Why here and now:
It was important to me to have one of the rayakana milaythina residencies take place of the mutton bird season. Many of the residencies were planned to coincide with seasonal indicators and harvests that are currently dormant or being revived in our community. But the practice of mutton birding is the biggest and most widely practiced seasonal cultural harvest in our community and is one that has remained uninterrupted by colonisation and could not be overlooked by this project.
During the mutton birding season, families from across Lutruwita head to islands in Tayartija / the Bass Strait and spend a month harvesting and processing yula /mutton-birds to be eaten and sold throughout the year.
There is a strong link between the practice of birding, cultural continuity and Tasmanian Aboriginal resistance and advocacy. At times in our community’s history this practice has formed a key economic basis for many families living on the islands. In the 1800s, Lucy Beeton was famously the head of a huge enterprise selling mutton birds, eggs, oil and feathers in Launceston -using that income to pay for a teacher to come from Melbourne to teach the Aboriginal kids on flinders Island when the colonial government refused to do so.
I always think about the letters written from the families on Cape Barren Island to the newspapers, when so much land in Tayaritja was being opened up for white cattle farming, they were asking for just one island to be reserved for the practice of mutton birding.
Today titima/trefoil island, Big Dog Island, Babel Island, Luntalanana/Clark Island, Chapel Island, Badger Island, Steep head Island and Truwana /Cape Barren Island are all returned Aboriginal Lands that our community either live on or manage.
Visiting Tayaritja during mutton birding season is always fun because there’s so much community around.
This residency took place from the 8th-12th of April
I travelled with Takani (the filmmaker) from Hobart up to Launceston on the 8th and we took a flight from Launceston to Flinders Island with my niece Kitana from Palawa Kipli Aboriginal catering and a young girl who Kitana was taking birding for the first time. Kitana is an experienced birder having done her first full season with her grandfather at the age of seven.
We spent the night in Whitemark making plans with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre’s Pakana rangers to meet in the morning and travel over to Big Dog Island – where the majority of the mutton birding sheds are (there are others on Babel and Trefoil Island).
During the season the Rangers do almost daily trips over and back from Flinders to Big Dog, often with a barge taking food, supplies, even vehicles over. We went over to Big Dog in the dingy just after 8am, a short 15-minute trip and we were ready to dive in. We first made breakfast in the homestead, chatting to the family who stayed there that night. I showed Takani the table where everyone carves their name – you can see familiar names of people we know today and those who have passed. I had carved my name on my first visit when I was twelve.
We had a relaxed morning and took the buggy across the rookery roads to visit a couple of the other sheds and think about a plan for filming. We saw community in one of the sheds processing birds and said hello. Usually there would be people in the rookery from sunrise to sunset, 6 days a week. However, on this day there was rain coming so most were staying inside.
We were lucky to spend the afternoon with young Clay Maynard who showed all his favourite spots out the front of his family’s shed. Having gone there every year since he was six, Clay showed us the best swimming, diving and fish spots, all the beautiful rocks, coastlines, rockpools and where the sea grass washes up. Then he took us into the rookery where he caught six birds for everyone’s dinner. This experience with Clay was particularly inspiring and wholesome. We got a lot of great shots, and it turned out the be the formative experience of birding for the residency.
By the time the barge came back that afternoon we had heard word that the next few days were forecast for wind and rain. The advice from the rangers was that if we stayed the night (Thursday) it would be unlikely that a boat would be able to come back over and get us back to our flight on Sunday.
We had intended to camp on Big Dog next to the homestead but didn’t like our chances when the island winds and rains came in the next day, so we decided to head back to Flinders where we had a car and access to the airport. My cousin Kulai is a ranger and works on the boats while on his shifts to the islands. He said he had a spare room with two spare beds in his accommodation – we were glad to accept his offer of a few nights hospitality out of the weather.
The next days were so rainy and windy that we barely left the cabin. All three of us stayed inside: Kulai doing his work and Takani and I reading. Informed by our reading and practice, we all had some very good conversations about cultural revitalisation – how we fit and how we see ourselves as creators as well as inheritors of culture. This was rich and fertile discussion informing the project and what we were there to do. We left briefly on the second day (Friday) to walk along the beach in a break from the rain, however within five minutes the rain had restarted, we were completely soaked and retreated to the cabin.
On the third day (Saturday), in another small break in the weather we all drove up to Wybalenna. To have another look how the site is changing with the truth telling project and just to check in. Takani and I did some filming here and we noticed the bright red sheok nuts and the many wallaby and wombat bones next to the road. While exploring, again the rain came and we took shelter under the homestead and Kulai brought the Ute around to save us from the weather. Back to the cabin we went.
By day four (Sunday) the weather had cleared up. Our flight was in the afternoon, and we wanted to use the most of our remaining time to explore the island. Kulai went back off to the boats and Takani and I went to trousers point. At trousers point we enjoyed an amazing view of ocean and mountains, I collected cuttlefish and noticed some particularly beautiful geology while Takani continued to film.
We broke for lunch before deciding we had time to drive to other end of the island before our flight was to leave. We went up to Killiecrankie, armed with community stories about where to find the kika / Killiecrankie diamonds after the rain. We walked along the beach, buffeted by sand, determined to get to the mountain to find some stones. We realised too late how long the beach really was a gave up ¾ of the way around to quickly get back to the car and make the plane.
Turns out we were running late and because of the weather the plan decided to leave early. We missed the plane back to Launceston where our rental car was waiting. We were now without a car on flinders, kicked out of the airport which closed as the plane took off and with no plane due until Tuesday afternoon. Luckliy I made a few calls and Kulai came to pick us up for one more night in the cabin.
We borrowed a ute and headed to the Whitemark airport the next morning at 8am. Luckily Flinders Island aviation has said that there was a plane of children coming from Truwana/Cape Barren over to Whitemark that morning and that we could jump on as it returned to Bridport. When we arrived, Peter who runs Flinders Island Aviation, asked one of his mechanics to drive us and our bags up to the bus stop. We arrived just in time to jump on the bus and head to Launceston. An hour and a half later we arrived in the city and for $40 cash got a lift to the airport with an off-duty bus driver.
So, we arrived to pick up our rental car less than 24 hours after we were originally scheduled and managed to meet the booked drop off time in Hobart at 4pm. What an adventure.
What Harvesting and Making Happened:
- I harvested cuttlefish, shells, sand, rocks, animal bones, sheok nuts, and mutton-bird feathers.
- Much of the creativity was centred on discussion and conceptualising which was a good result from being forced to slow down on the residency.
- We also got a lot of film, photos and sketches done
Things That Made an Impression:
- The geology of the islands
- The action of the birders sticking the spit into the ground and then threading the birds to carry back to the shed.
- Our philosophical / theoretical discussion
- The free, loose and creative vibe and lifestyle of being on the islands during birding – how community are collectively working, building, plumbing, cooking, creating and living in a self-sufficient and self-determined way. On Aboriginal land, practicing culture.
Important themes: Continuing Culture
This practice remains so important to our community and our culture. It is something special to experience. But it does bring to mind all the work being done in community to study and protect the birds and the systems they rely on as well. Community have been able to learn how far the birds fly into the Southern Ocean and how climate change and increased plastic in the ocean impacts their lives and our practice. The mutton bird survey every year also records how full the rookeries are, if there are less birds or more and how big they are. The journey of Yula around the world and back, and how many variables in interconnected systems across the world impacts out ability to engage in the practice.
Important themes and messages: Land Return and Self-Determination
To see and understand what has and is created because of the freedom to practice culture on returned land is something special. A month of community going to the islands to harvest mutton birds means we get to eat all year. You can see the benefit, connection, confidence and strength that the young people who get to go over there carry with them.
Key Conceptual Framework and Questions That Inform the Process and the Form:
- Activation and Movement:
- Like the Wukalina work this Tayaritja work needs to relate to physical action, activation and movement. I am especially drawn to the action of the birders in the rookeries stabbing the spear in the ground, then they go up and down, from lying fully on the ground with their arms in the burrow almost beyond the shoulder. Their heads pop and down above the grass and then they harvest the birds – another big movement – before threading them on the spits and moving on.
- Self-contained:
- The work should be contained, not hanging on something or resting on something but a structure in and of itself.
- Reflecting on what an island looks like when it is built and serviced by and for community. These created, self-determined and free mini societies. Sometimes with minimal resources but a whole island of sheds and systems built by hand. I’m imagining structures that would be made in dystopian futures when society collapses – but in a good way.
The Meeting with Uncle Jimmy:
Before leaving for the residency I had a meeting with Uncle Jimmy in which we discussed many things. Uncle Jimmy spoke of how the crayfish life cycle and harvesting season aligns with that of the mutton bird, as does the shelling season – this tied in with his discussions on relational systems which are always very intriguing and helpful to think about. We discussed our shared interest in sky country and its stories and how it’s an easy to grasp model of a relational system that mirrors our understanding of other systems of country.
We discussed the importance of expressing our role in a relational system and getting this message across to non-Aboriginal people who are also living relationship with our country and encouraging understating and appreciation of the responsibility and care that requires.
Uncle Jimmy also reminded again of the idea of country and culture as a palimpsest and how it is for us to carry, reclaim and write stories as the carriers of culture/cultural beings and creators. Uncle Jimmy also referred me to some books and Aboriginal storytellers and thinkers to explore further as we began discussing specific focuses for future upcoming residencies and the types of conversation to encourage and engage with as a community.
The discussion was very helpful and engaging and provided fertile ground for thinking more deeply into the work and embedded meanings and understandings within the greater project – which I was able to carry into discussions while on the residency.
