The land that no one owns
At Murwangi Safari Camp, the most extraordinary thing on offer isn’t the wildlife or the wetlands. It’s the chance to spend time with someone who has 60,000 years of knowledge to share.
WORDS Mark Daffey
As is the case with many Australians, my ancestry can be traced back to Europe. It includes Irish, Norwegian and Swiss heritage. The first of our clan to emigrate to Australia were two brothers who sailed down the Atlantic then across the Indian Ocean from County Clare, arriving in Victoria during 1852. Compared to Frankie Guninyirrnyirr’s lineage, we may as well have arrived yesterday.
It’s difficult to imagine my family living in one place for 60,000 years. That’s how long Frankie’s mob have occupied the Yolngu country that British explorer Matthew Flinders labelled Arnhem Land in 1803. Frankie grew up in Ramingining, a remote Aboriginal community that’s located on the edge of a vast wetland region 560 kilometres east of Darwin.
“The Arafura Swamp is the largest freshwater ecosystem in Arnhem Land,” says Keith Hamelink, camp manager at Murwangi Safari Camp. “It’s also the largest paperbark swamp in Australia, spreading across an area measuring 1350 square kilometres during the wet season.”
The sodden country around Murwangi is arguably Australia’s version of the Okavango Delta in Africa. Wildlife flourishes here, both native and introduced. Our tented accommodation overlooks the Glyde River lagoon, a stomping ground that can support up to 300,000 waterbirds at a time. Herons, egrets, fish eagles, and comb-crested jacanas that are otherwise known as ‘Jesus birds’ for appearing as though they can walk on water… they’re all here.
Throw in thousands of Asiatic water buffalo and wild cattle that were originally introduced to Arnhem Land from Indonesia as beasts of burden, and have since thrived in the Arafura Swamp region, then you start to grasp the enormity of this giant ecosystem. And yes, there are crocodiles as well – nasty, bloated dinosaurs with sharp teeth and surly attitudes hiding in practically every patch of water. Swimming is most definitely out of the question. In fact, you’d be mad to even rinse your hands in a puddle around here.
Saltwater crocs aren’t the only reptiles loitering around Murwangi, either. Hamelink tells us that 40 per cent of all Australian reptile species are found in Arnhem Land. Around the camp, we might see dragons, skinks, frilled-neck lizards or tree snakes, which Hamelink describes as “the most harmless snake there ever was”.
The monitor lizard is another that’s often sighted, and it happens to be Frankie’s totem. “I’ll get sick if I eat them,” he says. It’s this totem that Frankie paints on one forearm, applying an ochre-coloured mix using a grass reed and a steady hand.
“Want me to paint one on your arm?” he asks, noting my admiration. Why, of course I do. After all, it’s not every day that the son of a famous artist chooses you as his canvas.
Frankie’s father, George Milpurrurru, has had his own artworks exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The most common theme of Milpurrurru’s painting is the magpie goose, and a quick glance towards the Glyde River lagoon betrays that inspiration.
Painting acts as an extension of Yolngu culture. It’s an opportunity for storytelling and has been going on forever. Long before Europeans came to East Arnhem Land, the Yolngu people had been painting Dreamtime stories on bark. Years before Eddie Mabo campaigned for Indigenous land rights, bark art was used to protest bauxite mining via the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, which were presented to the Australian Parliament in 1963.
Yirrkala is an Aboriginal community south of Nhulunbuy.
You could learn a lot about a place in 60,000 years. I’ll never know for sure, but I imagine you’d learn to appreciate its moods, brought about by the change of seasons and evidenced by variations in humidity or wind patterns, or the sudden appearance of dragonflies, or the flowering of the Darwin woollybutt. You’d understand that resources are finite and should therefore be taken care of. Like it or not, you’d become attached to it.
“This is my country. Murwangi is homeland,” says Frankie. “But you are welcome here.”
It’s touching to be – no, to feel – welcomed by Frankie, even if I can never truly understand what ‘country’ means. Our idea of ‘country’ tends to be the patch of land we own, the house we live in. But I’ve been told by people like Frankie that no one owns country. Rather, it owns us.
I’ve learned that country tells us when it’s angry, sending floods and fires to demonstrate its displeasure. It tells us when it’s happy, like when the grevilleas bloom, promising new life. And when rivers flow, nourishing thirsty soils. They say that if we look after country, country will look after us. It will provide.
Evidence of country’s provisions is all around us during a four-wheel drive adventure around Murwangi. We pause frequently so that Frankie can describe the edible, medicinal or practical uses of this plant or that. A scar in a stringybark tree shows where the bark was removed to make a canoe for navigating through the marshes, just like those used in Ten Canoes, the 2006 historical drama that was filmed in and around the Arafura Swamp.
He explains the insulating qualities of termite mounds that resemble church spires stretching for the heavens. He strips sharp-edged leaves from pandanus and cabbage palms for basket weaving, dilly bags and mats. He plucks green ants off branches and pops them into his mouth, inviting us to share in their citrusy goodness.
The idea that milkwood branches could be hollowed into pipes for smoking was passed on by Macassan traders who had sailed across the Arafura Sea in search of trepang, or sea cucumbers, several hundred years before Europeans set foot in Arnhem Land. Evidence of their visits remains in the form of tamarind trees that the Macassans planted on beaches to act as navigational aids, and through rock engravings illustrating praus, the traditional wooden outriggers the Macassans sailed over from Sulawesi.
With the sun’s last rays warming the ground later that afternoon, I’m listening to the sounds of nature on the lagoon when Hamelink swings by my tent on an all-terrain vehicle.
“Want to see something cool?” he asks. Of course I do, and I jump in beside him so he can guide the ATV through a gap in the mangrove bushes. Beyond those bushes is a totally unexpected sight – a muscular herd of buffalo, knee-deep in the watery marshes.
“Want to see what happens if we get a little closer?” Hamelink says. As we accelerate towards the herd, they turn on their heels and run, sending water everywhere. It’s the same when we come across a team of wild brumbies, only this time dust replaces water. Soon after, a dingo slinks through the shadows of a paperbark forest.
“It’s my favourite part of the day,” says Hamelink. “I never tire of it.” Neither would I, and the truth is: I’m envious. Of Hamelink, Murwangi’s temporary custodian. And of Frankie, it’s a traditional one. It’s no wonder he’s so proud of the place.