Rangers engaging community and young people

We’re at Gummingurru, Gummingurru is a staging point or initiation ground for people to come through the rites of passage, young men, kipa, to go onto manhood.

Many people from many tribes would pass through this ceremonial ground on their way to the larger gatherings up at the Bunyas. The site itself has been dated between 3 and 6 000 years old.

It’s quite significant culturally to us, and we’re very lucky to have it… and the reason why we still have it today is because of a very curious man, and his name was Ben Gilbert. In the late 40s when Ben returned from the second World War, essentially, Ben purchased this property. His daughter hadn’t returned one evening and the rule was back then to be home at dark.

So, he asked ‘Where have you been’, she said ‘I’ve been playing down in the fairy rings’. He investigated; it was a lot more heavily timbered around here back then. He sought advice of Queensland Museum and also the University of Queensland. They came out and said you are looking at a relatively intact initiation ground, it’s highly significant, there is not many left around.

Ben being a curious man, that wasn’t enough to satisfy his urge to find out more, so he found my great uncle Bunda. Uncle Bunda as a young boy, his father was a Goondir or Medicine Man and he used to come and put boys through ceremonies here. Uncle Bunda recalls when coming here as a young fella to the main camp and he knew some of the stories of the site. He shared them with Ben in the early 50s and they actually had a ceremony on the site. Uncle Bunda gave him the name Banda which means ‘Protector’, since that time he tried to give the land back, but it took up until the late 90s for them, for Ben to be able to have, to hand it back to us. We have been continuing sharing our culture with people, to promote the good things in our culture.

There is a lot of yuree – people usually think of totems. Totems is more like an American term but in our language, we say yuree. What we are looking at here is a creator being and this Djakahan that some people know as the rainbow serpent. And the reason why the rainbow is because Djakahan can travel overland in spirit form in rainbow because rainbow is associated with water. Also, we have a waterhole which you may have seen depicted in Indigenous art of concentric circles. These two always go together and water is central to all life. Djakahan travels through water ways and through the rainbows. And if you look back, this is the head here and then you can see the body winding back but her belly is engorged and what that’s saying is there is a nest of eggs in her belly – and that’s the people, the unborn people of the tribes. And as she travels through country creating country, she put people on country to look after country.

What we are looking at here is a turtle. And this yuree is actually orientated to the east. So, reason why we know it’s a sea turtle is because as you can see, he’s got no neck and he’s got flippers. This is yuree of the saltwater people that travel up and if you look back towards the water hole you see the eggs. There is little clusters of eggs. Once again that representing all the different mobs on the way back to the coast.

It forms part of my identity, and it strengthens my connection to the place, so it feels good to be able to tell our story, and a rare story – mind you, for back then, people didn’t necessarily have a great attitude towards Indigenous stuff …. and still to this day currently there’s a lot of bad attitude, and that’s what we want to do promote the real culture.

Butchulla Junior Rangers Program, 2022

Urangan Point State school

So why is it important for you guys to teach youth the stories?

Just to keep the culture alive, and promote that intergenerational learning, so that these stories are able to be told to the next generation.

Showing them what the names are for different animals, and different places, and you know, teaching them the traditional Butchulla names for the places that they live, and play … and it gives them that cultural understanding of the place they’ve grown up in.

We do games, different games, ‘Head shoulders knees and toes’, we do that and then also using different flash cards for different animals. So we try to utilise it into fun activities the kids like to do, but just incorporating that language.

Promoting the intergenerational learning is very important, keeping that culture alive and getting the children to learn about the places they live and play.

This is why we do this program too, not just with the Indigenous kids, we do it with the whole of grade 6 so they can all learn about the language and culture, so it’s not isolated just for the murri kids, we want everyone to learn and promote that reconciliation.

They really want to learn the culture, they want to learn the dance, and language, they really thrive to be really good in that area. We’ve had a lot of feedback from the school, that the kids that struggle in the classroom do really well in our program.

We work with the school also, so that they can do things after we leave too, so they can still use that within their curriculum. We’ve worked in with the school so that that continuous learning can still happen when we’re not in the school.

Some of the lessons we do are about marine debris and picking up rubbish; talking about ‘milbies’ our turtles and their seasons and how we look after them; and wongari safety. We have dingoes on the island, we do a lesson about that and what the dos and don’ts are…

So this area here is very special to Butchulla people it was a meeting place, where we are here now, this open area here. The grass doesn’t really grow here, it never has, because this was always a big corroboree ground for our mob.

To promote the environmental and cultural values of Butchulla country. You know that’s what our whole program is about, promoting those laws and getting that knowledge out there, about country and caring for country.

What is good for the land must come first, Number two - do not touch or take anything that does not belong to you, and number three? If you have plenty you must share, good work guys.

I’m glad that they’ve got that and they’re able to learn that and then have that for future generations to pass onto their children and their grandchildren.