Vid taken at Martin Mere, NW England

A Short video featuring the Magpie Goose. It's me impersonating David Attenborough. Shot at the Hunter Wetlands Centre Shortland.

This is a video of me videoing a magpie goose at the Hunter Wetlands. He came up to the staff lunch room.

Ra:kay (Eleocharis dulcis) are edible corms from a swamp rush that are better known as food for magpie geese, but Yolngu (and their Balanda friends!) also enjoy the sweet nutty flavour of this wetlands bushfood. In times past, rakay were an important carbohydrate source for some Yolngu groups, especially those who inhabited wetlands. The eminent anthropologist, Donald Thomson, photographed Yolngu in the 1930s with large mounds of harvested rakay... considering the enormous effort and time to extract these from the mud, rakay are no doubt a dense source of nutrients and a high energy food. During magpie goose season, when the birds are fat and concentrated around shrinking waterholes late in the dry season, Yolngu focus their hunting activities on wetlands areas where long-neck turtle and rakay can also be found. Magpie geese not only provide a source of tasty meat and a rich source of protein, but Yolngu love extracting rakay from the stomach of the birds! This is easier work than sifting through tonnes of mud for these little corms! The place where this video was shot is called "Lunggurra ga Dharra" - Where the North Wind Stands. In this case, Lunggurrma the North Wind takes the form of a singular tree growing in isolation in the swamp.

Archie the magpie goose from the Hunter Wetlands trying to each a pair of gloves.

This is part 1 of Dha:wu'mirr Dharpa, a story about message sticks by Gumatj elder Andrew Galitju. Part 1 and 2 of this story shows Galitju making message sticks. Galitju, Yirrirnirnba and Mirarra' provide commentary on how old people used these message sticks before telecommunications, paper, and air travel found their way to Arnhem Land. For those interested in Yolngu language and culture, additional written comments will be added here in due time, to aid in your understanding of Yolngu grammatical structure as well as to expand your vocabulary. A bit about Galitju... as well as making an appearance in the feature film Yolngu Boy, Andrew Galitju is known throughout Arnhem Land and the 'Top End' of the Northern Territory as a legendary hunter, cross-cultural educator, and all-round nice guy. When I first met Galitju some 10 years ago, it was with Yolngu friends who paid him a visit in order to purchase turtle meat from his deep freezer. There is always a ready supply of magpie goose, stingray, fish, turtle and other culinary delights in Galitju's house! Galitju is my "brother-in-law", father to yirdaki extraordinaire 'DJ' Burarrwanga, second father to George Rr*rr*mb*, and grandfather to Henry Mirarra' Burarrwanga.

This footage was shot in November 1996 in the vicinity of Bundatharri/Yathalamara in north-central Arnhem Land. Yolngu are cooking gurrumattji (magpie geese) in a ground oven, quite an elaborate process that is time intensive and is worthwhile only if a large number of geese are being cooked. A faster method, if cooking smaller numbers of geese, is to cook on top of hot coals once the carcass has been 'split' in half and entrails removed. In the ground oven method demonstrated here, the geese are plucked to remove all feathers... in itself a laborious process. The birds are then quickly placed on top of a fire to singe off any remaining down and to tighten/seal the skin of the geese before slow cooking. A large pit is dug into which gundirr - broken-up pieces of termite mound - and firewood are placed. The whole lot is lit and allowed to burn down to form hot coals. Leaves from a special tree are laid down on top of the coals (for aroma and flavouring), the geese are then placed on top of this bed of steaming 'herbs', and the whole lot is covered with paperbark and a mound of dirt (for insulation and also to stop any leakage of hot steam from the ground oven). Depending on the number of geese and the 'hotness' of the ground oven, cooking time can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour. When the geese are ready, care is taken to remove the dirt and paperbark covering so as to prevent the cooked meat from coming in contact with soil. In this instance, we were a little bit impatient and the geese were not cooked sufficiently. But we ate them nonetheless and thoroughly enjoyed the succulent fresh meat! Anytime is a good time for Yolngu comedy with the guys joking around and keeping us entertained. The hunt itself was a huge success, with several dozen geese taken that day... enough to feed several families at outstations and at Ramingining.

This is one of the finest yidaki made and painted by Banyawarra. Banyawarra has the distinction of having made the instrument that was used on tour by one of the best yidaki players on this planet - Mil..y Mununggurr. The same instrument was used by David Blanasi's apprentice, none other than Darryl Dikarrna Brown, during White Cockatoo's performance at the Darwin Festival, 2006. This yidaki is adorned with totemic designs of Warrnyu (Flying Fox), Gurrumattji(Magpie Goose) and Nyangura (Long-neck Tortoise) rendered in ochre.

zanas at montville is a restaurant on the sunshine coast hinterland queensland Australia