Germaine Greer's book White beech explores her purchase of a property in the rain forest in SE Queensland across the border from Mt Warning. The book raises many questions about Aboriginal Cultural knowledge about Mt Warning and further highlights misrepresentations and missing details by NSW NPWS in its official Park Literature. In a chapter in which she seeks to trace the Aboriginal name for her acreage she writes about the Ngarakwal/Githabul and Bundjalung claims about Mt Warning:
On August 31 2009 Ngarakwal/Githabul activists made a submission to the Tweed Shire Council protesting against the perpetuation of the Bundjalung myth, the misuse of information from Indigenous elders and the lie of the dual identity of Mount Warning. According to Githabul elder Harry Boyd, Mount Warning is not Wollumbin the cloud-catcher and has nothing to do with any warrior king. The whole caldera is Wulambiny Momoli or 'scrub turkey nest', a `djurebil' or increase site where hunting is forbidden so that Brush-turkeys may replenish their numbers. He and his supporters denounced the ‘Bundjalung nation' as a white fiction. 'There is no Bundjalung nation, tribe, people, language, culture, clan, nor horde, No Bundjalung anything.'
It was my turn to visit Ann in Melbourne, where I gave her a progress report.
‘The Ngarakwal, Tindale's Arakwal, now say that the real Bundjalung are the Clarence River people; they also say that the Tweed Bundjalung are well aware that they are descendants of Islanders, and not Aboriginal at all.’
‘Is that true?’ asked Ann.
‘Who would know? These days you daren't even ask the question. Most people would say it's immaterial. Islanders lived with Aboriginal people and married into the clans, so they are entitled to self-identify. Besides the Torres Strait Islands are Australian.’
Ann frowned. ‘People were blackbirded from all over the South Seas. They weren't all Australian by any means. Still. What next?’
‘Uncle Harry Boyd says he's preparing a title claim that will cover as far as Nerang.’
Ann laughed. ‘Well, that should answer your questions once for all. Is Close involved?’
‘Close has gone to Western Australia. He had some sort of dust up with his people, and he's gone.’
‘What happened?’
‘There was a meeting of the Githabul Elders Council in Kyogle in April 2009, where Close wanted to raise issues about the handling of public money by the corporation. Apparently the director of the elder’s council took exception; according to Close, he had his three sons waylaid Close on his way out of the meeting, forced him back into the hall and knocked him to the ground. Twenty or thirty then gave him a hiding and he only escaped serious injury because his aunts intervened. This was the bloke who had had the biggest win of any native title claimant ever in New South Wales, on the floor, getting a belting from the people he'd been working for for sixteen years.
‘That's a terrible story,’ said Ann.
‘That's not all. The elders made a complaint to the police and Close found himself up on a charge of assault. He had the bad luck to come up in March 2010 in front of a magistrate who disbelieved his testimony which was disputed by the community. Close's aunts denied that he had been forced to the ground, or that they had had to protect him. Close ended up with a criminal conviction and was released on bond.’
‘You need to talk to him, don't you?’ said Ann.
‘I'm not sure. I haven't been able to track him down. Now that he's said to be working in the resources industry I'm not sure that I want to.’
‘There's one big stone still unturned. You ought to drop in to IATSIS on your way home.’
So I did.
The Institute of Aboriginal and Tones Strait Islander Studies is part of the Australian Museum complex, a range of handsome black buildings on the bank of Lake Burley Griffin. When I rang about the deposit made by the Ngarakwal people about the caldera, I found out that it had been placed on closed access. The issue had become so heated and the language so inflammatory that I would have to ask permission of the authors before I could see it.
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