WHEN I ring Michael Jarrett to arrange this interview he answers in fluent Gumbaynggirr - the language of his ancestors, traditionally spoken between the Nambucca River in the south (southern dialect) and the Clarence River in the north (northern dialect) and west past Guyra (tablelands region).
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"Giinagay jinda ... Ngiinda darruy?"
"Hello sister ... are you well?"
The words sound guttural, earthy, unfamiliar to my ears.
The ease with which Michael speaks them is exactly why I want to talk to him - he is one of a handful of tutors working in schools and community colleges revitalising the language and sharing it in its traditional land.
Born in the heart of Gumbaynggirr country in Macksville Hospital 1958, Michael grew up on the Aboriginal reserve at Bellwood next to Nambucca Heads.
“At that time they (the government) were moving the families from the settlement on Stuart Island to Bellwood,” Michael said.
“My parents, Shirley Jarrett (nee Marshall) and Jacky Jarrett, had a shack at the back of the reserve. It burnt down when I was two or three years old. My mother died in that fire.”
He went to school in the area until he was 16 but said it was hard.
In our culture it is rude to ask direct questions.
- Michael Jarrett
“My people had only been talking English for three or four generations, it was ‘convict’ English, not the King’s English. What we spoke at home was different to what was spoken at school and I just didn’t understand the teachers.”
Michael said the struggles of limited vocabulary and strange sentence structure were compounded by the fact that raising your hand to ask a question is not part of his culture.
“In our culture it is rude to ask direct questions we do ‘sideways talk’ which uses indirect questions. I didn’t understand what was happening around me and I couldn’t ask!”
He left school as soon as possible and his life descended into what he calls his ‘lost years’ the 70s, which were a haze of alcohol and drugs.
“I got married to a woman from Bowraville and we had two children - one of them died at three months. We were together for five years. Then I was with an Aranda woman from Alice Springs. We had nine children together. It was when our third child, Jacinda, was at preschool in Bellwood that my journey with language and teaching started.
“All the alcohol stopped and I got on the committee at the preschool. From there I became a childcare worker, studying at first at the Bowraville Annex of TAFE before doing an Associate Diploma of Early Childhood Care at Armidale. (Michael has continued studying, including completing a Masters of Indigenous Language from Sydney University).
“In 1997 Muurrbay (Language and Culture Cooperative) opened its doors right next to the preschool and I started doing their Gumbaynggirr language course. Whatever I learned, I took it straight next door to the kids - they loved it.”
Michael said this pattern of sharing has continued.
“I learn something and then I pass it on. I love speaking the language and sharing the language. It connects me to who I am and where I come from, it makes me proud and I think my ancestors would be proud too, to hear the language spoken and the songs being sung.
“My ancestors, they were stopped from speaking (their language) and now we’ve got it back. The land can hear it again and I think it’s good to share it freely as that will make it stronger ... that’s good for the land.”
The successes of the Gumbaynggirr ‘Language Nest’ based at Muurrbay are impressive it is among the strongest in NSW with language now being taught in high schools from South Grafton down to Macksville and primary schools across the region, including Scotts Head, Repton, Urunga and Raleigh.
Classes are held in Grafton, Coffs Harbour and Macksville TAFE plus a number of community colleges. Recently the second edition of the Gumbaynggirr Dictionary was published and a book of stories and songs is close to completion.
Revitalising a language that existed for thousands of years, spoken by those who lived a nomadic life in the bush, requires research and creativity.
Michael is an enthusiastic member of the team bringing Gumbaynggirr into the 21st century, creating words for items such as ‘mobile phone’ – ‘muya banggi’ which means ‘breath flies’.
“This is something different this is Aboriginal people doing this. We use old words to make new ones ... often it is very funny, playing with the language, we laugh a lot. I love seeing the language develop.”
Back in the classroom, painting with clay, teaching dance and talking about spirits are all part of how Michael engages his students.
Playing ‘Snakes and Ladders’ using dice with Gumbaynggirr numbers is another tool in his language kit.
“I want all the kids, Aboriginal and nonAboriginal, to walk away with a better understanding of Aboriginal people and culture and a passion to share that.
“Those relationships between people and the air, the water and the trees are so important we often forget that. Language helps build those connections and all that resonates out into the universe.
“Sharing that will make us and this land strong.”