Remembered By Heart: An Anthology Of Indigenous Writing - Plot & Excerpts
My father’s birthplace is near the waterhole called Wirtuka. My father got his name, Kirikarrajarti, right there. It’s a name that came from the ngarrangkarni. In the ngarrangkarni, two men came to Wirtuka and found the place overrun with possums. They were all fighting and biting each other, some up in the trees and others down in holes in the ground. As they fought they were hissing, ‘Kkir! Kkir!’ so the two men called the place Kirikarrajarti, because of the hissing noise the possums made. My father’s jarriny is the possum, and he is called Kirikarrajarti after this place where the possums were fighting. My mother came from another group of people, who belonged to Japirnka waterhole. When my parents had been together for a while, I was conceived, and my jarriny comes from near the jila Mantarta. Near Mantarta is a smooth sandhill called Lantimangu. It’s a place where spirit children live. When a husband and wife walk near there, one of the spirits thinks, ‘I’ll go to them.
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