There are stories within Gunnai culture and other Original First People cultures which relate to flooding that are part of our cultural archives. They have been kept and transferred through our system for generations.
Oral cultures tend to be misunderstood and looked down on.
A common assumption is that before English came along, we didn’t know how to read or write. It is true we never knew how to read or write English. But we could read and write our markings, our communication.
What people call ‘artwork’ now. That’s our writing.
It is not artwork as in the sense of Western art. It’s communication. It’s a part of the language.
I am a cultural custodian of the Gunnai language of story, song, and dance.
Part of my role is to look after the stories which are kept alive in our archives of our culture. Messages and the cultural laws of lore are kept within the language of the songs, of the stories and of the dance ceremonies.
About the Author
People also misunderstand how knowledge was transferred within our culture. They assume things like ‘the young questioned the old to learn things.’ But that is a Western assumption and way of education, to question everything told to you from your Elders. That kind of questioning wouldn’t have happened in our culture.
Our young people are taught not to ask too many questions. You listen to what is being shared. Otherwise, the child or the questioner is trying to control the learning, which is disrespectful to the Elders. The Elders share their knowledge at the time and place that the learner needs to know things.
There are different layers to our stories. At first, they are told at a very simple level, because the listener hasn’t been through enough lore to learn the deeper meanings of things.
So those listeners get the surface story.
But when you’ve got a greater awareness of the levels of lore, then you start to see the things that are not necessarily said, because it adds up with the other stories that are also building on the lines of the bigger picture on the laws of lore.
The same story is told at each level. But your awareness of what the story is telling you is more understood because you know more as you learn more.
Think about a jigsaw puzzle. Imagine there is a jigsaw puzzle picture, and someone’s come along and smacked it and scattered all the pieces.
Now you pick up one of these pieces. It’ll give you some sort of information.
Pick up another piece, start piecing it together. You start building the bigger picture.
Each piece is like a story.
An above-sea view of a humpback whale and calf. Every winter, humpback whales migrate from the cold waters of the Antarctic up the Australian coast in search of warmer waters to breed and raise their young. Source: envato elements.
There are whale stories kept in the Original First People cultures all along the coasts of Australia. Source: envato elements.
Stories of flooding and sea change
One story which relates to the land bridge and the emergence of the Bass Strait through rising seas is connected to the sacred journeys of the whale.
Here I must acknowledge Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison and encourage you to read his story Gurawul the Whale which he was told by his grandfather and three uncles.
I was privileged to accompany Uncle Max on some of the journeys he made to Lutruwita/Tasmania to trace the story of Gurawul which he made as a promise to those uncles and grandfather.
Uncle Max is no longer with us. He was a Senior Lawman and Elder of the Yuin nation which extends up the east coast of mainland Australia as far as the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales.
Uncle Max was a Whale Singer. There are whale stories kept in the Original First People cultures all along the coasts of Australia.
The Gurawul story teaches important cultural lore. It also tells of a great crisis when the seas rose and people needed to flee from the flooding and find a new home on higher ground.
I encourage you to read Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison’s story Gurawul the Whale to connect with this story.
Another story relating to flooding is kept in the archives, which have some of the stories of the Gunnai people.
This story is a significant story about the restoration of our ceremonies.
After a young fellow learnt the secret business of the men and shared it with the women, this started the gossip about men’s business. And that made the Creator Being angry because the young man was treating the stories the wrong way by telling women about secret men’s business. And so, it is said that the Creator Being put a red fire in the sky and then he caused a flood, and a lot of people drowned.
What was that fire? Was it the aurora australis? Was it a comet? Or was it a meteorite? Or was it a Galactic War?
That story is about a flash flood which happens like a tsunami, like would happen after a meteorite hits. There was a great flash flood, and I’m told that there were a few floodings in stages of the sea level rises, which would have pushed a lot of water right up to the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. And then it receded.
The whale is revered by First Nations communities. More than 70 years ago, the ancient legend of Gurawul the whale was passed down to Yuin Elder Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison by his grandfather and uncles. He promised them that one day he would travel to the southern land, Tasmania, and search for the whale dreaming of their Ancestors. Gurawul the Whale: An ancient story for our time tells the story of Uncle Max’s journey to fulfil that promise, and how he eventually came face to face with Gurawul. Filled with important cultural knowledge and personal stories, Uncle Max sadly died before Gurawul could be published, and his family are continuing his legacy to show how science is finally beginning to catch up with these ‘old blackfella’ stories. Gurawul the Whale is available from Magabala Books (magabala.com.au). Photograph of a humpback whale by NOAA. CC BY 2.0.
When First People look at the sea and the land bridge, they recognise the movement, travel, and continuation of song lines. Even though the land bridge is flooded, the marine mammals and especially the dolphins and whales are continuing to show the timing of the ancient song lines. Source: envato elements.
Dreaming the Ancestors
What I am sharing here are dreaming stories.
Some people think dreaming is only when you go to sleep and you’re dreaming of something.
But our dreaming is our culture. When the Original First People tried to describe aspects of our culture, it was described in English terms. It was coined as the ‘dreaming’ because it is spiritual. Where the spirit connects with our visions, with our intuitions, with our awareness, and with our feelings, that all encompasses what they try to describe as the dreaming.
If you understand this, you can become aware that the dreaming stories are our Ancestors’ way of describing what has happened, to record it for the future generations. When we see the migration of the different birds and animals and the whales and dolphins and all the sea creatures, well, we look at that as song lines. Song lines connecting different places.
Song lines map travel and the stops along the way or the food sources along the way or the points of sacred sites along the way.
So for instance imagine you travel on the highway. You go from here on Gunnai Country in Victoria to Sydney in New South Wales. You’ve got all these different places to stop for food. And whatever else you need. Along the way it is all mapped out.
With a song line, you’re singing all the information along that travel. You are singing what’s on that track. If you find you’re singing a part and you can’t see things of the song in that landscape, well, that tells you you’ve gone the wrong way. You’ve gone off track. So you start looking around and you see, ‘oh, there’s a mountain I’m singing about’. Okay, we’ll go back over there.
This is why song, story and dance are connected in our culture. And why I like to describe it as a combined language, I call it ‘the language of song, story and dance’.
If you knew the song and you’re well aware, you wouldn’t get off track. You’re singing and you’re following the song. You’re following the landscape.
A song line is also a seasonal movement from one place to another. This applies to the sea and waterways too.
Our Ancestors either followed the song lines or just knew that they were going to come about, and they knew to wait in certain areas to either go fishing or to know when a whale is going to beach itself. And, therefore, that becomes a food source and a gathering and ceremony.
And there’s a relationship with the whale and the dolphin, for instance, and the sharks and the stingrays and octopus, all this different marine life, and the birds and animals on land. There’s a relationship for them all. And within our culture we have that awareness.
When we look at the sea and the land bridge, we recognise the movement, travel, and continuation of song lines. Even though the land bridge is flooded, the marine mammals and especially the dolphins and whales are continuing to show the timing of the ancient song lines.
We see them as the Ancestors in the dreaming stories.
We are joining up the pieces of the puzzle.
A humpback whale surrounded by short-tailed shearwaters, also known as muttonbirds or yula, in the Southern Ocean off the coast of Victoria. Humpbacks and muttonbirds are migratory species who seasonally visit Australian coastal waters and the Bass Strait. They have a relationship in the dreaming and have song lines. A song line can be a seasonal movement from one place to another. This applies to the sea and waterways too. Photograph by Ed Dunens. CC BY 2.0.
Common dolphins regularly visit the territory which once was part of the land bridge. Here, dolphins are pictured off the coast of Port Fairy in Western Victoria. Photograph by Ed Dunens. CC BY 2.0.
Copyright information
Released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
This story is subject to disclaimers, copyright restrictions, and cultural clearances. Copyright © Wayne Thorpe, 2024.
Further reading
Harrison MD (2023) Gurawul the Whale: An ancient story for our time, by Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison. Illustrated by Laura La Rosa. Magabala Books, Western Australia.
