When a boy travels to the ocean to see his uncle, ‘even though he’d never been there before, it felt like he was coming home.’ When his uncle appears on the shore, he denies knowing the boy, and goes on with preparing bait for fishing. A magnificent huge fish, a groper, breaks the surface of the water and remains tantalisingly out of reach to the uncle. He sees that it has the head and torso of his nephew. ‘We related?’ ‘No, this is my real home.’ Then only bindjil (bubbles) remain.
Each double spread has text on one side and full colour painting on the right. Roma Winmar and Alta Winmar have used watercolour to depict the blues of the southern ‘sandplain’ ocean. The tail of the enormous groper wags above the surface and the pale outline of the boy and bubbles add to the poignancy of the story.
The text is in both Noongar language and two translations into English. The Noongar appears first, with literal English translation of each word or phrase underneath. This enables the reader of only English to feel the grammar and style of the original oral story. The story as picture book text (to be read aloud in English) appears at the bottom of the page.
The American linguist Gerhardt Laves recorded stories told to him by Noongar men Bob Roberts and Freddie Winmer at Albany Western Australia in 1931. Laves’ family returned the stories to Australia with his papers, fifty years later. AIATSIS has guardianship of them and worked with the University of WA to bring them back to the Roberts and Winmer families. Along with other community members, Kim Scott and extensively workshopped the stories as part of the Noongar Language and Stories Project over several years, resulting in six published picture books.
An essay at the back of the book has more detail about the development of the stories into published form, including workshopping in local schools. Readings of the book in both Noongar and English are available through the project’s website.
Glossary is provided with this note: ‘We rely on the spelling conventions of the now defunct Noongar Language and Cultural Centre and Education Department of WA although dialect differences may make some of our choices unorthodox.’
Kim Scott is a descendant of the Wirlomin Noongar people. He has worked at Curtin University, as Professor of Writing and also in Curtin’s Centre for Aboriginal Studies and at the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute. Roma Winmar, Noongar artist, was born in Gnowangerup, a small town in the southwest of Western Australia. She has worked in Indigenous education and the arts where she is continuously working with promoting Noongar language and cultural activities and has translated many children’s songs into Noongar. Alta Winmar is a Balladong/Koreng Noongar woman living in Perth, Western Australia. She is a Noongar artist who has exhibited works in Western Australia and art pieces in other parts of the world.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
