WfHC - cover page (not to be used with pre-printed report ... - CSIRO

Edwin David
Most of the older buildings have now been eaten away by termites and weathering, but the
stockman‟s quarters remain and the Oriners Mob plan to restore and recondition this building
for both its historic value and for future use. The revived presence of Kowanyama people has
enabled a new generation to understand and appreciate what Oriners had to offer:
Marcus Barber: So how did you feel in the wet season? Was it a bit boring when you can't
go anywhere?
Louie Native: No it was alright. I loved it there. As long as the rain was coming down,we
wasn't going anywhere that far. We were just catching fish off the lagoon.
Marcus Barber: What did you enjoy about it?
Louie Native: I liked it when, you know, the water was flowing over the ground there,
flooding all over the place there. Dampening the place up, making it look green.
Marcus Barber: You like to see that?
Louie Native: Yeah, especially way out there.
Marcus Barber: And what did you do with yourselves? Did you just go fishing and relax? Or
did you have jobs around the house?
Louie Native: Yeah, we used to do some jobs. Like put some stuff away that is a bit too low
for them, the water would get there. We would just put it in the shed and pack it away.
Marcus Barber: But when it was really flooding did you just have to relax and wait until the
water came back?
Louie Native: Yeah, we just waited until the water flowed [away]. When it was dropping
down, we would get time to go to the shed and do things we were going to do.
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Marcus Barber: How did it feel in the wet?
Viv Sinnamon: Nice. The first time we came up here...you‟d get up early in the morning and
all the spider webs had dew on them, it was magic. It really was quite beautiful. Some of
the area was flooded, I mean the water was quite high, and back areas were flooded, and
we were actually tracking goannas in the water. You were following them in the grass, so
you‟d have to track and they‟d go from ant bed to ant bed. And I and Lefty went for a
couple of interesting walks, but at that time I didn‟t know the place that well and I can‟t
remember much. It was over the back of the house and out and around you know. And that
intrigued us all, because it was how you track a goanna in the wet season.
Marcus Barber: Is that part of what endeared the place to you, seeing it in the wet?
Viv Sinnamon: Yeah, it was just another face to a beautiful place. And I think that‟s what
Brolga and the others see too, the difference. The quiet and the isolation they like. They
like this bush
Marcus Barber: They like the way it feels?
Viv Sinnamon: Yeah.
The new residential and hunting opportunities at Oriners led to new kinds of connections.
This included naming places for which no previous name was remembered:
Viv Sinnamon: There‟s places where you can go and grab a crayfish, like T-Bone
Waterhole. We‟re just being careful because there was a young feller who passed away
and his nickname was T-Bone.
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
96