“This story has been passed on to me by my grandfather, my father, my uncle and my elder brothers, and I’m going to pass it on to my younger generation. It’s come down through the male line becasue it’s an important story for men. It’s about initiation, and men are really the ones involved in initiation. So men care for the story and hold the story, and men pass the story on.
There’s lots of Aboriginal groups in Australia, and we got different dialects. Our stories show us our boundaries. They tell us what part of the Country belongs to us and what part of Country we belong to. This story teaches how our Country was formed by the serpents. In the evening, you can see the purple-green colour of the Muda serpents in the ranges.
I want to put this story in the book to let people know about our Muda, to let them know we are recording it for our children, that it’s still alive”
Noel Wilton, Adnyamathanha Cultural Custodian
During 2010, SharingStories founding director Liz Thompson was invited by Leigh Creek Area School and the Adnyamathanha community to collaborate on the documentation of important stories to ensure they were available for future generations. The result was Yulu’s Coal which is part of Series Two of the 14-part Sharing Our Stories children’s educational book series. Series One was Winner of the 2009 Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing and Best Primary Teaching & Learning Package Category.
The Story
Yulu, The Kingfisher Man is one of the Adnyamathanha community’s main Creation Ancestors. Before the Creation Ancestors journeys, all of the lands were flat. Yulu’s journey, along with that of two Arkurra Abina (two giant Dreamtime serpents), is responsible for bringing into being many significant features of the the landscape between Pukalpula (Mount Termination), Ikurra, and The Gathering Place (Wilpena Pound), in the Northern Flinders Ranges.
To learn more, Yulu’s Coal is available through Pearson Australia.