Kathy “Desert Pea” Yugumbari

Kathy ‘Desert-Pea’ Yugumbari, from Balgo Hills in The Great Sandy Desert, West Australia, holding the painting Bush Tucker. “One day when a baby to be, like, born, they didn’t go to hospital, they used to dig the soft sand, when the baby, they bite the cord, and they tied it up. They dig the soft sand dune, and they cover them just to keep them warm. Only body part, not face part. Not head part. That’s what my grandmother and my mother been telling me story, long time. And after that, when it’s ok, they keep them for hours, keep them warm, and then after that, couple of days, they smoke them. With a special leaves. Not like this one but different. They make a fire with little straws. Little bit of wood. Not big ones, skinny ones. And they get water , put it in the Coolamon, and they go like that, like sprinkling, so baby can be strong and not swearing, not being a dirty mouth, being a spoilt kid, not doing the bad things when they grow up. I got an aunty, Jinabali. They found her on the Canning Stock route, 1985. She don’t really understand English. She already speak her own language. Frustrate. She swear, she don’t know what MF means. I was busting out laughing when she was talking. The white people gave her the name; Lidya Bellbell. She lives over there in the bush. She don’t like living in the house. She grow up in bush, born in bush. You’ll see er, walking around here. We speak in language, but we still understand each other. Me, I speak and understand, um, like – Kukatja is my first, English is my second, Walpiri is my third, Pintupi is my fourth, Norigi. Norigi and Pintupi they similar. Walmajarri and Kulkaja and Murdu language. I understand them other languages. I understand 8 languages. My friend, he’s a white man, he told me a couple of years ago, he said, you should be helping your people. I told him I was schooled in Perth, for 2 years, I lived with foster parents. I was best student. I went there myself and when I went back I told the other girls, you wanna come? It’s good over there in Perth . But no one else came with me”.