Free Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing by Sally Morgan Page A

seeds, particularly acacia seeds, in a hole in the ground. We used to line the hole with grass, put in a layer of seeds and cover it with bark and then sand. Later, when there was no food left in the bush for us togather, we came back to get it. We pulled the seeds out of the hole. To get rid of the strong wattle seed smell, we washed them. We cooked them in the fire and then ground them with water till they became a paste, and we ate it like that.
    When people went hunting for animals in the hot season, they made sandals for themselves from the bark of the
yakapiri
bush. And that is what they called the sandals, yakapiri. These protected their feet from the burning hot sand. They speared foxes, feral cats, wallabies and sand goannas. The
majirri
has disappeared from the desert now.
    Sometimes in the hot season, we’d set off to a waterhole a long way off. We’d set off late in the afternoon, when the day was a little cooler, carrying water in our coolamons. As we walked, we drank the water until there was none left. When it was time to camp for the night, the adults found a claypan that had recently held water. They dug up some of the damp clay and threw it around on the ground to make a cool place for us to sleep. We set off again early in the morning while it was still cool, and went on to the jila.
    I’ll tell you some more about when I was a child. I was taught to use a coolamon for separating seed from the sand and bits of grass. My grandmother took my hands and held them under the coolamon. ‘This is the way you separate the seed,’ she said, as she showed me how to shake it. She taught me not to jerk the coolamon around, because then the seed wouldn’t separate properly. I didn’t really master that separating action till a long time later, when I wasbigger. By then I could do a good job of separating the seed from the debris.
    I learned to cook meat in the same way. I used to kill small animals and bring them home uncooked. My grandmother and I lit the fire, then she said, ‘Bring me a
yirnti
and we’ll cook the meat. You must leave the meat in the coals until it’s well cooked. You can’t eat it if it’s only half done. You can only eat it if it’s cooked properly.’
    I also learned to cook ngarlka by moving them around in the fire. When we had raked them about in the coals for a certain length of time, they’d be just right to eat.
    Sometimes a mother dog brought back lizards and regurgitated them whole for her puppies. We snatched them from the pups and rolled them in the sand to clean off the slime. Then we cooked them on the fire and ate them.
    My grandmother used to tell me about the people with the pink skin, called
kartiya.
I was curious and kept asking her about them. I imagined kartiya were like trees or dogs or something.
    â€˜What are kartiya like? Do they look like blood? Or are they like ashes? Tell me.’
    She’d answer, ‘No, they are like people. They have two eyes, a mouth and a nose. And two hands.’
    â€˜Do they have hair?’
    â€˜Yes, of course they have hair.’
    I had often seen blood. When I killed a small lizard, some of its blood dripped onto my hand or onto thewooden shovel. ‘Are kartiya the colour of this blood from the lizard?’ I’d ask.
    â€˜Yes, just like that.’
    I was really curious about these kartiya.
    Abridged from
Two Sisters: Ngarta & Jukuna

Ngarta Jinny Bent, Jukuna Mona Chuguna, Pat Lowe and Eirlys Richards;
translated from the Walmajarri by Eirlys Richards, 2004.

Joan Winch
MY MOTHER
    My mum was an undemanding sort of a person who couldn’t say no to people. She used to always do things for others, like washing, cooking and house cleaning. If somebody came to the door who needed her help it was never too much trouble. That’s probably the way she was brought up, to go and do things for other people, for white people, you know, because they used to train