A Connection to Country; 'an ancient library of clay and stone beneath our feet. It's beautiful'. Learning to listen to Country, connecting to our Ancestors and the resilience of a Peoples. An interview with Lilly Clegg
Lilly was halfway through a weaving class when I arrived. She walked amongst the dense gumtrees, pulling vines and leaves from the trees around her. It was magic to watch, an ancient art coming to life before me.
As she finished her class, the two of us sat in the sunshine, amongst the rustling leaves of the Bloodwood and Melaleuca forest of Girrin-da (Corindi Beach) on Gumbaynggirr Country, yarning. Lilly is a local Gumbaynggirr woman, living on her Ancestral Lands. She was born on the South Coast in Shellharbour but grew up between Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr Country. After completing a host of studies; in construction, museum and library practices and conservation and land management, Lilly has landed at Yarrawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre. She is an artist, storyteller and Knowledge Holder. The knowledge she possesses and passion for sharing Gumbaynggirr values is unwavering. She is emotional in her approach and a vulnerable, deep thinker. Lilly is a strong leader in her Community and a guiding figure for younger Mob. Our conversations flow like liquid sunshine.
Lilly has become an imperative guide for me as I learn more deeply what is appropriate knowledge for me to hold and share from a non-Indigenous place in this space. She has taught me to understand the nuances of the Community, and the deep complexities in overcoming overt and insidious traumas exacerbated by systemic racism. I go with more confidence and ease when putting a piece of Native Asparagus or berries to my lips because of Lilly's knowledge.
I hope to share the deep Intelligence the Indigenous Knowledge Systems hold, specifically the Gumbaynggirr Country and remind us of the inherent beauty of the library of clay beneath all our feet. And to capture Lilly is her nuances, profoundly visceral connection to the Land around her and the beauty of her presence.
A Connection to Country
Lilly has a very strong and innate connection to her Elders and Ancestors. I ask her why this connection is important and how she feels it. For her, sitting on Country connects her to her Ancestors. Lilly sees herself as a small piece of a large tapestry of ongoing lineage rather than an individual separate from Nature. It is who she is.
She says, ‘the land remembers their lives, the stones and the Earth remember their [Ancestors] lives. It’s part of why I love being on Country and walking through Country'.
She describes how ‘sitting next to these old-growth trees that have been here 200-300 years, and they have memories of your Ancestors living around here. They recognise the energy of the people. It’s the trees; it’s the stones, it’s the earth that remembers their lives’.
It’s a belief in Gumbaynggirr Culture that the living memory of our ancestors is alive in spirit, and in moments of struggle, it is their wisdom and experience that Lilly draws strength from. This connection to Country was vital to the ways of her People. Lilly describes how her People lived with the land-
“Connecting to Country is as physical as it is spiritual and there was a deep sensory engagement in that. You had to know what was around you. Always watching for indicators of change. What kind of fruit and flowers were blooming, what kind of insects and birds were around, it’s all connected, and we knew what it all meant. Whereas when religion came in, you didn't need to know what was around you because it was up in the sky, and that's the only thing you needed. It didn't matter what the trees were doing. And that's like the walking through Country, you had to be aware of what was going on around you, not only for your own safety, but for the practice of finding food and finding shelter. If you heard the birds going off on the path over here, you'd have to keep an eye out for snakes and goannas because that's what the birds are going off at’.
The Old People
It is clear she is Lilly is immensely proud of her Gumbaynggirr heritage. The Gumbaynggirr People are known to be sharing and welcoming. Other communities would travel very far to spend the warmer months by the sea, where they were always invited to share in the abundance of natural resources here on the coast. They would come to trade tools and crafts, find husbands and wives, catch plenty of seafood to cook up and dance corroborree together under the stars. Radical acceptance is a part of the culture.
'Gumbaynggirr Country was a gathering place, so we have some of the largest middens here …than all the whole East Coast of Australia because we had so many people come and gather here and people would travel for months to come out and spend the summer at the ocean here in our lovely paradise and we'd be trading. All the places here along the coast are named after a resource that was really plentiful in that space'.
Lilly tells me about the ‘Old Camps’. With large group movements and people coming to the Country, the old Camps were important signposts of Community.
'So that [area on Red Rock River] was an ancient campground where people used to camp right from the headland right the way down the river. And there used to be so many fish in the river there, you could reach in and tickle them out with your hands'.
Camps were dotted all along the coast, from the north where Lilly and I sit, to the sites further south such as Bunyun Miirlarl.Lilly speaks of the challenges the Community currently faces and the destruction the Land has been subject to. She presses over her heart, and tears roll down her cheeks as she speaks of the devastation of the ancient Red Cedar Forests of the Clarence Valley being logged to extinction.
The Land is an "an ancient library of clay and stone beneath our feet. It's beautiful', Lilly says. As we speak, I can see her love and inherent connection with her Ancestors. A love most felt in the sacred sites of this Country.
Men’s and Women’s Sites
Giidany Mirrarl
Lilly refrains from speaking too much on Men's Sites as it is not her place. She does however accentuate the connectedness of Community to their sites and tells the story of Giidany Mirrarl (the scared moon place) on Muttonbird Island. She tells how Giidany, the Clever Man, was taken there by the Fern People, to be healed in the ocean waters after a he was gravely injured in battle. Lilly explains that the family of the Clever Man refused to help him because he had stayed out of the battle, and in return for helping him, Giidany gave the Fern People the gift of eternal life.
I ask Lilly if she has ever been there. She replies;
‘No I've never been there and I will never go there. It's a men's ceremonial place even though it's not currently used as a men's ceremonial place it's always going to be that. In the 200 years or 300 years of use of these places but if you take a step back further from that and look at it in the grand scheme of thousands of years of ceremony and practice and life on the coast, it's a blink of an eye’. Lily has a wonderful ability to ritualise moments and articulate how we are but a small moment in a collective and powerful history. She explains that ‘when you go into these places [Sacred Sites] the sand and the stones and the trees they all hold the memory and the energy of the place and what's happened in that area’.
Women’s Sites
Women's Sites hold a central place in our conversations. As two young women ourselves, this is of particular interest however, it is the area of Cultural Knowledge and Ceremony that Lilly is most deeply embedded in. There are two main Women's Sites that we speak about; Miimi-ga Gawnggan (Mary's Waterhole) in Wiilgulga and Bunyun Miirlarl (Corrumbirra Point Quarry). Water is the element of women, Lilly details, it represents nurturing, emotion and flow. She informs me that women used water to cleanse their spirits when they gathered for women's business, where men used fire and smoke for cleansing.
Mary's Waterhole
Lilly speaks to the destruction of a sacred fertility site, Mary's Waterhole.
'Mary's Waterhole up behind Sherwood, and in the days of logging the big red cedar from up the mountain, they were driving bullocks up and down the mountain with the logs. And the loggers, they put dynamite into the spring to try and make it bigger to water the bullocks, but they only ended up fracturing it’¹². Despite this, it has remained a space of sacred ceremonial practice for the Gumbaynggirr women for generations, and is protected as a registered sacred site now.
She tells me of her Ancestor Hero Gawnggan, a Clever Woman who had magic to sing the water. The name of the waterhole “Miimi-ga Gawnggan” is named for her and the magic she knew the waters held.
(The name Mary came from the linking of our three Ancestor Heroes with Christian figures of God, Mother Mary and Jesus. Yuludarla, our Spirit Ancestor, who was Spirit in the shame of a man, was seen as the Father, God. Gawnggan, his wife, a powerful Cleverwoman, was hailed as the Mother Mary (hence mary’s Waterhole) and Birrugan, their son, who was a young, handsome warrior with his own magics, was championed Jesus Christ. )
Lilly continues;
‘All of these sacred places where women would practice ceremony are places where there's natural springs, and because water's an element of women, and flow, and emotion, and nurturing, and it was also part of the (spiritual) cleansing that we would do in Ceremony.. We wouldn’t use fire and smoke, we would cleanse ourselves with water, whether it was salt water or fresh water’.
Still in the present day, Gumbaynggirr women attend to the site, sing together and look after the waters to support in its healing process.
Bunyun Miirlarl
Bunyun Miirlarl was a womens sacred healing place. As Lilly describes, 'It was a powerful healing place, and a ceremonial place for women, but if men were very sick, they would go there too, going by canoe or walking out at low tide. So inside of the island there was cave systems, and in the cave system there was a freshwater spring, it had healing powers and the fresh water of the spring would sit on top of the saltwater in the caves, so at high tide when the water blew out of a blowhole on the eastern side of the island, the fresh, healing spring water would shower down on them.
But again, the logging industry put dynamite into the caves and blew it up to quarry the rock, create a deep shipping port and to join the island to the mainland so the train could bring logs right to the ships.”
Both Lilly and I often reflect on how lucky we are to live here and call this place home. This Land has been my home since birth. I spent my childhoods running barefoot on the sand, exploring rainforest waterfalls and enjoy each day surfing its beautiful waters. We are proud of the Community in regaining their strength, in the energy that is being put towards Cultural retention and of the Land for its resilience.
I love being a collector and presenter of the complexities and tapestry of people's lives. Acquiring this knowledge of the snaking creeks and the intelligence of the landscapes I walk each day has ignited an immediacy and warmth within me to protect, nourish and listen to these Sites. However, most remarkably, I have been given the chance to connect and learn from an individual of such spiritual and intellectual depths.
Lilly has an unapologetic vulnerability and self-awareness yet remains steadfast in who she is. She is an example of what we can learn from Gumbaynggirr Country; there is a strength and resilience which has persevered through racial, commercial and industrial desecration. Lilly says she is proud of her Ancestors for being so accepting and peaceful and loving. And she is proud of her mob now for keeping strong in their Culture.
We can learn so much from Lilly, from her passion for restoring Culture, her listening to Country, and her hope that we can continue to progress while living in coexistence with Nature. If each of us were a little more like Lilly, we would have a community of kids that know the names of plants, the ebb and flow of seasons, and the knowledge to nurture Country. I am all the richer for having sat under the swaying trees for this yarn.
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