(Too?) Great Expectations

I’m thinking that next time I’m in the field I’m going to camp out at Barunga or wherever, because I am just having *too* much fun in Katherine hanging out with all my mates and not getting enough ‘work by myself at the computer’ done.

Sure I’m getting out and doing recordings and all the other tasks involved in maintaining and developing the relationships with the Dalabon people I’m working with, but there ain’t anywhere near enough transcribing being done, nor blogging and other online maintenance (sorry for not replying to emails for a while!). The other possibilty is that if I stayed at Barunga or wherever there’d be just as many demands on my time and resources, but perhaps I could better justify that as ‘relationship building’ and possible language learning/recording opportunities. E.g. “Bulanjdjan! Take us fishing!”, “Ok, if I can record some fishing stories”. Don’t quite know how to turn dancing to Split Enz in someone’s lounge room at 11:30pm on a school night into “valid language work”…

Today was a good example: RW and QB are staying in town as we were planning to try and work with some Dalabon people who live in or around Katherine. There was a big funeral happening at Kalano (large Aboriginal community on the north bank of the river, Katherine is on the south bank), and QB was going to be involved with that, so we planned for RW to do as much work as we could, and whenever QB was free, she’d join us. All sorted, I’d thought. I really should know better than to have these expectations by now.

The day didn’t start well. When I arrived at the hotel in the morning to pick them up, they weren’t there. I drove around town for a while looking for them, with no luck. I went back to the hotel and they were there this time, furtively glancing around as they explained that the hotel manager had harassed them late at night – he was concerned about their having visitors and threatened to call the police – the result being they had slept badly and got up at 5am to go and have breakfast at the BP (a 24 hour roadhouse) to avoid him. They had only just come back from the BP, which is why I hadn’t found them at the room earlier. QB in particular was quite unsettled and it took quite a while to formulate a plan of action for the day.

RW and I left QB at the cemetery for the funeral and made our way to the language centre. The language centre was a crazy hive of activity with preparations for the opening of the community language library and launch of the Jawoyn dictionary scheduled for the evening. RW and I hid out in the library and worked our way through the Dalabon alphabet, so we can start learning transcription next week. I’ve never ‘trained’ anyone in literacy/orthography before, and I think it says more about RW’s skills than my teaching ability that we made really good progress. That RW knew most of the Dalabon words used as examples for each of the letters/graphemes really helped. (For the linguists: she got why geminate stops were written differently (double grapheme) from the short stops straight away – I was dreading explaining that one… And glottal stops were a breeze as well.)

After a while RW started complaining of pain caused by her gall stones (!!) and we were both hungry, and the funeral would have been over by then anyway, so we headed to Woolies for Panadol and food. Woolies was of course teaming with people fresh from the funeral, which meant much socialising and humbug-avoidance. We got away to Kalano to find QB and the Dalabon people we had hoped to ask to work with us. Our ‘targets’ weren’t interested (fair enough, a funeral is a funeral after all), but I did meet some more Dalabon people who I managed to impress with my basic conversational Dalabon, and arranged to visit them next week to do some recordings. With new acquaintances, the novelty of a munanga ‘whitefella’ speaking language is enough to impress. Those I’ve known longer have higher expectations though, and ultimately, are more likely to deliver more sophisticated texts as they are more comfortable with me and relaxed enough in the recording situation to produce more natural speech. (There’s that impetus to learn proper Dalabon again! And yes, the pronouns are coming on nicely, thank you.)

It’s ace to be finding more Dalabon speakers, though sometimes that it counter-balanced with the occasional discovery that declarations such as ‘X can speak Dalabon right through!’ aren’t water-tight. The estimation of there being 10-20 remaining speakers of Dalabon still seems accurate.

QB and RW were exhausted after the emotion and energy of the funeral/alphabet learning* and their anxious night, so I took them back to the room for an afternoon rest while I went to language centre to *work* at a desk. All the comings and going there conspired against that ambitious plan, and before I knew it I was back at the hotel picking up QB and RW for us all to attend the opening of the language library and launch of the Jawoyn dictionary.

[*I know to a linguist these activities are on an emotional par (at opposing ends of the sad/happy scale of course!), but perhaps this is a long bow to draw…]







The crowd at the launch took a while to build, but I saw some more people I hadn’t yet encountered since returning, so there were a few ‘you’re back in town!’ conversations to be had while we waited for the MC to get things rolling. While at times I feel like a sell-out for leaving, coming back seems to earn me a lot of credit points, even if my returns are temporary. I do at least have the opportunity to profess how much I miss the place (as evidenced by my return). Everyone wants to hear they’ve got something that’s attractive from afar.

And all of a sudden it was on! There were some speeches, then QB got up and told a story in Dalabon, then in Kriol, then in Mayali! Phew! Then I introduced one of the videos I’d made a long time ago. The video was of a bush trip and making damper, with a Rembarrnga voice-over and Rembarrnga and English subtitles. Short and sweet – but it was really nerve-wracking having something you’ve made shown to a large audience.

Then there was some dancing, the formalities drew to a close and the BBQ was served up. A video about ‘cooking babies’ was screened in the background. Before anyone calls FACS, ‘cooking babies’ refers to traditional bush medicine practices used for infant well-being, e.g. rubbing them with warm earth, bathing them in ash/berry/grass mixtures etc to develop strong backs and legs. It was a really great night, and JD did a fabulous job of developing the library (a really welcoming space with story books in all the 30+ different languages of the region, CDs, computer games, videos, dictionaries, other reference books…) and planning the night.


From there, I headed off to MM and DM’s farewell dinner. More fabulous friends with strong NZ connections to play with – hence the dancing to Split Enz. Very good fun. I got told there that I bear a resemblance to Missy Higgins!? Anyone?! Flattered, yes, but likely? I doubt it! Apparently she and Ben Lee are an item. Now that’s the aussie folk/pop equivalent of Brad and Jennifer, or Tomkat, surely? I digress.. this post is already way too long!

So today I *achieved* teaching RW the Dalabon alphabet. And I haven’t even compensated with an early night. Tomorrow to Manyallaluk to meet a very important Dalabon speaker who I haven’t met before. I want to go and stay on his outstation near Jabiru in June, so I hope it goes well. Chances are, it will go much better if I actually have some sleep before I go out to meet him – I don’t fancy my chances of producing my best Dalabon without at least a few good hours under my belt. Good night!