NT police issue Glock 22, .40 calibre This Musical Dispatch from the Front is a guest post by my old—in both senses of that word—friend Frank Baarda,* a long-term resident of Yuendumu. Greetings, This is a tale of how IMHO the police should be and how it is. On our odyssey when we returned from [...]
This Musical Dispatch from the Front is a guest post by my old—in both senses of that word—friend Frank Baarda,* a long-term resident of Yuendumu. For decades we have made our annual trek up and down the Stuart Highway. I recall some memorable road: signs: Ki Ki – Australia’s Pistachio Capital Bordertown – Bob Hawke’s [...]
Guest post by Chips Mackinolty* While “we speak our mother’s tongue” is a universal truism, it is something often forgotten in the context of colonialism and the overt and extended suppression of Indigenous languages across what is now called Australia. How can a “mother’s tongue” be spoken if the children have been taken away? If [...]
It was late November 2010, one of those red-hot November days that only the Western Desert can turn on. Over six hundred people travelled for days from far and wide to bury young Jampijinpa at the small town of Nyirripi, a four-and-a-half hour dusty drive west from Alice Springs on rough dirt roads.
In Kaytetye country the Pelican is known as walaymperre, as in Walaymperre thangkerne alkenhe arntwe arenye, repe ware elpalhapenye kape arltere. Thangkerne nyartelepe aynenke aylperre kape pwele-pwele.
Photo by Katrina Beavan, ABC Alice Springs This is a guest post by Frank Baarda, a long-term resident of Yuendumu, NT. Yesterday hundreds of Yuendumu residents marched on the Yuendumu police station. The police station was going to be opened to allow the station to be swept. Sweeping is a ritual whereby after a death [...]
Everyone has others one is obligated to (has to care for) and others who care for one. No man or woman is an Island. ‘Skin’ classification guides the nature and intensity of relationships. A feature of the system that appeals to many ‘westerners’ is “mother in law avoidance” In former stricter times it was absolutely forbidden for one’s mother-in-law to be addressed or to be in the same room. It still happens that someone might wait outside a shop because “there is no room”.
"Lupo was a very large bull mastiff looking dog that was white, except when as kids one time decided to dye him blue or purple with gentian violet ... Maybe he was the Boundless Possible dog": Scott McConnell MLA
One fella came up to me at the end of the second day and said the comedy that came out of the commentators trying to keep up with whose who on the field was “better than Roy and HG!!” The starting point in any footy commentary is to get a good team sheet in numerical order. The challenge out bush is that there are often three players wearing the same number, several players with no number and some players with no guernsey at all. That’s when you have to get creative and write the player’s name next to “red boots”; “barefoot”; “topknot”; “big tummy” etc.
Supporti-ki karlipa wangkami, tala manu nyiya kanti-kanti yungungurlu ngalpa yinyi nyampurla ngurungka. Nyampurla Yurntumu-rla panu karlipa madarni nyiya-ningki-jarra ngula karliparla yulkami. Madarni karlipa jana Mt Theo program, kurdu kurdu kurlangu, Warlpiri-rli ngulpa karlipa jana tiji-mani, PAW, Mampumaninja-Kurlangu jarlu patu ku, WarlukurIangu arts centre, manu yangka ngula kalu jana mardarni wiri-wiri-rli kurdu-kurdu. Ngulalparlipa mangu pungkalayi, Yungurlu ngalpa nyanyi nguru kari wardingki-rli pirrdiji ngula karlipa mardarni.
