Guringai Dreaming

GURINGAI DREAMING

Older than the Elders the Land endures.

Saltwater people, fisher folk

Women gather berries, men hunt and fish,

Ku-ring-ai, Guringai people

Kayimai, Cannalgal clans gather here,

Camping by the shores of Sydney Harbour.

Rich white and red ochre

Colour the layered sandstone rocks at North Head.

Sacred burial grounds and bora rings

Lie in ancient splendour

Protected by paper bark trees.

Spring fed water pool,

Ridgelines in the sun

Show the way to sharpen tools

Make the flour for the damper.

Middens shade the southern way.

Black snake basks in the noonday warmth

Lies near the waterfall at Spring Cove.

Gives the timeworn track

That leads to clean water

Creating a deadly protection.

Arabanoo meets Phillip here.

Phillip takes Arabanoo away to Sydney Town.

Tries to learn Language, Culture and Identity,

In the spirit of friendship, he studies

Speaks an ancient tongue.

Arabanoo catches the Smallpox and passes away.

Spear in the leg for Phillip.

Willemring from Broken Bay, a koradgee man who wealds

This three pronged spear

Turns a history point.

Is it payback for the whale feast, behave Phillip.

Crossover cultures interpret events differently.

Perhaps there is a dreaming tale

Of mother and her calf

Learning the whale song of the harbour

Protected by the song men of these shores.

Colbee and Bennalong were Manly men who were next to be invited

To go, by boat, to Sydney Town they crossed over.

Colbee escaped, koradgee man dreaming.

Bennalong traveled to England with Phillip,

But still, he longed for his land of the saltwater people.

So did the woman sit in the little rock cave?

Awaiting her husband’s return,

Watch, until the glow of a western sunset

Let her slip into the dark waters of the bay?

As dolphins play down Manly way.

Smallpox decimated the Aboriginal people.

Wailing all around the rocks and crevasses.

Too many, too soon to know.

Within two years the songs and ceremonies faded.

But the Land endures.