Welcome to Kabulwarnamyo

On the day that we finally get  to Kabulwarnamyo*, Lofty’s  mob are there to meet us. 

Our group spills out of the Rangers’ 4WD in our sun hats and sensible shoes and find ourselves in a small, neat  community of canvas tent houses sitting on wooden platforms. We are greeted by a couple of friendly dogs - much healthier and happier than the mangy mutts at  at Maningrida.

We are ushered down a short path to The Spring, for Welcome to Country. 

Down by the Spring, we meet Lofty’s widow Mary, an elderly lady with a halo of ‘flourbag hair’. She’s sitting in a folding chair next to a Toyota Landcruiser.  

Mary is surrounded by other members of her family, including some of The Old Man’s adult children and grandchildren, all wearing  bright coloured clothes. Some of them have driven in from Gunbalunya (/Oenpelli) to meet us. They stay there during term so the kids can go to school. 

The Spring is an expanse of clear water sparkling in the sunlight. Sandy-bottomed, it is fringed by reedy grasses and paperbarks,

Our escorts and guides - Terrah and Dean and the other Warddeken Rangers sit a little way back from the action, under a shady tree. The Welcome To County looks like its going to be women’s business. 

Our mob from Down South, and the welcoming group mill about, shy and excited, next to the bright water. I notice a silver-haired woman (my age?) standing a little apart. We exchange smiles and ‘hello’s and our names. We shake hands. She says her name is Lois. She is one of  Lofty’s daughters. He died only last year, she tells me. She misses him. 

She mentions a tree, a redapple, something to do with honeybag dreaming, increase, it’s just over there behind that bush. That tree was here back in the old days when her father lived here, before the people walked off the country. 

Then, when he came back so many decades later to find the right spot to start up the new Bininji settlement, he arrived by helicopter, and found that same tree, right near the spring, where they always did that ceremony in the old days.  

I want to talk more with her, but its time for the ceremony. Lois and her younger sister wade out a few metres into the water, knee-deep, holding tin cups. We are to walk in, two by two  and they will slosh water over our heads by way of blessing. 

As we take off our shoes and roll up our pants it suddenly feels...intensely sacred and beautiful to me  - in a relaxed casual way, with little kids and dogs underfoot and people yelling things out to eachother.  

Is this anointment by water  an ancient purifying ritual, or something borrowed from Christian baptism? I have no idea. But the spirit of the ceremony is very clear: We are honoured guests,  being welcomed by  proud people to the beloved land of their ancestors. 

When it is my turn to wade into the water next to my friend Sue, I make sure I’ll be splashed by Lois. I feel very moved by the whole thing. 

Then I realise that Lois does too. “I feel my father’s spirit here today”, she says, after giving me a good drenching. We hold hands, both of us with tears streaming down our faces. 

*see previous post

Photos of The Spring taken by Ross Knowles

Dean with the special redapple tree - battered, burnt, still thriving.