March. April 77Continued page 81“Oh, you’ve brought some rain with you,” says Uncle Owen
Whyman, a Barkindji man who has been leading a series of
corroborees “to sing up some rain”.
He looks expectantly skyward as he explains: “The river,
that’s where our stories lie. Without the river, there’s no us.”
The dark sky turns out to be false hope as a brief shower, a few
drops at best, all but evaporates before it hits the ground.
Despite the troubling state of the Darling, Wilcannia is
a town on the up. There’s no denying this river town has
had its fair share of social unrest in recent decades. However,
Wilcannia is no longer a place to drive through with the
doors locked and windows wound up, as media reports once
famously suggested you should do. Now the locals have too
much to tell you.
One man leading this charge is Andrew Stacey, an artist
from Gippsland who moved here three years ago to lovingly
refurbish one of the town’s Victorian-era stone buildings,
the 1877 sandstone Queens Head Hotel, into an art gallery-
come-community hub.
“Wilcannia has a murky history of exclusion and racism,
but we are trying to put that behind us,” he says, pointing to
recent hand prints of Aboriginal kids plastered lovingly on
the gallery walls.
Owen hopes to tap into Wilcannia’s renaissance by launching
a tour business that showcases both the town’s European and
Indigenous heritage. “All our stories are based around the river,
which we Barkindji people call the Barka,” he explains, as he
gives us a sneak peek of his planned tour, including a visit to
several sacred sites.
“Look, this scar is quite recent, done 30 years ago when I
was at school to give us kids a connection to country,” he says.
“Now I’m hoping to get the next generation to carve their own
scars in the trees.”
By inviting travellers into his community and sharing with
them his people’s special stories, Owen hopes non-Indigenous
people will develop a better understanding of his “land and
his people”.Mutawintji National Park
If Owen is to find a successful model for Aboriginal tourism he
need on ly look 20 0k m up the road to Mut aw int ji Nat iona l Pa rk.
It’s home to rich ochre resources and is the last wild
refuge in NSW for the endangered yellow-footed rock-wallaby.
But it’s best known for its rock engravings and hand stencils.
After priceless engravings were pilfered by thieves last century,
the park is now owned and managed by the Barkindji and the
only way to access the main heritage site, wedged in a hidden
gorge ringed by rust-coloured ridges, is with a local guide.
“I was taught about plants, trees, animals and birds before I
could count to 10,” says Keanu Garni Bates,Uncle Owen Whyman,
a Barkindji man, examines a
contemporary scar tree that will
feature as part of a cultural tour
he’s launching later this year to
showcase Wilcannia’s Aboriginal
and European history.