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

Indigenous Australians are renowned for the specificity of their local knowledge, and
seasonal calendars which collate plants, animals, and other indicators of changing seasons
are now an established and valued part of documenting local or Indigenous knowledge
(Prober, O‟Connor et al. 2011; Woodward, Jackson et al. 2012). A full Indigenous seasonal
calendar for Oriners was not part of the research scope for this project, but generating a
specific Oriners calendar would be one useful focus for a future research project. Strang
(1997:180) provides the seasonal categories for Kunjen and the key natural events which
relate to them (such as beefwood flowering or fish becoming fat). This she contrasts with a
pastoral calendar driven by the basic distinction between wet and dry, months of the year,
and the rhythms of pastoral activities. During the course of the interviews, research
participants noted a number of ways they predicted or observed changes in the season,
including bird calls, plants flowering, the presence of animals in the landscape, or wind
changes, and this information is collated in Appendix 8.2. However this collation represents
observations of in-year variation across the areas known to the speakers rather than a full
seasonal calendar for the Oriners area. It demonstrates possibilities and foundations for
Oriners seasonal data gathering rather than a completed process.
However, alongside the capacity of seasonal indicators to demonstrate knowledge of withinyear
variability, two further comments about such knowledge will be made here, both
emerging from comments made by research participants. One is that such indicators are only
reliable within a certain, sometimes quite restricted range. At Kowanyama, dollar birds arrive
just before the wet, but this is not true elsewhere, as Alan Creek describes:
Different old fellers will tell you different things depending on where they come from. Some
people told me that the dollar bird18 came after the wet season, so if you saw it you knew
the wet was over. When I got here [Coen area], one old feller told me that was not true in
this area! If you saw the bird here it meant that more rain was coming. If you go to different
places, different mobs will tell you different things. Storm birds can howl here anytime. So
you can‟t say „that‟s not true‟. Different places got different things, like that dollar bird.
Alan Creek
Alan‟s comments suggest that the collation in 8.2 should be treated with caution, and that
constructing a full seasonal calendar for Oriners should only be attempted once people are
residing in (or at least regularly able to access) the area throughout the year.
The second comment relates to the observations made above that the weather had
noticeably changed over the course of peoples‟ adult lives. At least for the present, the
seasonal indicators seem to be robust enough to continue to mark significant changes in the
course of the yearly cycle:
Marcus Barber: Is that wattle signal still working? Like you said that the rains were a bit
mixed up…
Ivan Jimmy: It‟s alright. Still see a lot of wattle on the creeks.
Marcus Barber: and when you see that you can still go and find the eggs?
Ivan Jimmy: You can find it in the sand right there.
Marcus Barber: so the rain is getting mixed up but the crocodiles and flowers are still
connected?
18 Scientific term for the dollar bird is Eurystomus orientalis. It is also known as inh abijar
in the local Olkol language (Hamilton online dictionary)
Working Knowledge at Oriners Station, Cape York
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