Buluwai Traditional Owner Willie Brim shares insights into Bama lore, highlighting the deep interconnectedness of nature and the importance of honouring the land and its spirits.
Video transcript
Willie Brim (Buluwai Traditional Owner)
“My name is Willie but my traditional name is ngùnba meaning platypus. It’s also the traditional name of the Kuranda area. I’m in the rainforest system here and this place was ruled by Aboriginal lore, Buluwanydji lore. All the old people, they passed on the knowledge on how to look after this place.
We had tracks all the way through our Country, right through, going into different areas for ceremonies, gathering different foods, hunting different animals. It was against the lore to step off the track, bunjarri, follow that one track, you know, until you get to certain designated areas, then you can go walk about on Country. The whole Country was so precious and that is why lore is like that, nuwal jimbarru bunjarra and everyone kept an eye out for it.
These are our golden pendas with a tree this old it bears and wears the scars of traditional use as well. Where our people used a tree without killing the tree. When you have areas like this that’s been taken out, that’s the areas where that was cut out with a stone axe. Then a shield was made.
Over here, when I look at this one, gaps in the roots there that’s where a sword would have been taken from. It was the responsibility of all young Wet Tropics males. One of the very first tools that they made of growing up into a man was a sword and a shield and on that sword be your totems and your family clan group. So when people see the pattern, they know which group this young person has come from.
One of the biggest distributors of seeds in this forest is the cassowary. The cassowary was here before us. He the ones that made the tracks. It is so special to us that we believed that all life came from the cassowary egg, the ‘deyal, bùnda:ra ‘deyal. A bird like that is so sacred that if he is missing from our mountains, the old mountain will begin to die.
The nature spirits that we have in our forest as well. They are here all around us, everything has spirit like I said and it was our belief and our knowledge that what we do is if we’re fishing, we always leave a fish for the spirit and you only take enough as you need, you don’t need too much.
Our lore, Bama lore, it’s a good lore, it’s designed for all of us. Plant, animal, human being, to live as one together. Follow it please.”