chapter 1
My name is Yarwan and I am Gunditjmara.
I like horses, dogs and cats, the bush, movies, reading, playing with my mates, the computer, my cousins and my flag.
My name means lightning. My brother’s name is Tarn and that means straight path.
I’m in Year 4. My brother is in Year 6. I’m a girl, but my good mates are mostly boys.
Better ways SAMPLE
identity
I can play with anyone. My best mate is Joe Pendleson. I can beat him at anything. My horse is called Riley and he’s my mate too. My brother’s horse is called Crissie and she’s grumpy. We live on a small farm with lots of animals. It’s about four paddocks from the beach.
We have a family meeting every Sunday night. It’s mostly just me, Tarn, Mum, Dad and some cousins, uncles and aunties who go. There’s a big feed first. Then we talk about what jobs need to be done, the holidays we can go on, family get-togethers and stuff like that. Dad says it gets all of us talking. Talking is very important.
We’re going to have a Totem Naming Day. Awesome! Dad told us at the last meeting. I can’t wait to find out what my totem is. Dad already knows his. It’s the crow. In our language we call him Waarrk.
There’s an old crow who hangs around our place. He’s cheeky. He pinches things sometimes, even baby ducks and geese.
So we put a cover on the duck pen. Even then, that old crow flew around the pen for a couple of weeks. He was looking for a way to get in and eat those ducklings and goslings.
“Why don’t you throw a stone to scare him away or something?” I asked.
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“You can’t hurt your totem,” said Dad. Sometimes Dad talks to the crow, calling him a mongrel—but in a real kind, sorta mate way. He says, “Waarrk, I know you’re hungry, ya mongrel. You could go and get a feed somewhere else.”
identity
I always wonder what my totem is and what it wants to eat.
I had a fight with Joe. I shoved him, and he fell down. He’s not my mate anymore. He said I was blond. He said I wasn’t black enough to be Aboriginal and Totem Naming Day was a rubbish idea. The principal asked me what happened. I told her. “There are a lot of fair-haired and light-skinned Aboriginals,” she said afterwards.
That made me feel better, but I was angry again by the time I got home. Dad listened to me, and then he said fighting was wrong.
“When do we fight?” he asked.
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“Only when we need to protect ourselves or others,” I said.
I thought about it a bit, and then I said, “But I was protecting myself, Dad.”
“There are better ways,” Dad replied. “How?” I asked, ’cause I wasn’t sure what he meant.
“With words and ideas,” Dad said. “Sometimes, people don’t understand what it means to be different. They can be hurtful in the way they talk. The best way to treat those people is gently—with a calm voice, not angry fists.”
Dad carried on. “A very wise person once said that being Aboriginal is not the colour of your skin or how wide your nose is. It’s a special feeling of belonging you just know in your heart. It’s difficult to understand if you’re not Aboriginal.”
My dad is real smart sometimes. I agreed with what he said, but I was still upset about Joe.
Then Dad smiled. He stroked my fair hair and gave me a gentle hero’s name: Punda Ngarat. He named me Yellow Hair in our old language.
chapter 2
Tarn mucked up. We both mucked up, but he mucked up more than me.
We were eating breakfast and Tarn said, “So, when’s Totem Naming Day, Dad?”
“Soon,” said Dad. He said it in that adult way that really means “don’t ask no more questions ’cause I’m busy”.
Tarn chewed a bit and looked at Dad.
“How soon?” he asked.
“Yeah, how soon?” I said.
Totem Naming Day SAMPLE
Dad looked up from his newspaper and chewed straight back at us. There was a chewing stare between all three of us.
Then Tarn said, “I wanna know what my totem is real bad.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
“Couple of weeks, I reckon,” Dad replied,
and started reading the paper again.
Tarn looked at me, and then at Dad. “But when?” he asked.
Dad smiled and said, “Well, maybe three weeks now.”
Tarn smiled back. “So, late February, hey?” he said.
“Maybe four weeks now,” said Dad.
Tarn looked confused, and so did I. Tarn went to ask something, but Dad spoke first.
“Maybe five weeks?” said Dad.
Tarn bit his lip, and then I couldn’t help myself. “Shut up, Tarn!” I said. “He’s gunna put it back more if we keep asking.”
Tarn’s eyes were begging to ask. “Awww, Dad!” he said instead.
Then Mum sorta saved the day by saying the animals needed feeding. Dad gave me a little wink, and Tarn and I went off to feed them.
Both of us started yarning about what our totems might be. Tarn reckoned his might be a double totem, like a lion–dragon.
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”You can’t have two,” I said. “Yeah, well,” Tarn said back, “what if you can?”
There were a lot of tears around the house in the evening. Mum and Dad sat Tarn and me down. They said an old uncle had died. I didn’t know him properly, but Dad knew him well.
Mum got Tarn and me alone. “We have to make sure Dad has some space for a couple of days,” she said.
When I went outside, Dad was cleaning
the shed. An old cockatoo called out, and Dad stopped to look.
Next minute, there was a mob of cockies flying around the trees, all calling out. They looked real pretty. And ’cause it was late in the day, the sky was all colours behind them.
I walked over to Dad and held his hand. He gave my hand a squeeze.
Then the cockies called out again. We stood and listened to them yelling goodnight to each other and the land.
I started wondering if those cockies were my totem. Sometimes I think my dad can read minds.
“Those cockies are one of our mob’s totems, darling,” he said. “We have the black cockatoo and the white cockatoo. They’re called Ponponpoorramook and Ngayook in our language.”
All of a sudden, those cockies looked a bit different.
“Most of us in our mob have three totems. There’s the tribal totem, like the cockatoos.
identity
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Then there’s the clan or family totem. Our family totem is Kankan Toorombalang— what White people call the Southern Cross,”
Dad explained. “And then we have a personal totem. Mine is Waarrk, the crow.” Those cockies called out like they were agreeing with him.
Then Dad winked at me. “Your totem came to me in a dream,” he said.