‘The Edge of Reality’: Paul Magee in Conversation with Paul Collis, Jen Crawford and Wayne Knight

By , , and | 1 September 2023
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WK: Seeing the country stressed made me feel stressed. Now there’s plenty of food for the wildlife.

PC: We hardly see any wildlife at the moment, because there’s so much food and so much water.

How many water holes did you find on Toorale?

WK: There is a spring on Toorale, but it’s on the edge of a river where the fish traps are. It’s up a bit.

PC: Who first told you about Mundaguddah?1 Your mum?

WK: Yeah.

PC: Did you speak with Auntie Nita about it? Ever get a chance to talk with her?

WK: Only in Kunya. Only in her language.

PC: When I say Auntie Nita, that’s my grandmother’s sister. WK’s grandmother is Nita Knight, married to Hope Knight. I want to talk about him a little bit. Hope was your grandfather, and he was my grandfather’s nephew. Might sound complicated, but it’s not, really.

PM: Not to you guys.

PC: Not to us, no. But you’ve got to remember, we’re supposed to remember who our seventh cousin is, because all that blood’s poison to us, you can’t marry any of that stuff. After that, they said, the blood’s far enough away, not going to cause any drama – you can marry your eighth cousin. So, I’ve asked many people in my teaching, ‘Who knows their first cousin?’ Hands up. ‘Who knows your second cousin?’ Hands up. ‘Third cousin?’ I’ve had two students who knew as far as fourth cousin. This is of all the people I’ve taught over the last 10 years. They haven’t been able to go back any further than that.

So, Uncle Hope, when he started to fight for Gundabooka – was Grandfather still alive? Was Archie Knight still alive?

WK: Yeah.

PC: So, this would have been early what?

WK: Probably 70s, I’d say, late 70s, early 80s.

PC: Did you ever get a chance to talk to him about it?

WK: No.

PC: No, neither did I. He fought really hard for Gundabooka. Why?

WK: Because of the cultural significance for his bloodline, for the Barkindji. For his great-grandmother, actually, and his grandmother, Eliza.

PC: See that responsibility Wayne feels? I feel that too. I’m like a horse wanting to break free of the reins. There’s just so much that I’d like to see happen, and a lot of that’s to do with the way we manage the country, and the access to it. Parks and Wildlife are supposed to make Toorale a respite place for Barkindji people. Would make an ideal men’s site, or woman’s site, to get them out of Bourke, or places like Wilcannia, where it’s dangerous and unhealthy. But there’s so many rules with Parks and Wildlife about what you can have there and what you can’t have. Can’t have permanent dwellings, can’t have this, can’t have that. The stress of it, putting people through that.

So, Grandfather was born where those cave paintings are. It had permanent water – that’s where they put the fish that survived the walk back from the river. They grew fish here. Back about 1910.

He was a lot older than what his birth certificate says. The birth certificates came about whenever people were recorded at the police station at Louth. But the station owner from Toorale might have gone to the police station once every two years. He’d say there’d been eight boys born and eight girls, they’d assign them names there and then: Mary – lot of Marys in Aboriginal culture – Christian names like Mark, Luke, Matthew, John, for boys. The policeman would record the dates of those kids as if they’d been all born on that day. But they could be four or five years old, could be older than that.

Grandfather worked at Toorale.

Lots of remains round there?

WK: Oh, there were heaps. I spoke to one of the blokes working there on the cotton – they were digging where the big pumps on the river are and they actually found skeletons and skulls.

PC: Massacred?

WK: Yeah. The cockies were going, ‘Oh don’t go telling them about that.’ They just covered it over.

PC: Because they wouldn’t have been able to put those pumps there, until the site was surveyed.

WK: There is a big pile of sand still there, there’s actually bone fragments right through it. You’re not allowed to touch it.

PC: What kind of stress has that caused you?

WK: Heaps. Knowing that there’s remains of people in there.

PC: Does that stuff ever leave you?

WK: No.

PC: So, you become part of a responsibility that goes beyond modern laws about land ownership and the like. There’s something else that goes on. I reckon Uncle Hope felt that really strongly too. He had a box under his bed – you know about that box and all the stones?

WK: Yeah.

PC: He had opal and gold and all that kind of stuff from around here. Wasn’t just from Lightning Ridge.

WK: No.

PC: It wasn’t for sale, he wasn’t selling it. I don’t know whether they came out of sacred places. XXXXXX might know.

But then again XXXXXX life was interrupted with boys’ homes.

  1. A water-spirit, that bites lips and terrifies children. ↩
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Paul Magee studied in Melbourne, Moscow, San Salvador and Sydney. He is author of From Here to Tierra del Fuego (University of Illinois Press: 2000), Cube Root of Book (John Leonard Press: 2006), Stone Postcard (John Leonard Press: 2014) and Suddenness and the Composition of Poetic Thought (Rowman and Littlefield: 2022). Paul is Professor of Poetry at the University of Canberra, where he directs the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research (CCCR).

More by Paul Magee on Cordite Poetry Review →
Jen Crawford is author of Admissions (Five Islands Press, 2000), bad appendix (Auckland: Titus Books, 2009), Napoleon Swings (Auckland: Soapbox Press, 2009), Pop Riveter (Auckland: Pania Press, 2011), Koel (Cordite Books, 2016) and Lichen Loves Stone (Tinfish Press, 2016). With Rina Kikuchi, Jen co-edited and part-translated Poet to Poet: Contemporary Women Poets from Japan (2017), an anthology of 10 contemporary female Japanese poets. Jen is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra.

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Wayne Knight is a Barkindji/Kunya person. Wayne was born and raised in Bourke. Wayne’s early life was informed by his Grandmother, Neta, a Kunya Elder who lived in Bourke, and who taught Wayne 'cross-language talk' (a multilingual speak that was used between Kunya, Barkindji, Murrawarri, Wongamara language groups in communication, before the coming of Westerners to the Plains Country of his birth). Wayne was taught how to track and identify specific plants and animals by his Grandfather Hope (a Barkindji person). Wayne's knowledge of Barkindji lands was enhanced with and under the tuition of senior Barkindji Uncles and Elders, who assisted his teaching of the waterways between Brewarrina and Menendi Lakes areas, and on the plains country, between Brewarrina (Nyemba Country) and Bourke, Cobar and Wilcannia. Wayne held a senior Indigenous Parks and Wildlife Officer's position with NSW Dept. Parks and Wildlife until a serious back injury caused him to retreat from that work. Wayne's knowledge of Barkindji Culture and Country is unmatched in the Bourke area.

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Paul Collis is a Barkindji man. He was born in Bourke, in far north/west New South Wales. His early life was informed by Barkindji, Kunya, Murawarri, Wongamara and Nyempa story tellers and artists, who taught him Aboriginal Culture and Law. He is author of Dancing Home (University of Queensland Press, 2017) and Nightmares Run Like Mercury (Recent Works Press, 2021). Paul works as Director, Indigenous Engagement, at the University of Canberra.

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