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Session LKH3: Language, kinship, heritage 3

1. R. Amery & V K Buckskin: Kaurna kinship patterns reflected in contemporary Nunga life

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Abstract

The Kaurna people were the first South Australians to bear the brunt of the effects of colonisation. Even as early as 1850, the Kaurna language was said to be ‘extinct’, though it was probably still spoken as an everyday language up until the 1860s. Ivaritji, the so-called ‘last speaker’ died in 1929. Nonetheless we still see enduring patterns of kinship categorisation and associated behaviours that clearly have their roots in Kaurna culture persisting to the present day. This paper sets out to document those enduring patterns as well as the re-introduction of kin terms and accompanying knowledge of Kaurna kinship associated with Kaurna language reclamation efforts. A great many Kaurna kinship terms were documented in the 1840s and a few in the early twentieth century though many of these were under-defined and poorly described. Comparative linguistics has assisted in making sense of the historical record, though many uncertainties remain.

Author bios:

Dr Rob Amery, Linguistics, University of Adelaide. Rob completed a research Masters in 1985 at ANU on Dhuwaya, a koine variety of Yolngu Matha that has arisen at Yirrkala, northeast Arnhemland and a PhD at the University of Adelaide in 1998 (published in August 2000) on Kaurna language reclamation. He serves as consultant linguist to Kaurna language programs and community projects which incorporate Kaurna language. He works closely with members of the Kaurna community to reclaim the language from historical materials and develop the language for use in a range of contemporary contexts. This includes convening the Kaurna Warra Pintyandi (KWP) group, a small Kaurna language planning group consisting of Kaurna people and others involved in the teaching and development of the language. The KWP group meets monthly to address requests for names and translations and to work on Kaurna language projects. In 2007 Rob received a UNESCO award in recognition of this work. Rob has previously worked in Aboriginal Health in remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, and has taught linguistics at Batchelor College (now Batchelor Institute) and Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University). In 1993-94 he developed the Australian Indigenous Languages Framework (AILF) for the teaching of Aboriginal languages at senior secondary level.

Vincent, or Jack, as he prefers to be called, is a Kaurna and Narrunga man. Jack began working on Kaurna language projects at the University of Adelaide including the Southern Kaurna Placenames, Kaurna in the Public Arena, Kaurna Learners’ Guide and Kaurna Phonology projects. Jack began teaching Kaurna language at Warriparinga together with Rob Amery through the School of Languages. He now teaches this language program by himself as well as programs at Kaurna Plains School, Le Fevre HS and previously at Adelaide High School. Jack is a leading member of the Kaurna dance group called Kuma Karro ‘One Blood’ and previously danced with Taikurtinna ‘Family’ where he integrates Kaurna language into his performances. When not working and performing Jack likes to research and learn more about his culture and the history of his people. In July 2009 Jack was an invited participant at the ‘Young, Gifted and BLAK’ Aboriginal writers’ workshop in Sydney with Alexis Wright.

2. Jeanie Bell: Urban perspectives on kinship terminology and use in SE Queensland

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Abstract

Since the time when traditional customs and practices were still carried out by Aboriginal people living on their traditional land much has happened in terms of changes to the way we utilize our language and practice culture in the urban sections of the cities and rural towns of the SE Queensland region. In some ways the changes have been quite dramatic and much has been lost along the way with the rapid decline in the number of older people in the community particularly those who spoke the language fluently and who also were the carriers of cultural knowledge. With kinship terms, they were used over the generations in bits and pieces adapted along the way as different groups of Aboriginal people became more bi-cultural in their ways of living and operating in this region.

Few people today would remember the full set of terms used for people relationships within an extended family, depending on their relationship to others in the group. Terms such as ngabang ‘mother’ babun ‘father’ etc. Even more unlikely is that few Aboriginal people today would remember the complex marriage system which operated across the many tribes and language groups of this region. After 200 + years of colonization this part of the language and culture has largely gone out of use. For instance my Mother’s generation (born in 1910) when still alive, often referred to certain members of the group who were their Elders at the time of their youth by section names such as Bunda or Barang. These names formed part of the 4 section / 8 sub-section (with the feminine suffix -gan added to each of the 4 distinct skin names) construct which determined who you could and could not marry. It also determined what group your children belonged to and what their ‘meat’ or ‘animal totems’ was as well as from which parent you inherited rights to country and knowledge.

In this presentation I would like to discuss the way traditional languages from SEQ have survived with change and adaptation within the context of kinship terms and relationships. Also how in some cases these terms have been replaced by English kinship terms that cover part of the meaning of the traditional forms and which are extended to cover further meanings of the English terms. For example the term ‘granny’ is used by both the grandchildren referring to their various grandmother and grandmother’s sisters but also the grandmothers refer to their grandchildren as ‘grannies’. This type of use is widespread in urban Aboriginal Australia. There has been in recent decades in SEQ and wider a quiet revival in the use and relevance of these terms and it is interesting to note how the younger generations have embraced their use with often only limited knowledge of how they were applied in a traditional setting.

Author bio:

Jeanie Bell is a Jagera and Dulingbara woman from south-east Queensland, who has worked with Aboriginal languages for over 25 years. Jeanie worked in central Australia for a number of years at Yipirinya School and the Institute for Aboriginal Development, as well as in north Queensland where she taught Indigenous Australian language studies at the North Queensland Institute of TAFE in Cairns. She was a member of the Research Advisory Committee at AIATSIS in Canberra for 7 years, and has a Masters degree in Linguistics from the University of Melbourne where she wrote her thesis on a Sketch Grammar of the Badjala language of Gari (Fraser Island). Jeanie also worked as the linguist/researcher for the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for languages in 2004/2005 and is now employed as the Senior lecturer in the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics at the Batchelor Institute for Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory.

3. W. GaykamuNu & K Coulehan: Family matters: Yolngu women, social change and rural-urban mobility

Full paper | Audio | Video | Slideshow pdf 893KB

Abstract

In a number of case studies, this paper documents three generations of closely related Yolŋu women and girls following the family, as well as exercising personal choice, by moving from their Arnhem Land community to live long-term in Darwin. Their lives illustrate significant change in marital practice, residential family unity, and aspirations in education and employment. Crises in individual and family life, and concomitant kinship and ritual obligations, vie with personal career opportunities and constraints, to shape the lives of Yolŋu women and girls living in urban hostels and suburban housing. At these times, the push-pull of family governance and personal autonomy are played out in dynamics of gender and generation, kinship and marriage, and rural-urban mobility.

Author bio:

Waymamba Gaykamungu has had a 35 year career in Education in the Northern Territory. She was a Teaching Assistant at Milingimbi school from 1973 until 1987, when she obtained an Associate Diploma of Teaching from Batchelor College. As a visiting teacher for Homeland Centres, Ms Gaykamungu continued studies in Remote Area Teacher Education at Batchelor College in 1988-89, and was employed at the Curriculum Development Unit of the NT Education Department in Darwin from 1990-93. From 1994 until she retired in 2008, Waymamba was Lecturer in Yolŋu Language and Culture at Charles Darwin University. She received a 2005 Prime Minister’s Award for University Teacher of the Year, and 2007 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Exceptional Performance in Research. Waymamba Gaykamungu has highly developed communication and negotiation skills in English and Yolŋu languages. She is fluent in Gupapuyŋu, Djambarrpuyŋu, and understands Gälpu, Gumatj, Wangurri, Gamalaŋga, and other Yolŋu languages.

Kerin Coulehan’s association with Yolŋu communities started with her appointment to Milingimbi Area School in 1974 to support the Whitlam Government’s Library Grants to Schools Program. Following her earlier career in secondary teaching and educational media, Kerin undertook postgraduate research into the movement of Yolŋu families between remote communities and Darwin, and was awarded a Ph.D in Anthropology from the Northern Territory University in 1996. Dr Coulehan held various teaching and research contracts at the University (now Charles Darwin University) from 1996-2006, including as a Senior Research Fellow working with the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health from 2003-2006.

Kerin’s research and publications have largely focused on Aboriginal rural-urban mobility, and effective intercultural communication, education and service delivery in the Northern Territory. Recent projects have involved working with Yolŋu interpreters in urban hospital and renal unit settings, and with Yolŋu Councils and homeland associations in remote communities.