Kinship wraps around
My sister and I, my baawaa – because she is older than me – are planning a trip to Country. Normally we drive by Narrabri, rest at Moree, and then continue to. We say we’re from Moree when people ask but we know that’s not really true; our family has been there near a century yes, but that was not by choice. The warm healing waters make it easy to forget –they feel like home – but that doesn’t change it: Moree is not our place.
Boobera is our place. Boobera, really, is our waabi’s Country, our mother’s mother’s. Waabi, her sisters and brothers, also our waabi – they are the one and the same – lived there until they were teenagers. Waabi remembers when the whitefullas came. They shot her waabi and her baawaa, and then we left. Her waabi and baawaa are still buried there, around which National Parks and Wildlife have put a little fence. There’s a rusty plaque that says ‘Aboriginal Burial ground’ but that makes it sound like we don’t know who’s there. We know because that’s our place and she is us. Kinship wraps around.
But I digress: normally we drive by Narrabri, though this time we will go by Mount Kaputar, around the back. Even though the Sevens Sisters are still in the North East before sunrise – the cold times – we will go this way for a swim. There’s a spot up the mountain that makes it easy to forget. This should be saved instead for when the stars Bibil and Bilaarr are back in the sky – when it begins to warm – but we don’t get back as much as we should. That and there is much to forget.
Once down the mountain we will go by Warialda for a change, then to Moree and Boobera. We can never drive this way when we’re with gunii — mum or her sisters. This is because the tree still stands there, on the main street, where her pop was lynched. We go this way now not out of macabre curiosity, but because it’s just as important to remember as it is to forget. And, truth be told, there is a lot to remember.
We go there too because kinship wraps around. By which I mean, this particular pop was gunii’s dhilaa, her father’s father. But the dhilaa of my gunii is in fact my baawaa’s son. Kinship wraps around and this is why we go. This is not mysticism or metaphor but arises directly from the structure of our kinship system. For the same reason: my sister and I are the waabi of our waabi, shot and buried at Boobera. She is us. Clear as mud?
No matter. We weren’t allowed to talk about these things on the mission but it all comes back now. It all comes back because kinship wraps around.
JM Field is the author of ‘The Eagle and the Crow’ a forthcoming collection exploring the detailed structure and philosophy of Gamilaraay kinship, with a view to revitalisation. Pre-order now here
