Like all Indigenous people, I believe unequivocally, that my lands are the most beautiful lands in the world. My Country, Larrakia Country, is so abundant with life and beauty, gifting us astounding moments daily.
Gangly legs and knobbly knees, I’m a child standing in our backyard and watching the sky light up with radiant pink and red sunsets, craning my neck to watch the clouds grow and roll into themselves, so large and thick that I feel as if I could reach out and touch them. Flocks of bats swoop over the suburbs as stars slowly welcome the night. When I fall asleep, my lullaby is a choir of frogs and the lulling sound of wet season rain.
*
My small arms are wrapped around my dad’s legs as I sway with the rocking boat. Manta rays are leaping from saltwater as my family travels across the Darwin Harbour, our faces lighting up with joy and laughter as our Ancestors splash and spin in the air, celebrating our reunion. Larrakia families are gathering to uphold our ancient responsibility to Country. When we arrive to attend the Native Title Kenbi Land Claim, our heads and hearts are high with the love of our animals, Ancestors and lands.
*
Twenty years later and I’m reading the government’s decision. Pressing my phone to my ear, I call my dad, whose voice is deep and slow. Like many other Larrakia people, he worked for decades on the Kenbi Land Claim, weaving a collective dream of what the return of Larrakia land would bring for us, his children. Thousands of Larrakia people watched as white judges and politicians handed out white pieces of paper, shaking hands and smiling for photos to celebrate their thirty-seven-year-long decision to name only six individuals as the owners of that land. Lands we were born from and have belonged to since the beginning. I tell my dad I’m sorry and we sit in the silence together. I can almost see his head tilting back as he looks up at our skies. ‘It’s ok daughter. I’m Larrakia, a Larrakia man. Their court system doesn’t mean anything. This is our land. Our Country. Our Law. They can never take that from us.’
*
My teenage brother is picking fistfuls of small green fruits from one of our native trees and placing them in my hand, ‘You can eat these ones.’ We’re standing in the cool shade of the rough-barked tree, eating the sweet fruits while looking out over the beach. For generations our family have come here, to Lee Point, Darwin, to practise our ceremonies and teach our children who they are. We have cultivated this land, maintaining the health and abundance of people and Country. Our love and sweat are sown in the soil, linking us in a never-ending chain of belonging and being. Dread climbs at my throat. The government plans to send bulldozers to demolish this sacred forest and build houses for the military. I think of the generations of Larrakia people who have resisted. I think about the strategy of survival to escape genocide: hide children, fight back, lie low, write petitions, stand in front of bulldozers, argue with cops, get arrested, get fined, get killed ... My brother passes me another handful of fruit and I allow myself to be present with him, savouring the taste. We fill our pockets to take some home for the kids.
*
I’m sitting on my uncle’s verandah, my shirt sticking to my back against the plastic chair, sipping the last of my juice in the intense tropical heat. My uncle pulls from his pocket a folded piece of paper ripped from a notebook, its edges slightly frayed: ‘All of this, this has been happening bub. Who signed off on it?’ I’m reading the names of political parties, mining corporations and the damage they’ve done to our lands and waterways. A record of the pain inflicted on Larrakia Country. I am reminded of how much our parents have endured, the things that the newspapers won’t report, what we share amongst ourselves over tea and in notebooks. My beautiful uncle, his body and mind, a living archive of our histories. I take the list of atrocities home with me, his words calling to me at night, layering my dreams. What do we do with the stories the colony tried to hide? What do we do with the truths the colony denies?
*
Nah cus, if you’re gonna go for a swim, just go to the pool, you can’t swim in that creek anymore. That airport been leaking chemicals in it, PFAS … yeah like, proper serious shit. That many people were swimming there before anyone figured out what was happening, makes me sick. We used to swim there all the time when we were kids, used to be filled with yabbies too but those chemicals are serious cus … Nah you can’t go that way either cus they got a fucking pipe pouring sewerage into it.. Yes, SEWERAGE, literal shit. People still fish there but fuck that. You used to get the best crabs that way, but not anymore, it’s too dirty … I remember being down that way and seeing jellyfish floating down stream, biggest mob of them … I’m dead serious cus, JELLYFISH. They were as big as my head, I swear! But now, nothing. I remember grandad used to take us kids down there. Remember, we’d catch fish and make a fire on the beach and cook up a feed? Yeah, not anymore …
*
I’m sitting at the long, polished wooden table in the office of the environment minister, speaking with her staff, who are adamant there’s nothing they can do to stop Lee Point being destroyed. I look over at the other young Larrakia people at the table, their eyes watchful, their postures built from their Ancestors. Facts, figures and hard questions are being knocked back and forth as I take slow patient breaths, waiting. ‘Laniyuk, is there anything you’d like to say?’ I allow my chest to fill with air before I raise my head:
I remember when I first saw the protests to stop the government from bulldozing Lee Point. My sister had just given birth to her daughter, who was born with this little boss attitude and this perpetual look of suspicion on her face. In our culture, my sister’s children are my children, so I call her daughter and she calls me mum. When I first met her, I felt the responsibility we have to her. To raise her and care for her and love her and to teach her who she is in this world. To teach our children their culture and language and for them to know their lands.
We have a capital city being built on our Country and it’s consuming us. Every day there are new buildings and new suburbs and new highways. It’s devastating to watch our Country being destroyed in front of our eyes and not being able to stop it. My dad’s generation grew up in a different world from us. When he was a kid he walked all across our lands. He hunted and fished, and as he walked with family they were able to eat our native foods, hear stories about our lands and speak our language. My generation can’t do that. When we travel across our Country, there’s fences and roads and prisons and shopping malls. We have creeks where, for countless generations, we gave birth to our children and now we can’t even swim there because of chemicals and toxic waste. Our sacred waters, which greeted our babies into life, have been poisoned. There is so much of our Country that has been taken from us to build Darwin and I’m worried for our children and for the generations of Larrakia people to come.
Lee Point holds so much of our knowledge. It is one of the last places in the urban area where we can access a dense source of our native food, medicine, weaving and building materials. It has Dreaming stories that connect us as a people and land that holds our ancient ceremony. There is a version in all of this where Lee Point is returned to Larrakia people and we can heal and strengthen our land, language and culture. A place where I can bring my daughters and all of our children so they know who they are and where they come from. If we lose Lee Point and we lose that knowledge, I don’t know what will become of our culture, our language, our children and our people …
Like all Indigenous people, I want everyone to know how beautiful my Country is and how much we love our land. I want to show how much it gifts us so readily, so generously, without asking for anything in return, just for us to love it and protect it, as it has always loved and protected us.