Dunghutti stories from yesterday

By Emily King for ABC Mother Tongue, 19 Mar 2015

The Macleay Valley holds many communities along the Macleay River on the Mid North Coast, many which have became the homes of Aboriginal people who were relocated during the times of “protection”, taking the form of “missions” and “reserves”.

Uncle Bob is a Dunghutti Elder with a wealth of knowledge about the local area and all its histories. He is passionate about providing an opportunity to his community, for their descendants to be able to hear first-hand, how things were “back then”.

Uncle Bob speaks the Dunghutti language, and came up with the name “Wiriiynakayi Ngunngun Dunghutti”, Dunghutti Stories From Yesterday, for a new project we have just begun, assisted with funding through the Kempsey Shire Council.

The project is to record a set of these stories from each community, and then present this to primary school children who will develop artworks which respond directly to these stories.

The next stage will see the finished artworks and films screened at a community event at the end of the year.

I asked Uncle Bob why it’s so important to him and his community to record these stories, and he said:

“It’s important to know where we’ve come from. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, how can you know where you are or where you’re going?

“It’s important for those generations who have not been a part of ‘back then’ to appreciate the hardships, injustices and discrimination that was a part of life during those years .

“The strength of those families, and the guidance of parents and grandparents in those times, is an important feature of those times which were marked by strong loving families in the face of adversities.

“In spite of all the adversities, I would suggest that not one person would want to change a single day of their lives back then. It made them who they are today.”

To follow more of what’s happening with this project, like Facebook page

About Emily

“Emily King was co–ordinating a project with Dunghutti Elders recording their oral histories in audio when I met her, and has been a powerhouse for our video project Me and Mine on Indigenous family connections. She asked lots of questions about video making and is now flying solo with her own video, creating films of school camps, unsung heroes, basket weaving, freedom riders and then blogging it with ABC Open.” — Wiriya Sati, ABC Open producer.

I work in the Macleay Valley, as an educator and a community projects worker. I have only recently become enamoured with the potential that digital video and audio offer.

It was while I was working with a group of local Dunghutti Elders from the Maclaey Valley that I knew I had to purchase my own camera kit and editing tools, and learn how to help them record their childhood memories and stories from “back then”.

This process has grown me a new career, and I now make little films with many students from different schools, for different projects, as well as recording special events in my own community. I am still seeking out the best way of teaching kids film making, and the best way I can learn to be a better film maker myself.