I am legally patterned?
By telling a cosmological story from my ancestorsâ country, I am demonstrating how I am patterned into the web of Law stories that have weaved my ancestors into reality. This is just one of the Law stories that weave me into the web of reality of my grandmotherâs Kombumerri clan and my grandfatherâs Munaljarlai clan. It comes from my maternal grandfatherâs country of the Munaljarlai peoples of South-East Queensland, Australia. I have spent many years thinking about this story and revisiting while travelling around Aboriginal Australia. This account is my own rendering of the story, as each member of the clan will have his or her own account, for each telling passes on different elements that are important to the audience at the time of the telling. This telling emphasizes the breach of law of my own clan towards the hunting dogs belonging to a neighbouring clan, which, in turn, caused an abrupt geological change.
I am part of my familyâs history
My mother taught me to ânoticeâ nature. In so doing she taught me the Law of the Land.
My mother, Beryl Yuke, was born of a Kombumerri woman, Edith Graham, and a Munaljarlai man, Stanley Yuke. She grew up in a household that cared for her maternal grandmother. Sadly, Grandmother Jenny Graham was one of only a few Kombumerri women to survive on the traditional homelands of the Kombumerri. This land was invaded and eventually covered in concrete: it became the tourist city of the Gold Coast.
However, even though my motherâs family witnessed the human-induced climate change of her traditional lands, and therefore had to adapt to the imposed culture, she was still able to pass on to me the habit of noticing nature. What I mean by this is that it was a subtle way, if not a subliminal intent, to pass on the importance of the Land as the Law, in a world bent on turning a paradise of natural environmental wealth into a poverty-stricken concrete mass of shining lights, high-rise apartments and artificial parks and waterways. My mother and her siblings had little chance of impacting on, or even comprehending, what was going on and what it would lead to. But then very few people are in a position to have such foresight, and still to this day are not in a position to see the impact of such madness. Perhaps, therefore, it might appear more sensible to consider that the planet is in a constant state of change and that the madness will also change over time and other priorities will supplant those of the present day. The knowledge to assist in that change comes from remembering stories from long ago, and that would appear to be my responsibility to my clans â to remember the stories.
The coming of a story
It is fascinating the way stories come to you, even though the Badger would appear to be telling us it is normal. There is a story I was told by a descendant of the farmer who cultivated the clan land of Bilum Bilum. In 1893, this farmer, rather than shooting Bilum Bilum or King Jackie Jackie and his clan, as was the practice of the day to acquire land, instead employed and handed down this story through the family over the centuries. King Jackie Jackie, as he was known to them, tried to warn the family of an impending flood. The farmer could see no evidence of this coming flood and therefore ignored Bilum Bilumâs warning. Disappointed, Bilum Bilum then took his clan to higher ground and waited for the flood. The flood indeed arrived, and became one of the worst floods on record in South-East Queensland.
This story of Bilum Bilum and the flood came to me while I was writing up my doctorate. Not long after hearing this story, I changed my disciplines and moved from humanities to law. Ever since, I have felt that Bilum Bilum and other ancestors have helped chart my course through academia and the eventual writing of this book, as well as the use of our Yugumbeh2 language to name the jurisprudence that will be developed in this book.
Journey through academia
My journey through academia revealed to me an array of stories from Indigenous peoples across the world. I found these stories fascinating and essential in aiding my children to build their character over time. Little did I realize that the stories which came to me were actually shaping my mind into that of a jurisprude. Therefore, on meeting William MacNeil (2007) and Shaun McVeigh (2006) of the Griffith Law School, I began to see Western law in a different way. Rather than finding the stories of Western law and their jurisprudence daunting, I found them wanting â especially as I began to mix with critical legal theorists (McVeigh 2006) and listened to their insights into the wantings of their law. I began to realize that this law could not help Indigenous peoples; rather it was a hindrance to them. As I enjoyed daily discussions with my friend Shaun McVeigh about the finer points of Western jurisprudence, sat through my doctoral supervisory sessions with William MacNeil, and engaged in other light-hearted discussions of popular culture, I began to shape my own understanding of Australian Aboriginal jurisprudence based on my personal experience and the texts found in this book.
Having said that, I could not even have begun such a narrative of Law without the dialogic engagement I experienced with my fellow Kombumerri, Mary Graham, and the formation of my understanding of the Australian Aboriginal world-view by Lilla Watson, on whose clan land I was born. Undergirding all this, however, was the essential engagement with the land of my ancestors, for it was that act of walking the land of my ancestors that actualized and authenticated the knowledge I had acquired through those dialogic encounters.
These journeys have also been literal, and have taken me into other Indigenous worlds where I have met guiding lights such as Hinsha Waste Agli Win, Mr Moana Jackson, Stephen Augustine, Joan Ropiha, Ephraim Barney, Ron Day, Adrian and Henrietta Marrie, Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew, Mogobe Ramose, Christine Zuni Cruz, Lyndon Murphy and Dale Kerwin. Then there are my colleagues, who helped to guide me into a deeper understanding of the dominant culture: Thelma Jackson, Bradley Sherman, Ben Goldsmith, Tony Bennett, Michael Meadows, Tom Round, Russell Bomford, AJ Brown, Michelle Barker, Larry Crissman and Julia Howell. Iâm deeply appreciative of the life-saving editing of Sue Jarvis and Teresa Chat-away. And I sincerely thank Richard Johnstone, director of the Socio-Legal Research Centre, Griffith Law School for the centreâs financial support.
Finally, my gratitude must be expressed to my mother and sister, Beverley, to whom the book is dedicated. I thank my children, Ashley, Maleah and Kapun, and my grandchildren for just being there. Just as much, I thank my friends Glenda Donovan, Colleen Wall, Rita Mazzocchi, Kine Camara, Jonathan Richards, Robin Trotter, Donna Weston, Carol Ballard, Marianne Mitchell and cousins Marjorie, Leona, Shirley and Robin. Thanks to my clans, Kombumerri and Munaljarlai, and the âliving deadâ on all sides ...