research that produced this poster of Gurindji bird knowledge was run by Felicity Meakins and undertaken by the Murnkurrumurnkurru ranger group at Kalkaringi as a part of the Central Land Council (CLC) ranger program coordinated by Elise Cox.

This photo by art and cultural historian Brenda L. Croft shows Felicity Meakins shows Ursula Chubb and Helma Bernard setting up a video camera to record Gurindji elders.

The rangers recorded information about the birds from Gurindji elders for the poster. They also designed and delivered lessons on the bird information at the Kalkaringi school.

In this photo by Cassandra Algy, Murnkurrumurnkurru ranger Kenny Ricky teaches Gurindji children about local birds with elders Ronnie Wavehill Wirrba and Paddy Doolak.

The project was based on the Cultural Signs research undertaken by Myfany Turpin.

The poster project relied heavily on previous bird identification work by renowned ethnobiologist Glenn Wightman, who has been responsible for the preparation of a number of books—including one on Bilinarra, Gurindji and Malngin plants and animals—examining local ethnobiological knowledge and that have been published as part of the Northern Territory Botanical Bulletin series and can be purchased from the Department of Land Resource Management office in the Goyder Centre in Palmerston, outside of Darwin.

Of the birds selected for the poster my favourites include the Wintuk. The text from the poster reads:

Wintuk – Bush Stone Curlew (Burhinus grallarius)

Wankaj nyila-ma jurlak-ma. Nyantu-ma yanana ngu wurinykarra-la marnana ngu, murluwu-ma wawurru-la-ma. Yalanginyi-ma waninyana na. Jurrkjurrkkarra na karru-ma-nga. Wal kuyangka na, nyamu-lu ngarturr-jawung-kulu-ma kurru-ma nyangana yijarni ngulu jurlak kayi panana, karu-ngku-ma yalungku-ma, nyamu-ma born wanku.

This bird is dangerous. It walks along whistling in the scrub, then it falls over and convulses. When it gets up, that’s when, if expectant mothers hear it, their babies will have fits when they’re born.

Another favourite bird that made it into the poster is Karrkany the Black Kite (Milvus migrans)

Karrkany-ju-ma ngumpit nguyina panana kurnpirlirn-pirrji. Karnti ngurla-nyanta nyanuny puya-ngarna yuwanana. Nyamu-wa nyila-ma ngumpit-ma panana karrkany-ju-ma karrinyana nyangunyangu na.

This bird makes Aboriginal people into traditional healers. It does this by throwing a stick at someone’s body. When bird hits the person with a stick, they become a traditional healer or ‘clever man’.

I look forward to seeing some more of these posters in the near future – a good choice would be the Warlpiri language … I’ll keep you posted on where you can get hold of the Gurindji poster.