The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names, said Confucius, a thought that has been on my mind especially since moving to the South West.
Before I moved here permanently, I was commuting down Forrest Highway each day. Do this more than once and you quickly notice how the vegetation changes as you head south. The jarrahs thin out, the tuarts assert themselves, peppermints give way to sheoaks and the colours and smells of the landscape help you know where you are.
Head further south and the changes continue and soon you find yourself among the karri giants, awestruck and scrambling for words.
This scramble for words is a problem: I don’t know the names for most of the things I’m seeing in English let alone any of my native languages.
In fact, I don’t know any of my native languages at all!
English, the language in which I make my living, represents the thinnest veneer applied to the surface of a world that has been inhabited and cared for and named longer than anywhere else on earth.
Everything you see as you drive anywhere in this country has already been named before, and the absence of these names from my vocabulary is starting to make me feel like I am a most uneducated person.
That can change.
Now is the season of birak, when the winds warm and come from the east until the sea breeze cools us in the afternoon.
The moodja (Christmas trees) are blossoming now, their fluffy flowers of Indian yellow delineating not just a time of year but a territory.
And just the other night I saw my first goomal, its eyes shining in the light of my torch as I clumsily thrashed about in the forest looking for what I used to call possums.
Feeling like an ignoramus is not a nice thing when you remember that you are a part (like it or not) of the oldest continuous culture on the planet. Entertain that thought for a moment and you start to feel a sense of responsibility, one that has been neglected in my case.
Nala Boodja is the phrase that did it – Our Country. Not my country, not your country, but our country. It is a phrase that admits us to this place, that welcomes us whoever we may be. It is impossible to refuse such a gracious invitation.
Pibulmun/Wadandi Elder and Traditional Custodian Wayne Webb has written “Boodjara, Boodjera, Boodja – with no written language, no matter how you spell it – land, country, mother earth is our most important resource. No matter what culture or religion, all of us rely on Nala Boodja.”
On Monday I had the great pleasure of meeting Wayne’s son, Iszaac, whose facility with language and eagerness to share his knowledge is, simply, inspirational.
Zac talked about the inclusion inherent in Nala Boodja, how it brings us all along, how mother earth can care for us all.
He made me think of a study published this week from the University of Essex and University College London which suggests that childrens’ cognitive abilities are firmly linked to time spent with their mothers.
Might not the same thing be said of time spent with the mother of us all?
Zac also made me think of a recent SBS special report on how second languages are in decline in Australia, an appalling thought. I speak English (somewhat), mediocre Japanese, bad French and truly terrible Spanish, but my kids have done better. My middle child is comfortable in French, English, Japanese, Norwegian, Italian and is now working on Russian. She turns 12 next February, and while she is undoubtedly the lucky beneficiary, in this respect at least, of a peripatetic life, there’s nothing too special about her when you look beyond our shores.
Birak is also the season of koolungas – our children – and it’s time we started giving them the words they need to name the world that gave them life. Doing so respects those who came before and honours not just the past but the future.
– Jeremy Hedley
