Yuwaalaraay threads through this page, if you can help improve my use of language, your guidance is welcome, also english punctuation has been limited as a show that Yuwaalaraay is my dominant voice
yaama gayrr ngaya djidjidan, yinarr Yuwaalaraay Muruwari. hello, my name is jedison wells, i am a Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari woman, therapist and phd student. thankyou for wanting to know more about the project. if listening is more your thing, click here to open an audio of this page it might take around ten minutes to read and at the end it would be of great benefit to me if you shared your thoughts, even if you don’t want to participate directly. also even though I am both Yuwaalaraay and Muruwari, the language of this study is Yuwaalaraay, because I am not yet fluent in Muruwuri. I would have preferred to focus on both languages
what is it?
this project asks yaamanda yanay barriyaygu? [will you come to the window?]. the window is a method called barriyay that i developed as a counsellor to support people and communities in revisiting historical trauma. in this study, the trauma to be revisited is the ignored and misinterpreted voices of our Ancestors when they shared language in historical whitefella1 research
where did it start?
i started to learn Yuwaalaraay and Muruwuri from early colonial books like the euahlayi tribe by k. langloh parker, written around 1905 and recordings collected by janet mathews and corinne williams from around the 1960s to the 1980s. as i didn’t live on country, learning options were limited until dubbo tafe began online classes run by elders Aunty Beth and Uncle John. these 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. 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. these relationships reinforced Uncle John’s wisdom and i realised that in the past, i had been learning how to say Yuwaalaraay, but not how to tell it.
when I went back to the books I started with, this new “telling” had me seeing stories different to the whitefellas published interpretation. for example, some Authors had moulded our knowledge into a colonised view, like 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 it
research methods and ways of recording history are much more inclusive in this century 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
all unclarified historical research3 impacts future studies because 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
how can it be done?
professionally, i am a narrative therapist working with clients, to breakdown historical truths that were imposed by others. people like 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 experiences of yarning and other Aboriginal2 ways to expand those viewpoints. one of the methods is yaamanda yanay barriyaygu, i call it barriyay for short. the approach invites clients to journey through a story from several vantage points: AS IT WAS KNOWN, AS IT WAS TOLD, AS IT IS KNOWN, and AS IT WILL BE TOLD to take back the power and be the one who determines how a story will be told going forward. barriyay developed from my initial readings the colonial texts. i was frustrated in the limiting messages that they gave and wanted to understand the many influences and intentions that were at play at the time
barriyay means window in Yuwaalaraay and i named this ‘place of viewing’ with language to remind myself of the multiple authorities necessary to understand a story, i.e. no one view can give a full picture and each view informs the complete picture. i see it as a window because i don’t want to rewrite a story, or make up a story or forget about one part of a story. i want to see the whole view and all the reasons why it became that way. when we know how something is constructed, we can then deconstruct it. barriyay will be the guide to help deconstruct the texts in this study, so our so our energy is pulled away from defeating the colonial conclusion [that’s already done] and be pushed towards making known what our Ancestors were actually saying, what other institutions of knowledge were at play, what needs were filled by our Ancestors sharing the information and what story we tell going forward
who is backing it?
charles darwin university has been really supportive on my wanting to use our own methods on this project, and in accepting that the presentation of data may not follow the “normative” models of 2024 language collection. there are still stringent ethics to follow though, and for good reason. our mobs have been used for research for centuries, and it is important that decisions around any discoveries are respectful within our definitions, our meaning past, present and emerging. it is of little use to our Ancestors experience if we simply replace a colonial limitation with our own limitation
how will it help Yuwaalaraay?
on a community level, the study will be set up so that descendants contribute alongside Ancestors to explore their material, apply our contexts and where necessary, re-tell the stories. i am interested in what might be shared back to us. what elements of communication worked well. whether barriyay actually helped locate alternative stories. whether the experience supported us in investigating our own histories and identities and whether we felt it was on our own terms. could our experiences support other language groups in similar journeys
on a wider level, i want to add to existing knowledge around the power of Indigenous interpretation of historical research. were different social, material or semantic configurations of knowledge work revealed. did we make known forgotten or different requirements for authorisation and continuation of stories. can future researchers develop a more complex perspective on what makes an authoritative account of peoples, places and cultures, when revisiting archival sources
is there a plan?
the rough draft is below. the expected commitment would be you and i yarning four times, twice just you and me and twice in a group
- yuwaalaraay descendants, over the age of 18, who have an understanding of yuwaalaraay language will be invited to participate
- 1st yarn for each individual over zoom or phone to yarn about the study, possible dates of availability and ask any questions
- formal arrangements will be made, such as specific texts and/or recordings, informed consent, participant information sheets, dates and times of next yarns and physical meeting spaces
- 2nd yarn for group over zoom to yarn about what it is we are looking for and set up agreements around safety and mens and womens business etc
- 3rd yarn for group in person to participate in the actual research. aiming to have everyone in the same group at the same time but we will see how this works once we know who is onboard
- 4th yarn either as individual or group to yarn about the experience and check in
- research will be analysed and you will have the opportunity to comment on the findings before the research is finalised
- phd will be submitted
what could go wrong?
staying within our own institutions of knowledge is not only a form of resistance against colonisation, but one of the ways in which our knowledge survives. our knowledge is not just language, it is the appropriate sharing practices that are lived between us. it is these practices that will require a slow step. this became visible for me, when i accessed Uncle Jimmy Barker’s tapes at AIATSIS in Canberra. the descriptions included references to hunting and ceremonial rituals, which as a Muruwari woman, I am not privy to. as an australian researcher though, it is all readily available to me. i spent the next month navigating through community for guidance and ultimately chose not to access the data. it is significant that as a group, we negotiate gender and generation based information. part of our second yarn will include whether we have enough participants that if we come across specific mens or womens or elder business [or other protections that might come up] that we can split into groups or whether we don’t access the information
just as important is the fact that we do not know what we do not know. we can’t foresee how any of us will respond to being exposed to the material or any new findings. the best we can do is put in place safe spaces and processes to keep each other safe from trauma when revisiting, and further individual protocols may come up in our second yarn
what is the phd question?
the official question is .. are alternative understandings possible – when Euhalari descendants deconstruct historical texts – written about their Ancestors by non-indigenous researchers – using the barriyay framework? i have broken it down a little below
- are alternative understandings possible .. we are looking for the voices of Ancestors that were not heard or ignored
- when Euhalari descendants deconstruct historical texts .. we as Yuwaalaraay [no matter how you spell it) will be doing the work
- written about their ancestors by non-indigenous researchers .. the specific texts are those where a non Indigenous person collected language directly from a Yuwaalaraay Ancestor, or through a Yuwaalaraay translator, and probably something from the late 1800s and the mid to late 1900s
- using the barriyay framework .. barriyay will guide us in where to look rather than in how to look, i.e. AS IT WAS KNOWN, AS IT TOLD, AS IT IS KNOWN, AS IT IS TOLD
what happens now?
if you leave at this point, I appreciate your visit and please come back to this page at any time to be updated on how the project is going
if you want to put your name down as a possible participant and/or have feedback on this page, the project, what texts to use, protocols, any ideas regarding how we can go forward, please go to the survey [pretty short] or contact me directly. sharing your thoughts or expressing interest does not bind you to anything. if you do become involved, it will be on terms that you understand and control, and at any stage of the research you have the option to say no thanks without explanation and leave it at that
I can be contacted 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
extra
- in August 2024, i am presenting my research intentions formally to the university, send me a message if you would like a zoom invitation to the live presentation
- click here to know more about me, my mob and my journey to this space [or if you are a Yuwaalaraay speaker as i’m looking for help to translate the page]
page notes
1 sometimes it is necessary to use a general term to refer to a person who is not an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person, I use the term whitefella
2 my ancestry is Yuwaalaraay, Muruwuri and Scottish. I have no link to Torres Strait Islander knowledge. when talking in a general form I do use the term Aboriginal and / or Torres Strait Islander but as a personal form I use the term Aboriginal
3 unclarified historical research is the data where findings have not yet been checked and confirmed by the people knowledgeable of the culture in the original research
click here for the personal journey travelled to get to yaamanda yanay barriyaygu