Yolŋu Metaphors for Learning

Raymattja Marika was the first Yolŋu to teach Yolŋu language and culture program at Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University). She was born and grew up on her own Rirratjiŋu land in the community of Yirrkala. As Yolŋu educators began to develop more control over the curriculum in their schools during the 1980s, community elders both Dhuwa and Yirritja worked with the Yolŋu teachers at Yirrkala school to develop Yolŋu curriculum. Raymattja worked with Michael Christie to make clear in English the meaning and significance of five of the key concepts – galtha, dhiṉ’thun, ḻundu-nhäma, dhuḏakthun and gatjpu’yun – that had been given to the Yolŋu Action Group by the elders.

Metaphors for Yolŋu are more than metaphors. Rather, they are distinct knowledge practices happening here-and-now. The five key concepts positioning this paper as one of world philosophies are experientially praxial for Yolŋu to love our homelands and Ancestral creating beings to become confident to be true Yolŋu in the contemporary Australia.

Yolŋu Metaphors for Learning

by Raymattja Marika-Munuŋgiritj and Michael J. Christie

All languages use metaphors to describe and understand what happens when we learn. In English, a common metaphor is LEARNING IS UNCOVERING SOMETHING THAT IS HIDDEN. This metaphor is at work when we say things like “We found out about rocks and metals,” and “They discovered how to make metal out of rocks.” It is a metaphor that leads us to believe that knowledge is not something constructed through negotiation but is something we find if we look hard enough and if we are lucky enough. The metaphors that Yolngu use for learning are quite different. Our school (Yirrkala Community School, Northeast Arnhem Land, Australia) has been exploring the use of Aboriginal ways of making knowledge in the classroom. The school council is using community elders as consul­tants in developing a Yolngu curriculum, which teaches the children Yolngu knowledge and Yolngu ways of knowing.

We have examined examples of Yolngu metaphors for learning that were given to us by Yirrkala community elders during discussions about curriculum. These were metaphors chosen by our elders to show how schooling for Yolngu children must be consistent with traditional Yolngu ways of education.

Five words that we often hear when Elders talk about education are galtha, dhiṉ’thun, ḻundu-nhäma, dhuḏakthun, and gatjpu’yun.

Galtha is a connecting spot. Sometimes a place can be seen as a galtha. Recently we have been learning about a place near Dhalinybuy, the traditional homeland of some of our students, which is known as a galtha. This was a place where people used to gather at certain times of year, for sacred ceremonies and for the collection of cycad nuts and the preparation of sacred cycad bread. The people would sit in the galthaarea, not on seats or blankets, but on the ground, different families and groups of people, gathering together from different areas, there for a special collective purpose, negotiating together and getting ready for special activities together – maybe hunting, maybe ceremonies. This is a galtha – the spot where people make solid contact with the earth, when they have been brought together from different places, and now they are having a discussion together to agree on a plan of action.

Anywhere there is a ceremony, there will be a galtha. Every ceremony must be different, because its art lies in creating that ceremony to specially reflect the participants and the place and the time. This takes a lot of planning and discussion on the part of the most knowledgeable people – discussion about which song lines to choose, which people should be involved, what roles they will play, and how to make this particular ceremony special and unique – to reflect this particular moment and place. When the discussion is finished, and people are happy about the plans that have been negotiated, a small but special ceremonial act is performed – galtha-ŋurrkama ‘throwing the galtha’. Sometimes it is marked as a spear thrusting into the ground out of which the ceremony will grow (just like the Central Australian man on Imparja television who throws the spear that turns into a tree when it pierces the ground). When the galtha is thrown down, everyone knows the connection has been made, a decision has been agreed to, on how once again to bring the past into the present. We have decided on a plan, a way of going about creating something special and beautiful for ourselves.

Galtha is everywhere; wherever Yolngu “Aboriginal” and Balanda “non-Aboriginal” people are acting properly, there is the possibility of galtha. Galtha is the name the community elders gave us for our Aboriginal curriculum in the school – a constant reminder that our knowledge comes from the context of our learning, and that we must negotiate an agreement about our perspectives if we are to produce significant knowledge.

How can a Yolngu student in school learn to produce galtha? Daymbalipu Mununggurr, a Djapu clan elder and teacher from many years ago, has told us about using metaphors from hunting, history, and ceremony.

First, dhiṉ’thun. This word is often used to mean identifying the tracks of animals and following the tracks to find the animal. As we learn, we learn to recognize what we see in the environment, and how it can help us. We need the skill of dhiṉ’thun in order to understand the clouds and the tides, the animal tracks and the flowers, the clan totems and the sacred designs, and the songs that have come from the creation. Dhiṉ’thun, in this sense, speaks of research. We use it to describe the way we find out about our history, and about the way we follow up decisions that have been agreed upon.

Next, ḻundu-nhiima. Nhäma means ‘to see’. Ḻundu has many possible translations in English. Often it is used to mean a journey, usually referring to the journey made through the land by the creating ancestors, or the pathway taken by these ancestors. It also refers to the footsteps and the gait, or manner of walking, of these people. Ḻundu is also the word for friend, or companion, someone who thinks and feels so close to you, they are almost like your reflection.

The part of a Yolngu education described as ḻundu-nhäma means identi­fying the pattern and the style of the past. This refers particularly to our forebears, our ancestors, but also to the elders of the present day. First we must recognize what has gone before and know exactly how it fits in with the whole web of meaning which makes Yolngu life – dhiṉ’thun. Then we must identify the pattern or style of how it was performed in the past (ḻundu-nhäma). Literally, we must “see the journey” taken by our ancestors, and this involves identifying the land, and the people they have interacted with through the years, their motivations, their loyalties, their ideas, and everything else which has made them great. We say ḻundu­-nhäma because, even if we can’t actually see the creators and the ancestors, we can still see their ḻundu – exactly where they have been, what they have left behind, their signs and reflections, their images, and their way of life. We can see all those things because we can read them in the land, and they have been passed down to us through their songs.

Something special happens if we are able to dhiṉ’thun and ḻundu-nhäma accurately. What happens is that we begin to reproduce dhuḏakthun, the lives of our ancestors, in the same way that allowed them to preserve our knowledge and our culture for thousands of years and bring it right up to the modem world. This is more than just copying what the ancestors have done. Dhuḏakthun has the effect of bringing our spiritual past to life again through our modem behavior. It also has an effect on ourselves – putting us “in tune with” our spiritual past, shaping us like our ancestors. This is something quite natural for us, but very difficult for many Balanda to understand. Yolngu education is not about young Aboriginal people following their ancestors like robots. And Yolngu education is not about young people learning to do just what they feel like. Yolngu education is learning to love and understand our homeland and the ancestors who have provided it for us, so as to create a life for ourselves reworking the truths we have learned from the land and from the elders, into a celebration of who we are and where we are in the modern world.

A man who is a good dancer, who knows his connections and his land and understands his rom (law and culture), can produce his own galtha. This is what we are aiming for in Yolngu education. A man who is galtha-gänaŋumirri (literally ‘possessing a different and distinctive galtha’), can present his own galtha in the context of a ceremony and is much admired. He can act intelligently as an individual because he knows and respects the background to what he is doing. He is a unique indivi­dual. He isn’t just copying his ancestors. He isn’t just keeping Yolngu culture unchanged like a museum piece. He has learned to create some­ thing that is especially his own, but quite consistent with the past. When he is galtha-gänaŋumirri he is loved and admired. He is a modem Yolngu keeping his Yolngu culture strong.

What about the future? A young Yolngu man or women who has benefitted from a good education, in both worlds, will be like a turtle hunter, waking up in the morning, looking out to sea, paddling out to a special place on the reef, preparing to catch a turtle. He is gatjpu’yun. He is hopeful and expectant. He is happy because he is in familar territory. He knows the currents and the winds, and there may be danger out there on the hunting ground, but he is still confident because he has the strength and knowledge of his culture behind him. Gatjpu’yun means that we are excited and hopeful and confident for the future. We know what we are looking for. It is not a discovery we are looking for, but the knowledge and skills to be true Yolngu in the modem world.