PHDDD public info

how did i get here

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it's more about what i am referring to
I was born in Brisbane, Queensland 10 years before the official stolen generation policies stopped and 6 months after Aboriginal people were recognised as citizens. I spent the first 34 years of my life in a suburb called Wynnum. My mother was born in Bellshill in Scotland and my father is Aboriginal and Irish. My great grandmother Ada Hooper was born on Tinnenburra Station to Lizzie and Samuel Hooper, and she had my grandfather Colin in Cunnamulla. It is from this web of people that the most reliable knowledge comes about our connections to Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari.
Language was not freely shared in my childhood as my Ancestors were forced to give it up as part of the cost of exemption certificates. I started to learn Yuwaalaraay language from early historical books like The Euahlayi Tribe by K. Langloh Parker and sound recordings by Janet Mathews but without daily practice or access to other speaker, I was just parroting. During Covid, Dubbo tafe began online classes run by elders Aunty Beth and Uncle John. These learning yarns gave me a new understanding of the purpose and reason [words Uncle John would never let us forget] of language and each word within it. It is from this web of people that I realised I had been learning how to say Yuwaalaraay, but not how to tell it.
After the courses finished, i started two facebook groups, dhubaanmala to keep in touch with other speakers, and tinnenburra-baa to increase Hooper / Johnston connection across the borders. I am not yet fluent and may never be but I practice everyday. Even with the limited knowledge I have so far of Yuwaalaraay, it is enough to highlight the differences that I now see between what was collected from our Ancestors and what they were reported as saying.
I am not referring to sterotyped opinion like that of Mitchell (1852) in the excerpt above, ignorant sentiments that fed a nation's view. My focus is on Authors who were collecting information, language etc directly from our people but rather than check purpose and reason, they started to create "facts' from their own assumptions. F or instance, Barlow in the passage below, where our Ancestors appear to not have the capacity to count rather than the truth of having no need for high numbers. It is almost like the Collecters moulded our words into a colonised view.
Nowadays, research methods and ways of recording history are much more inclusive with cultural knowledge holders having more control in clarification and publication. For language research, it means our culture and purpose are recognised as part of the words, and the words are recognised as part of the culture and purpose. Much of this came about because of the courage of past Indigenous researchers who not only acknowledged the absence of our voice but created new methods to ensure it would be heard. .
While that change is itself a cause for celebration, for me it is important that it is not left at that as all unclarified historical research impacts future studies as it constricts the view of the past. Our new knowledge holders, our emerging elders, who now have wider access to the world and less access to community and elder confirmation will find these Ancestoral voices when looking up historical records but they will hear them within the limitations of how they were first collected.
So in my Masters year, I focused on ideas on how to deconstruct historical knowledge from a few different vantage points. Armed with my new found ideas and many language misinterpretations, I approached Charles Darwin University and told them that many words and pronounciations and nuances do not align with the knowledges handed down in community and that I was worried that what we are now nurturing is a colonial interpretation of what our Ancestors shared. They said, hey why don't you research it!

Our languages were collected because they thought we would die out

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- , and you and us and them leant on that knowledge to live in the world. Institutional knowledge making, and how this holds fixed certain stories of self, but also of peoples. has the impact of clouding future studies and ??? of future knowledge holders.

but new set of relationship .. appropriate practices associated with the language are lived between you and me and the others

While there may be truth that we do not, in the English sense of the terms, collect things or archive things or record things, we do things and we get together and share things. Doing research is an important part of the practice.

The central theme that threads throughout our (research) practices is whatever the opposite of “Othering” is. A widely used term in reference to exclusion of a people, first blessed upon me in Evans, tebrakunna country and Lee (2022). I am yet to find an exact description as it ascends inclusion and respect. 

Combined with Wilson (2008) RESEARCH CONDUCTED ON AND BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLES - that I will extend my exploration into other Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari texts. - but the primary source was not utilised for clarification, only for collection

what makes me any different

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I am accountable, not like Mitchell – to the framework of acceptable knowledge collection of the time. Not like Oates – incorporating and acknowledging respective practices. But like fellow Yuwaalaraay, who have held the knowledge up against the light and saw different kinds of knowers and practices of knowing that were mutually present, and never acknowledged.

what is a maniilayndindaay and Wanda? 

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i had to find a word for researcher. There are words for wisdom and discussion and talk and find but none of them seem to fit. The world of my Yuwaalaraay has changed and I needed a title that would signify a data hunter. - There have always been data hunters, in every culture, the role, the identity is not new, the wording, the placement of that role is new

why only Yuwaalaraay, why not Muruwari too 

i have every intention of doing the same with Muruwari, but don't quite have the fluency in the language. I would have preferred to focus on both languages

it's more about what i am referring to

How we determine how to go forward

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consent forms

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it's more about what i am referring to

A bit about me

The knowledges that I have stem from a family of scottish immigrants wanting a new life and tarnished as trash and an Aboriginal family wanting an old life and tarnished as trash.

I am a descendent of the Yuwaalaraay and Muruwuri peoples who come from the land of what is now known as NSW and QLD border, and the Scots whose land is currently claimed by British Ownership. I was born in Brisbane in QLD 10 years before Aboriginal people were recognised as citizens. I spent the first 34 years of my life in a suburb called Wynnum. My great grandmother Ada Hooper was born on Tinnenburra Station to Lizzie and Samuel Hooper, and she had my grandfather Colin in Cunnamulla. It is from them that the most reliable knowledge comes about our connections to Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari. My father and I survived the generation of exemption.

There are changemakers and there are gatekeepers and Aboriginality needs both. I have a set of skills born from biology, experience and history that points me in the Gatekeeper direction

My story

I am a descendent of the Yuwaalaraay and Muruwuri peoples who come from the land of what is now known as NSW and QLD border, and the Scots whose land is currently claimed by British Ownership. I was born in Brisbane in QLD 10 years before Aboriginal people were recognised as citizens. I spent the first 34 years of my life in a suburb called Wynnum. My great grandmother Ada Hooper was born on Tinnenburra Station to Lizzie and Samuel Hooper, and she had my grandfather Colin in Cunnamulla. It is from them that the most reliable knowledge comes about our connections to Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari. My father and I survived the generation of exemption.

There are changemakers and there are gatekeepers and Aboriginality needs both. I have a set of skills born from biology, experience and history that points me in the Gatekeeper direction

in my career, I work with clients, to breakdown historical truths that were imposed by others. Others such as parents, teachers, government, religion etc who had the power of definition in a particular circumstance. i find that when people seek healing, they come clutching a story that they and others may only have considered from a select viewpoint. i combine these skills with my cultural and life experiences to expand those viewpoints.

# why me - gut response - respect for experience and education - deeply embedded instinctual connection to something that gives me information, gives me keys on how to go forward - i am uniquely suited to the project - mention language work

yaama, gayrr ngaya djidjidan. brisbane-da queensland gaanga-nhi ngaya. ngaya gi-yaa-nha gaay guwaa-li yuwaalaraay-gu ngayagay english-gu gaay-a hello, myname is jedison. I was born in brisbane in queensland and I am going to talk in yuwaalaraay and english nhama bubaa-dhi gary johnston this is my father gary johnston wynnum brisbane-da gaangi-nhi nguru he was born in wynnum in queensland nhama gunii-dhi catherine wilson this is my mother catherine wilson bellshill-da scotland gaangi-nhi nguru she was born in bellshill in scotland nhama dhilaagaah-dhi colin johnston this is my grandfather colin johnston cunnamulla-da brisbane gaangi-nhi nguru he was born in cunnamulla in queensland garrimaay burrulbidi ngaya ada hooper ada hooper is my great grandmother ?? her life began on tinnenburra station and many of my great aunts and uncles were born and raised there ada’s parents were samuel and lizzie hooper, and it is from them that the most reliable knowledgge comes about our lands. samuel being Yuwaalaraay and lizzie being Muruwari. These are best guesses based on wisdom handed down through other families, records and our own mob yarns. If your ancestors are from Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander lands, you may already know of the colinisation methods used to move us, reduce us and assimilate us. And, as i’m finding out from this project, just because something was recorded by a whitefella, doesn’t make it true. wuu-nhi-baa ngaya yinarr-baa aboriginality is my inheritance ngaya dhuwi dhurra-li WITH gaay-biyaay, girruu-biyaay ngayagay gaay guwaa-lda-ndaay i express my identity with words, truth and story telling waan ngaya dhayndalmuu narrative gaay wuu-na dhayn-gu gaay-a gamil guwaa-y my work as a narrative counsellor gives voice to peoples stories that have not been told buwabil ngaarribu-dhi ngaya yuwaalaraay language is my legacy ngaya wuu-na biiba-gal balal ngiyaningu dhayn-gu gaay i give voice to the unwritten pages of our people bidjaay nhama yuwaalaraay ganungunda biiba-gal yuwaalaraay is the ink to those pages ngarragaa bidjaay balal alas the ink is dry nhama ngarray .. yilambiyal ngaya yuwaalaraay dhiirra-nhi biibabiiba-nhi old you see in the past, I learned language from historical books gaadhal ngaya-bala gi-la-nhi but I was only a parrot gaay gawaa-y guwaa-li yiyal nganha dhirra-li repetition only teaches me to say language ngaya-laa bamba dhirra-nhi dhilaagaa ? yinarraa? TAFE-gu then I learnt properly from Elders at TAFE ngaya yilaambiyal-gu gaay giirruu yuwaalaraay winanga-y-la-nha I began to understand yuwaalaraay purpose and reason ngaya yilaambiyal-gu yuwaalaraay dhubaanma-y I began to tell language then I went back to the history books and their purpose and reason did not make sense ngarranma-li-badhaay ngaya nginuhna let me show you You can contact me by phone, text and marco polo on 043 555 0084, email at girrabirrii@proton.me or through messenger: jedda wells. Also, if you are passing through the lands of the Gundungurra (Robertson) we can catch up face to face and every few months I make the trek through Tubbagah (Dubbo), Yuwaalaraay (Lightning Ridge), Bigambul (Goondiwindi), Turrbal and Jagera (Brisbane), Kunja (Cunnamulla) and Muruwarri throughout that trek.