Thank you

As some on Birding Aus will know I am a member of an Aboriginal clan. What many won’t know is that using birdwatching as a vehicle Aboriginal relatives and I were able to introduce traditional owners in western Arnhem Land and elsewhere to an appropriate form of visitation that gave them confidence in dealings with the wider world, and revised their thinking about white people.

Key people in this process were Larrakia elder, Stephanie Nganjmirra Thompson, my daughter-in-law, and her husband Reverend P. Nganjmirra. We lost Djedje (meaning ‘my child’), her husband, some years ago and now Stephanie is dying.

Visiting birders, particularly couples, were instrumental in helping Stephanie and me begin to break down the hate and distrust that many felt towards white people. Together we put Kunwinjku language and values into the context of Top End fauna, particularly birds, in a number of books, one of which has been a ‘core text’ for the University of NSW summer school since 2000. We would not have contributed to the Lonely Planet’s Guide to Aboriginal Australia but for Stephanie. When the editor said my services were not wanted (but for recruitment) because I was not ‘Aboriginal’, Stephanie told her that there would be no Kunwinjku involvement without me, her mother-in-law.

There were many other battles. Stephanie belongs to a very small group of people known as the ‘true’ Larrakia. They are also called the ‘forgotten Larrakia’ because despite having no other ancestry, they were left out of the Kenbi Land Claim, over Darwin. And our best efforts to bring true some of her biggest wishes, for example to be involved in university education, failed. But we kept on trying. And a Birding Ausser was at least able to make one dream come true. Ed Williams, that trip to Melbourne to meet the footballers made such an impression. You and others helped make Stephanie and by association the rest of the ‘forgotten’ Larrakia, a little less forgotten. ,

Stephanie helped her husband persuade Kunwinjku that having birders and others visit Baby Dreaming, his mother’s country, would be a good thing. And so it was. That visitation, mainly by international birding couples, changed thinking about white people like little else could have done. It gave traditional owners the courage to confront, for example, an abusive police officer.

So thank you to those of you who supported and believed us, to Penny who accompanied a friend and me to Arnhem Land and found herself helping to feed all my little relatives, to Bruce who captured Stephanie’s sister’s heart, and became the first birder in all my decades of guiding, to be adopted. Bruce, your daughter-in-law Una, can’t wait to see you again.

To those of you who liked my books, particularly Birds of Australia’s Top End, thank you. To Kunwinjku elders who wanted me to publicise their language and way of thinking about birds, that book was most important.

As for Stephanie and her family, if anyone has a personal message they would like me to forward to her family, I would be pleased to do so.

Denise

Denise Lawungkurr Goodfellow
PO Box 71
Darwin River, NT, Australia 0841
043 8650 835

PhD candidate, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW.

Founding Member: Ecotourism Australia
Nominated by Earthfoot for Condé Nast’s International Ecotourism Award, 2004.

With every introduction of a plant or animal that goes feral this continent becomes a little less unique, a little less Australian.