November 8th, 2024Book launch of Naku Dharuk (message on bark)
My husband Malcolm Bray and I, Ruth Bray, were recently fortunate to attend the launch of Professor Clare Wright’s book Naku Dharuk, The Bark Petitions. How the people of Yirrkala changed the course of Australian Democracy.
In the 1960s when the government permitted mining exploration and mining of bauxite on the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land, land which had been owned and occupied, for tens of thousands of years by the Yolnu people, their response came by presenting petitions to the Federal Parliament on bark paintings. This was many years before Mabo.
One petition is in the National Museum in Canberra, and the other two on display in Parliament House. My grandson Keaton and I travelled to Yirrkala last December when the fourth bark petition was returned to Yirrkala, where Malcolm and I lived and worked in the 1960s.
Clare Wright’s book, Naku Dharuk tells this story. At the launch at the Celtic Club in Brunswick, we introduced ourselves to Yirrkala man Yirrmal Marika, who is in Victoria to do a business studies course.
It was great that Malcolm and I retained some of the language we learnt so many years ago and we could converse and laugh with him in his own language.
He told us he felt he was with family. Then we discovered Beth Graham. Beth was a schoolteacher at Yirrkala in the 1960s with her husband Leigh, a carpenter. Beth later worked in the top end encouraging bilingual education in Aboriginal communities.
This was tremendous in helping Aboriginal children in their schoolwork. Unfortunately the government has disbanded the idea, although I understand the Catholic school system and the schools at Yirrkala still teach this way.
The noise of chatter over drinks and our conversation were interrupted by the sudden clapping of clapsticks and the sound of the familiar (to us) singing. Yirrmal, as he sang, was calling us together to listen. I don’t think I have heard a crowd silence itself so quickly.
The speakers at the book launch were the usual ones you would expect and included representatives from the Celtic Club, Clare thanked her supporters and those who contributed and helped her with her research including Beth Graham, whose letters in the 1960s home to her family provided a wealth of primary data.
In reading Naku Dharuk Malcolm and I were thrilled to see a line or two about our romance back in the 1960s. But it looks like you will have to read the book to find out more.
Naku Dharuk is the third in Clare’s Democracy Trilogy. The publishers, Text Publishing, must be pleased that Clare’s books are so readable and interesting.
The other two in this series are The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka – the story of the women and children who were in the Stockade, including a woman in labour while the attack happened, and You Daughters of Freedom on the 1902 suffrage campaign for white women.
All three books are a great read. They are the sort of books once you have started them, you cannot put them down. Any, or all would make a great Christmas present.
Clare said she would be happy to come to Daylesford and speak to any groups who are interested in her work.
Word: Ruth Bray | Image: Contributed
