Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law

By Zohl dé Ishtar

For two years, Zohl dé Ishtar lived in a one-room tin shed with the women Elders of Balgo. As their "Culture Woman", Zohl assisted the Elders in establishing and coordinating the Kapululangu Women's Law and Culture Centre. Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women's Law tells the amazing story of Zohl's journey as it documents White culture's impact on Indigenous Women's Law. Seventeen years later, Zohl remains at Balgo and provides a new Preface to this edition. Holding Yawulyu is an investigation into the inter-cultural relationship of White and Indigenous societies through successive waves of missionary, bureaucratic and art industry influence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spinifex Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781742199764

Book preview

Irish-Australian lesbian Zohl dé Ishtar is the author of Daughters of the Pacific (1994) and editor of Pacific Women Speak Out for Independence and Denuclearisation (1998), which has been translated into Japanese and German. She has worked with Indigenous Australian and Pacific women and their communities since 1979, and has visited 27 countries as a social justice advocate campaigning for the eradication of colonialism in all its forms. She was a peace activist at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in England from 1983 through 1988, from where she initiated the British network, Women for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific. In 1995 she sailed to Moruroa to protest French nuclear testing with the New Zealand Peace Flotilla. In 2005, Zohl was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as a part of the 1000 Women for Peace campaign. She was at the University of Queensland’s Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies first as a Post-Doctoral Fellow (2005 to 2007), and later as Honorary Research Fellow (2008–2010). Since 2012 she has been Kapululangu’s Executive Director. In 2016, she has now lived with the Elders for 17 years, and worked with them 24 years.

OTHER BOOKS BY ZOHL DÉ ISHTAR

Daughters of the Pacific (1994)

Pacific Women Speak Out for Independence and Denuclearisation (1998)

Spinifex Press Pty Ltd

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First published 2005

New edition 2016

Copyright © Zohl dé Ishtar

Copyright on layout, Spinifex Press, 2005, 2016

Copyright on photographs remains with the photographer

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealings for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, this book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any process, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without prior written permission of the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

Copyright for educational purposes

Where copies of part or the whole book are made under part VB of the Copyright Act, the law requires the prescribed procedures be followed. For information, contact the Copyright Agency Limited.

Photos by Zohl dé Ishtar

Photo collage by Tricia Hanlon

Maps by Karen Batten

Edited by Belinda Morris; new edition Pauline Hopkins

Indexed by Margaret Findlay

Cover design by Deb Snibson

Typeset by Claire Warren; new edition Blue Wren Books

Printed and bound by McPherson’s Printing Group

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Dé Ishtar, Zohl, 1953–.

Holding Yawulyu : white culture and black women’s law.

Bibliography.

Includes index.

ISBN 978 1 7421997 9 5.

1. Women, Aboriginal Australian – Western Australia – Great Sandy Desert – Cross-cultural studies. 2. Women, Aboriginal Australian – Western Australia – Great Sandy Desert – Social life and customs. I. Title.

305.4889915

Dedicated to the Daughters of the Red Desert.

Grow strong in Law.

I present this story with respect for and in honour of the Kapululangu Women Elders

My walytja (family)

This second edition is dedicated to Yintjurru Margaret Anjule Bumblebee Napurrula who, though living with diabetes and having her leg amputated in 2007, bravely remained an inspirational leader among the Elders until her untimely death on 8 September 2011. I am proud to call her Pimiri (aunty). (Her name has been used with family permission as a sign of respect for all she created.)

Recognition of a Massive Achievement.

Yintjurru Margaret Bumblebee Anjule Napurrula,

Elder of the Year 2008 for the East Kimberley

Aboriginal Achievement Awards.

Copyright 2008, Wunan Foundation.

Katimalkuya Yawulyu

kamu kulintjurratjiitjilu

makarrmanulkutjananya

They will hold onto their Women’s Law and teach their children and make them strong.

Leaflet for culture tour by Manungka Manungka Women’s Association, 1992 (Kapululangu’s predecessor organisation).

When the fullest breath of a people’s cultural voice is allowed to flourish, this engenders cultural energy … so potent that it touches the hearts of its members and stirs in them a conviction in their own completeness which, both unconquerable and impregnable, can heal soul wounds and refashion worlds.

Zohl dé Ishtar, Holding Yawulyu: White Culture and Black Women’s Law, 1st edition, 2005, page 239.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Permissions

Foreword by Judy Atkinson

Maps of Wirrimanu (Balgo) and the Kutjungka Region

Preface to the 2016 Edition

Note on Text

Preface to the 2005 Edition

A Day in the Life of the Tjilimi

Caring for Yawulyu, Singing the Land

Caring for Yawulyu, Singing the Land

Kapululangu’s Quest

The Kapululangu Tjilimi as a Living Environment

The Tjilimi Walytja

The Tjilimi as a Centre of Ritual

Revitalising Culture – Addressing the Future

The Potency of Yawulyu, Women’s Law

The Tjilimi and Women’s Kurrunpa Maya

Cultural Imperative, Cultural Right

Living on the Ground

Becoming the Culture Woman

Living as the Culture Woman

Researching White Culture as a Culture Woman

A Respectful Research Methodology

Exploring the Languages of the Body

Recreating Whiteness

Becoming The Missus

White Culture Shock: The Kartiya Dirt Syndrome

Cultural Collisions

Attitudes to Violence: Prime Terrain for Culture Collision

Cultural Challenges

Wirrimanu’s White Story

Wirrimanu’s Chronicles

Locating Wirrimanu

The First White Strangers

A Catholic Mission in the Desert

The Government Takes an Interest

Balgo Becomes a Thriving Settlement

A New Balgo Mission Established

Early Bureaucratic Frameworks

Balgo Mission is Closed

Bureaucratic and Fiscal Entanglements

Political Threats to Close Wirrimanu

Administrative Attempts to Secure Wirrimanu’s Future

Whites Battle for Political Power as Wirrimanu Collapses

The Legacy of Political Upheaval

The Chairman’s Stand Against White Politics

The Missionaries and the Tjukurrpa’s Embrace

The Missionary Struggle for Indigenous Soul, Mind and Body

Christianity and the Tjukurrpa’s Continuance

Ritual Resurgence

Indigenisation: The Church Responds to Ritual Resurgence

Inclusion of Indigenous Culture or Christian Evangelism?

Bi-Cultural Education Replaced by Christian Enculturation

Cultural Resistance

Kapululangu: The Women Elders’ Cultural Initiative

Kimberley Women Law Bosses Reclaim Their Voices

Kapululangu’s Predecessor: The Desert Women’s Project

Manungka Manungka: the Continuing Obstacles of White Politics

Kapululangu and the Politics of White Culture

Attempts to Gain a Coordinator’s Salary, Office and Residence

Designing the Tjilimi House to Suit Whitefella Living

Kapululangu’s Persistent Success

Living Culture – The Cultural Imperative

Living Culture, Cultural Renewal

The Living Land and the Gift of Ritual

The Integrity of Cultural Ritual

Taming the Singing Voice

The Frozen Word

Sand, Ochre and the Invasion of Acrylic

Fragmenting the Integrity of Ritual

The Commodification of Culture

The Culture Industry

Museumising Living Culture

Women’s Centres as Centres of Women’s Cultural Power

Trauma Trails and the Kapululangu Experience

Living Culture is Culture Lived

White Culture and Black Women’s Law

Cultural Colonisation and Cultural Resistance

The Tjilimi and Indigenous Women’s Resistance

The Warlayirti Culture Centre

The Episode at the Tjilimi Gate

What Happened at the Tjilimi Gate?

Kapululangu’s New Coordinators

The Fate of the ‘Strong Culture – Strong Families’ Project

Shifting Kapululangu’s Emphasis

Redirecting Kapululangu’s Resources

Kapululangu’s Support for the Warlayirti Culture Centre

Looking Back: A Three Year Review

Kurrunpa Maya: Women’s Spiritual Strength and Kapululangu

Women’s Creative Acts of Passionate Resistance

Taking Responsibility for White Culture

Fire Politics: A Kapululangu Vision

My Return to Kapululangu

Keeping Doing the Dancing: The Kapululangu Elders’ Cultural Imperative

Endnotes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Yati Minyirri! Yipimarnkurrpa kamu Pimirikutjarra kamu Karparlikutjarra kamu Ngawitji. Many people must be acknowledged and thanked for their contribution in bringing this book to fruition, but I owe most to my walytja (family), the Kapululangu elders.* They shared their lives with me, and ‘grew me up’ in their ways, teaching me to respect the Tjukurrpa, the Law. I honour and applaud you for your vision and your strength. Thank you for having patience with the limitations of my perceptions and understanding of your world and lifeways, and for inspiring me with your kurrunpa maya (spiritual strength). I hope that this book does you all justice. Yati (thank you) also to the pinta-pinta kamina (butterfly girl) for the yintjanu (gift) of your smile. Your laughter and your insistence on being wildly free have sustained and inspired me.

I thank all of the women, men and children of Wirrimanu, particularly my close-up kin, who taught me and looked after me while I was in your homelands. Thanks also to the Wirrimanu Aboriginal Council for their ongoing support throughout the time I lived in Wirrimanu. I remain gratefully respectful of the Nangala Kutjarra for the dream, and for insisting that I took responsibility for Yawulyu.

Nobody has worked harder to support this project than my sister Tricia Hanlon. She has believed in the Kapululangu elders’ vision since its inception and has been involved in the Kapululangu project since its beginning. Her visit to the Kapululangu Tjilimi in August 2000 (along with a second sister, Margaret Hanlon Dunn), enabled her to come to know the women elders and to gain an understanding into the socio-political situation in Wirrimanu. Her skill with proofreading has proven invaluable. I particularly thank her for her enthusiastic determination that the story be told, and her painstaking insistence upon ‘excellence’. Her extraordinary commitment to the women elders provided me with the sustenance needed to make it through to the end. More than anyone, she has shared this experience with me.

I express my gratitude to Renate Klein who has continued to believe in the project even in its most difficult times. I was fortunate to have her guidance and advice, illuminating suggestions and comments, and friendship and trust during the research stages, for these formed the rock upon which I was able to stand while navigating academia from my solitary sojourn in Wirrimanu’s red desert. Also to Susan Hawthorne of Spinifex Press who understood the importance of this book even before it was written, and without whose trust, foresight and skill this book would never have arrived in your hands.

My gratitude also to my sister Margaret Hanlon Dunn for her ongoing support, and for her timely visits to Wirrimanu; to my mantirri (sister-in-Law) Aboriginal artist Ochre Doyle for introducing the Kapululangu women elders into my life and for accompanying me in my journey with them; to Judy Atkinson of the Jiman and Bundjalung peoples who, as Professor at the Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples, saw the importance of telling this story; to Maggie and Joah Gleeson for giving me a retreat in which to begin writing; and to Delia Guy and Jim Anderson for giving me shelter in Wirrimanu when it was most needed.

Thanks to those Kartiya who gave me their friendship during my time in Wirrimanu: Pat Walker, Sr Alice Dempsey, Frs Brian McCoy and Matt Digges, Brs Bernie Cooper, Cal Cusack and Joe Gabel. Special acknowledgement goes to the previous coordinators of the women’s initiative: Wendy Albert and Pat Lowe who planted the seeds for the Desert Women’s Project and Manungka Manungka, and Sonja Peter, Michelle McKenzie, Barbara Bill, and Barbara Kernick who followed them. I hope that this text elucidates some of the difficulties, and the rewards, you experienced as the coordinators of these pioneering organisations.

I wish to acknowledge the support given to this project by the staff at Women’s Studies, School of Social Inquiry at Deakin University while I was doing my research, and currently at the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at The University of Queensland for their support in finalising this book.

I also want to thank all the wonderful women at Spinifex Press. In addition to Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein who must be acknowledged as Australia’s most committed feminist publishers, I also thank Belinda Morris for her careful and considerate editing, Maralann Damiano for her skillful organising and for ensuring we all kept to the timelines, and Jo O’Brien for holding the financial side of book production together. I also thank Deb Snibson for the cover design, Claire Warren for typesetting and Karen Batten for the maps.

There are many others involved in the creation of this book who have not been mentioned. I remain forever indebted to them for their contributions.

Warning: Some of the following people may be deceased and their names may cause distress to some Aboriginal people. The Kapululangu women who I particularly want to thank include Yintjurru Margaret Bumblebee Anjule Napurrula, Mungkina Dora Napaltjarri, Martingali Maudie Mandigalli Napanangka, Manaya Sarah Daniels Napanangka, Nungunurra Nancy Napanangka, Payi Payi Napangarti. Also those who have since died: Tjama Freda Samah Napanangka, Martingali Bridget Mudgedell Napanangka, Yutjuyu Taampa (Damper) Nampitjin, Yunitja Ruby Nampitjin, Millie Skeen Nampitjin, Nanyuma Rosie Dingle Napurrula and Patricia Lee Napangarti. The young girl with the smile is Cynthia Tjama Smith Napanangka.

PERMISSIONS

Permissions or Pathways to Culturally Safe Research

We Kapululangu women happily and freely give our support to Zohl dé Ishtar to write a book about the Kapululangu Women’s Law and Culture Centre. Zohl lived and worked with us for two years to set up Kapululangu and make it strong. This is her story of that time.

—Tjama Freda Samah Napanangka (Chairwoman) Yintjurru Margaret Bumblebee Anjule Napurrula (Vice-Chairwoman)

Kapululangu Women’s Law and Culture Centre

24 June 2004

When undertaking research in any community it is best practice to obtain the informed consent of one’s hosts, but this imperative takes on added dimensions when the hosts are members of a society which has been colonised by one’s own. Then the researcher’s racisms, assumptions and prejudices lay traps of misinterpretation and misreading for the inquirer which continue the colonising practices of silencing the hosts and invisibilising their realities, their meanings and understandings of their world.

The White researcher of Indigenous domains needs to consistently ensure that their project engages with their hosts in ways that honour and respect their Indigenous knowledge processes, their cultural paradigms. They must ensure that their research is culturally safe for their hosts. This can best be achieved by checking and rechecking that the hosts continue to give their permission and by remaining flexible to renegotiating the changing needs of the community one is working with. These directives are delineated in the ethics guidelines of the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (2000).

In September 1998, the women elders of Wirrimanu asked me to assist them to establish a women’s organisation which would promote women’s Law and cultural practice and support their roles as Law women, protectors, healers and teachers of their people. The elders also entrusted me with the documentation of their cultural knowledge and skills, for safekeeping in the Kapululangu Keeping Place, for the benefit of future generations. As part of this work it was agreed that I would conduct research into the impact of White culture on the women’s initiative.

The elders’ request was reiterated and backed by other women and the Wirrimanu Aboriginal Corporation (the local council) in April 1999. The elders confirmed our agreement in June when I arrived to live in the community, and restated it once again when Kapululangu was legally incorporated in August that same year. The project was announced in the local community newsletter, the Mirli Mirli, in April and August.

From June 1999 through July 2001 I lived closely with the elders in the women’s Tjilimi (women’s camp), sharing their lives with them and participating in both their domestic concerns and their cultural practices. Our mutual mission to achieve their aims of bringing their grandchildren up strong in Law and culture saw us weave together our Black and White skills until we created a vibrant inter-generational cultural program.

During the two years that I lived and worked with the elders our agreement was implicit in our ongoing relationship of walytja (family), but I repeatedly checked for consent to proceed and I obtained the written permission of all of the women whom I interviewed individually.

On returning to the city to write my PhD I was in telephone contact with the elders, needing to check on certain information, and I continued to receive their unmitigated support. In May 2003 before submitting my thesis for examination I received yet again the agreement of the Kapululangu elders, including Kapululangu’s Chairwoman and Vice-Chairwoman.

In June 2004 I returned to Wirrimanu to meet with the Kapululangu elders and to obtain their written agreement before publishing my thesis as this book. Parts of the text were read to the meeting and the four women who were directly quoted (although not named) signed personal agreements that I could use their words in the book. At the meeting, Kapululangu’s Chairwoman and Vice-Chairwoman and seven other founding members gave their unanimous blessing, which was reiterated during the four months I lived in Sorry Camp with them.

In 1999 I received a commendation from my university’s ethics committee for the care that I gave to ensuring that I received the women’s agreement to my research project. I was granted my PhD in 2003, and in 2004 it was awarded Deakin University’s Isi Liebler Prize 2003, conferred for advancing knowledge of racism, religious and ethnic prejudice and furthering multiculturalism and community relations in Australia.

This book is based on my thesis of that time. It is my own story, reflecting my own perspective as a Kartiya (Whitefella) living and working with Senior Law Women, the elders of Wirrimanu’s Indigenous community. But the story of Kapululangu and its successes remains the elders’ story, for it is a story of a vibrant living culture which will continue to inspire their grandchildren’s children and those who come after them.

I thank the elders of Kapululangu for their blessings and ongoing support in bringing this book into being.

FOREWORD

Zohl dé Ishtar is a remarkable woman with a long background of political activism, demonstrated by previous published work: Daughters of the Pacific, and Pacific Women Speak Out for Independence and Denuclearisation. Her activism however is balanced by scholarly attention to ethical research practice, with a combination of high-level analytical skills complemented by practical community development outcomes.

This book evolved from and refers to two years, during which Zohl lived and worked with Indigenous women elders to establish, coordinate and administer the Kapululangu Women’s Law and Culture Centre and its array of inter-generational cultural knowledge programs.

Kapululangu’s programs ranged from forming a Tjilimi (women’s camp and ritual space) with the women elders, cultural classes for girls, cultural workshops for young women, cultural camps for girls and boys, journeys along Dreaming Tracks for women elders and youth to perform ritual and ceremony, and national and international tours to engage in cultural exchanges with other Indigenous peoples.

To facilitate her work with the elders Zohl developed a research philosophy and methodology from an Indigenous-centred approach based on participatory action research (Indigenous Self-Determination), relationship as central to socio-cultural dynamics, and feminist phenomenology.

While Zohl’s practice drew on feminist research paradigms such as reflexive inquiry, it also reflected Indigenous cultural philosophies and principles; facilitated the guidance, leadership and participation of the host women/community; and incorporated Indigenous worldviews. Her methodological focus on relationship/participation observation positioned her to use herself as the source of her data; feminist phenomenology enabled her to learn through the experiences and languages of the body as life is lived (hers and those of her hosts); and Indigenous self-determination allowed her to make a commitment producing immediate concrete outcomes that benefited her host community.

This book critiques White cultural practices and their effect on Indigenous Australian women’s endeavours to sustain their people’s cultural heritage and pass their cultural knowledge on to the younger generations. The critique includes processes of cultural colonisation, missionisation, socialisation and enculturation through education, bureaucratisation, and the commercialisation of culture.

Particular attention is given to the strategies of cultural survival engaged in by the local Indigenous women and their families over the past sixty years, including clandestine rituals, adaptive use of the Christian Church, White schooling system and the Culture Industry, and the development of a Women’s Law and Culture Centre dedicated to the inter-generational transmission of cultural heritage.

Much work is presently being done to ensure that research within Indigenous context is conducted with ethics and integrity to the needs of Indigenous peoples, and from the philosophies, theories and practices of Indigenous research approaches, complemented by western research ethics and practices. Zohl has bridged that cultural divide beautifully as demonstrated in this book, from the other side of the fence - the position of the White scholar researching White culture’s impact on Indigenous/Black women’s Law. She has consistently ensured that her research methodology was respectful of and reflected Indigenous ways of knowing and Indigenous knowledges. She has thus developed a template for others wishing to undertake cross-cultural research.

Zohl has a strong capacity for working with other non-Indigenous Australians to raise awareness around issues of racism and colonialism, and to guide them through the intricacies of reflexive self-inquiry, leading them towards enhanced abilities in cross-cultural communication. She has a profound knowledge of, and insight into Indigenous cultural ways of being, which is rare among White Australians. This was evident in the way that the elders of the Great Sandy Desert requested her to work with them to develop a cultural revitalisation project for their grandchildren.

Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples has connections with the women from Balgo where the work evolved. We are aware of the strong support the women have for the book to be published. In fact some of the senior law and culture women recently visited Southern Cross University/Gnibi, to speak to their endorsement and support for the book. During their visit we witnessed their support of, affection for, and request for continuing relationships with Dr dé Ishtar.

This book demonstrates that while Culture is alive – living – at Balgo (and hence other places where Aboriginal women struggle to maintain their rights and integrity), threat is evident through the ill-informed and sometimes virulent politics from outside the community by well-meaning and not so well-meaning others.

I cannot stress strongly enough the value of this work, for I believe this book has great relevance to all of Australia, as we reflect on ways we can do things better in support of Living Cultures.

Professor Judy Atkinson

Gnibi College of Indigenous Australian Peoples

Southern Cross University

Kapululangu Elders at Nakarra Nakarra (Seven Sisters) during 2014 Women’s Dreaming Track Trek.

Copyright 2014, Anna Cadden.

Kapululangu Girls Dancing Group.

Copyright 2010, Zohl dé Ishtar.

PREFACE TO THE 2016 EDITION

Darkness. Freezing darkness. Darkness preparing for the dawn.

My body sits icily still, silent against the cold stony earth, cradled by ubiquitously piercing spinifex grasses. I hug my knees. I am all sense. Alert. Effervescent. Alive.

I listen to the thud of my pulsating heart beating loudly with excitement. The only warm entity in all of this burning coldness, it tunes to the palpable rhythmic breaths of the five chilled women sitting hidden in the darkness with me. We are four Aboriginal and two Kartiya women, together.

We whisper softly. Hiding our voices just as carefully as we hide our naked bodies, we adorn ourselves and each other in the finery of tarruku (ceremonial items). The night air thickens with anticipation. Together we share the first observances in the making of this primordial ritual. Together we emulate the ancestors.

Turning my head away slightly to savour the moment, I peer through the tall spearheads of the flowering spinifex and draw witness from the full moon cradled high in the azure sky. I give praise. This exalted moment shared together, the few in the darkness coupled with the many women sitting around the fire out in the clearing, beyond the low desert bushes, is the beginning of a most potent of women’s ceremonies handed down through generations.

Such is the strength, the wisdom, the compassion, and the vision of the Women Elders. Law shared, taught, guided, by the Nintipuka Tutju (clever women) of Kapululangu. It is in astoundingly generous moments like this that the future of the earth and its people seems blessed, filled with promise.

* * *

This inimitable episode of deep ceremony was contained within the dynamic backdrop of Kapululangu’s 14th annual Women’s Law Camp (2015). Thirty-two Aboriginal and Kartiya women had come together on a Women’s Law Ground (ceremonial ground) outside of Balgo community. Beyond the earshot and witness of men and children.

The Aboriginal women – Elders, Stolen Generation, young women – came from the three very remote Aboriginal communities of the Kutjungka region in the south-east Kimberley of Western Australia. The Kartiya came from across Australia, and from around the world, to give their service as tilitja (culture worker) with the purpose of doing all they could to support the Elders in the practice, sharing and teaching of their Law. Among the Aboriginal women were three young women who came as cultural trainees to learn how to run a Women’s Law Camp. Working together, these Aboriginal and Kartiya women made it possible for the Elders to gather so that they could kanyirninpa Yawulyu (hold their Women’s Law).

A week after the Women’s Law Camp finished, 28 Aboriginal and Kartiya women set off south in eight cars on Kapululangu’s annual Dreaming Track Trek. Turning east into the Stansmore Ranges, we visited the land, sang, told stories, discussed issues of concern, painted our bodies with ochres in designs passed down through generations. We danced at the sacred sites of Nakarra Nakarra and Nantalarra on the tracks made by the ancestral Nalpaltjarri Tjutu (Seven Sisters). We camped at Kurnakurlu Lake on the Wati Kutjarra (Two Men Dreaming) track where, with the Elders’ permission, the Kartiya wallowed in the soft brown slush enjoying momentary relief from the hot sun and warily watched the solitary bull camel communing with two brolga before they took wing. At Nantalarra we waited out the heat in the cool green lushness of grandmother trees that adorned the sacred oasis. Once upon a time, within living memory, this vast soak-water was the host of massive corroboree (gatherings) where, for eons, hundreds of desert residents came together to engage in ceremonies, rites of passage, and life matters.

These two major camps of Kapululangu’s yearly calendar are among recent evidence of the indomitable passion of the Kapululangu women Elders who have, with an inconceivable strength of purpose and persistence, ensured that their Peoples’ cultural identity continues to sustain their future generations.

This astounding achievement has not been so much a choice as a directive the Elders have been impelled to oblige. They have remained heroically determined to live their lives in accordance with their Law. Such is their legacy of having been born in the desert and having their first contact with Kartiya as children, or in some cases as young women. They were raised according to the kurralkatjanu yiwarra (old ways) and, as such, their lives have been informed by their ancient yet still-prevailing cultural perception of the Tjukurrpa as the eternal omnipresent relationship which pulsates within and connects all life.

As Senior Law Women there was no declaration, no manifesto, no voicing of their determination, no analysis, and nothing grand about their stance. Their motivating force was deeper than that. They simply knew, and still know, that to stop living their lives according to the mandate of their Peoples’ cultural Law would be to cease to exist – to cease to be. Their Law is their breath. It is their soul. It is their single purpose for being. Without their Law, and its customary representations, they will cease to exist. The Law is based in relationship with their ngayu (self/identity), their walytja (kinship), their ngurra (land) and, ultimately, their connectedness with the Tjukurrpa (Universal Life Force, Dreaming).

Kapululangu is a truly hybrid entity. Formed by the Elders, Kapululangu’s success relies entirely on their Law and culture. Nothing can happen at Kapululangu without the full direction and total engagement of the Women Elders. They are Kapululangu’s visionaries, instigators, dreamers, and nurturers. Their strength lay in who they were and are still – strong Law women when standing alone; undeniably formidable when banded together. As Kapululangu they have been an emboldened group of undeniably brave and spirited women stewards of the Dreaming motivated by and actively reasserting their endowed right and inherited obligation to protect and provide for the wellbeing of their young people. They were the committed, steadfast and entrusted Law Women and Tjarrtjurra (women healers) of their people. It was they who held the stories, the people, the land, the connection with Tjukurrpa. It was the Elders who fashioned themselves with one shared impassioned intent into the organisation which they called Kapululangu.

The Elders have been motivated and impassioned by the traumatic suffering of cultural estrangement and spiritual ennui that their younger generations struggle with today. Enduring against overwhelming odds, the Elders have kanyirninpa (held, nurtured, sustained) their people. They were motivated by a deeply rooted confidence in who they are as Law Women and by their belief that their younger generations if raised in the cultural way would be proud, resilient and inspired engineers of their own lives. Together they have led and assisted their families to resist, tolerate, adapt, and sometimes adopt, with the aim of surviving, the imposition of an alien socio-cultural structure which ignorantly and, all too often, arrogantly has sought – and alas, even while condemning past misbehaviours, continues to seek – to transpose, rearrange and even obliterate their own.

Yet, if Kapululangu is to function as an organisation it must operate within the social milieu and institutional structure of the dominant, and dominating, Kartiya society. If the Elders had gathered without the administrative support of a White-structured organisation they would have found it harder to access the resources they needed to function in a world where most resources are held under White control. Yet, equally, Kapululangu could not exist as a White project for its objectives and goals, its achievements, and its spirit, are embedded in the Law. While the Elders could have continued without their organisation, the organisation would not have been possible without someone with the skills to operate it as Kartiya society dictates.

Breakfast Time at Kapululangu Tjilimi (Women’s Camp). Martingali Maudie Mandigalli Napanangka, Mungkina Dora Rockman Napaltjarri, Manaya Sarah Daniels Napanangka, and Yarriyis Ruby Darkie Nangala. Copyright 2005, Zohl dé Ishtar.

Watching the Sunset at the Tjilimi. Payi Payi Sunfly Napangarti, Martingali Maudie Mandigalli Napanangka and Mungkina Dora Rockman Napaltjarri. Copyright 2008, Chris Henderson.

In Australia, Indigenous people needing resources held in Kartiya control are too often obliged to organise themselves according to Kartiya principles and practices, but the Elders were determined to leave dealing with Kartiya systems up to Kartiya people. "Kartiya like to work" they’d reasoned upon their experience of the early missionaries and the current-day stream of Kartiya who come to take paid jobs in their community. In a marked display of sanity and self-determination, they decided that if White people were mad enough to invent pieces of white paper to pass around, then let them do it. If Kartiya wanted to engage in such strange time-consuming antics inherent in bureaucratic and administrative behaviours, then they would find a Kartiya who was able and willing to do it on their behalf. They weren’t interested in attempting to mimic Kartiya. Besides, their lives were already too busy. As Aboriginal people and as Elders they had far better things to do, such as caring for family, going hunting, and passing their cultural knowledge onto their younger generations. There was nothing new about this tactic. Australia’s history is replete with Aboriginal people who have sought out and trained up Kartiya to be suitable advocates.

Thus, despite Kartiya society’s collective, almost universal, inability to meet their generous embrace with comparable dignity, honour or respect, the Kapululangu Elders have compassionately sought to engage, inspire and ‘grow-up’ Kartiya also. They have consistently welcomed Kartiya to perceive, cherish and value something of their cultural heritage. Not so that we can own or appropriate it but so that we can become expedient companions in their tenacious undertaking to restore their Law, ceremonies, and culture. Thus my collaboration with the Elders has been as a tilitja, as a cultural translator and resource conduit between two divergent worlds and, over the past eight years, as a marlpa (carer).

Since Kapululangu was established in 1999 it has undergone three manifestations, or eras. This book chronicles only the first two years when I lived together with the Elders in a one-room tin shed on their Women’s Law Ground. This first era (1999–2001) was my introduction to Aboriginal life in the remote desert. I became intimately involved in the Elders’ lives at their request and invitation. By opening their everyday world to me, and privileging me to participate under their direction in their customs and ritual ceremonies, the Elders sought to teach me the importance of the Law to the well-being of their people.

From 2005 until 2011, Kapululangu flourished in its second era. During these years the Elders developed a whole-of-community, whole-of-life therapeutic cultural program which they called ‘Circles of Cultural Learning’. This dynamic flurry of activities and events had them passing their cultural knowledge to all women, girls and children – whilst supporting the Men Elders’ work with the young men and boys.

In 2012, Kapululangu re-invented itself once again so that, today, at first glance the women’s centre seems to be an aged care facility. However we aren’t. We live together – the Elders and I – because we have always lived together. As the years have passed we have simply gotten older together. By living together the Elders were continuing their ancient tradition whereby widows would often choose to live together to lend each other support and to engage in ceremonies pursuing their Law. The Elders have grown older, but remain equally determined to live together on their Women’s Law Ground close to their families, community and ancestral countries. Besides, the environment of a Kartiya-run aged care facility would be distressingly alien to these Elders who, growing up in the desert, have chosen to never fully integrate with the dominant society.

Thus while Kapululangu remains Australia’s only Aboriginal Women’s Law and Culture Centre it has been a metamorphosing one, constantly adapting to the changing needs of our Elders. And as always the maintenance and passing on of Law and culture has remained the Elders’ purpose. But Kapululangu was made possible because the Elders and I have worked together.

Without a union of Aboriginal and Kartiya skills and processes Kapululangu would not have been achievable. Throughout Kapululangu’s history, the Elders and I have engaged other Kartiya to assist us – as tilitja for our camps and other cultural programs and, as the Elders have aged and become fewer, as marlpa (carers). Tonight, as I sit in my office writing, I listen to the Elders and the marlpa in the living-sleeping room getting ready for bed. Singing, laughter, shared endeavours. Kartiya come from across Australia, and from around the world, to support our Elders. Many marlpa have returned time and again to care for the Elders, or to become tilitja without which the annual Women’s Law Camps and Dreaming Track Treks would not have been possible.

As I have already stated, the book you hold in your hands deals only the first two years of the Kapululangu Aboriginal Women’s Law and Culture Centre. Once released into the world, books take on a life of their own. The first edition of my book eventually found its way into the hands of a young Kartiya woman called Charlie. Charlie was so enamoured by Kapululangu’s story that when she read the story of my ousting from Balgo and its impact on the Elders she refused to believe it could be the end of Kapululangu. She was determined to find out what had happened to Kapululangu and the Elders. Over the ensuing years she would get online every couple of months to search for a continuation of the story. Finally, in 2009, she found our website, which we’d only just established. Kapululangu was inviting participation in our inaugural Women’s Culture Learning Camp in 2009. Charlie got on the phone right away. She attended the camp, and told us how she had point-blank refused to believe that Kapululangu had finished and that she had worried for years about what had happened to the Elders. Since then Charlie has volunteered with us as a tilitja at our 2012 Women’s Law Camp, and at our 2015 Dreaming Track Trek. She has become a great friend to the Elders.

It is with Charlie and her amazing search in mind, and for all who have read my book and also refused to accept that the Kapululangu story could have ended in 2001, that I am writing this new preface. I want to let you and future readers know that, of course, the Kapululangu women Elders have succeeded against incredible odds to keep their organisation alive through the long difficult