I'm Janet Collard I was born in no angr in 1934 and um we came to bevly in the same year and uh we used to travel around to all these fellas here all these they were our people uh there is no place that we haven't been to you know with the A and car walk with your bundle on your back and used to walk to see one another and mix with one another the caring for country is to look after the land and we have to look after it well not to knock trees down not to you know cut trees down where you're camping always keep it nice uh when you leave you pick up your rubbish and stand your sticks up against a tree to a forky tree and then you do the same as you go on you know n always looked after Mother Earth because Mother Earth is good to us so we have to look after it look there was maybe it was only a little bit of salt in a long time ago but now it seems to have spread more and more and it it's not good what have um the farmers did to the land I think there's too much spray poison you know supera like the rain when it rains it washes all off into the into the water and from there it you know it goes down to Perth and also there was a lot of fish dying down there well it could be all that poison well I heard a lot of wers say white people say that you always dig a big trench you dig a big trench and have little waterways and um you know what escapes and for if there's any animals that goes into the you know fall in that they got some way to crawl out uh I did I was talking to a white man once and he said they did that up in uh Bruce Rock and they said they was able to crop it again but I think we need to get there and plant more trees black boys or grass trees and see how it goes from there Bala or the we always used to call it black boy because it it doesn't you know but it's it's a a black boy is fire you know you've got the the where you cut it and you make your fire the rushes is good for your Camp you can make a good camp out of black boy rushers and uh if you're out in a bush and if you're lost you want to feed you go down in the middle of the black boy with the rushers and you get the real little tender ones you know the little new shoots and you can break it and you can eat it so something you can do if you want to feed but the black boy itself you can cut it and make a fire there a lot of gas in there it's very very good I don't think it's right you know if you Dam the waterways because there's no water running along the river or The Creeks that's where it get salty you know just just dry up and just turn into salt waggle means water to all our n people it is a water snake uh long time the old n people were called the Walkabout people because everywhere they went they walked and they walked with to the other people say there was people at the um Seaside and the NAS from the Inland they used to walk half half away and meet one another and trade trade for food or whatever they had you know some they might had kangaro skins or kumel skins and they trade them for fish or crabs or whatever they had uh well I remember myself everywhere we went we walked we walked 20 or 30 miles because we didn't have any other way to go you know no horse and Cat we walked to wherever my dad was working carrying our Billy can of water and our mugs dangling on the side uh well you know they they walk to see their people Farmers well they only got us to do their dirty work hey all the big work on the farm um chopping down trees picking up Stones picking Roots clearing the land and uh well I can't remember very much money long as we got our tea sugar flour bacon powder that sort of thing well we helped you know to to do this to the land didn't we but we didn't know it then but if it was now we'd say no love for my country it holds a lot of of memories hey you know we all them old fellas used to be there you know you hear them all n when they used to I remember my grandmother early hours in morning she must whether she get lonely or she lost her daughters you know from long time ago she just get lonely and then she start crying but it's not like crying is y y make funny noise old girl used to C cry like that um you know that that is all the memory from how from years ago um and now you go back and you go back to your country and you sit down and you think you just go and sit down and think it's just like you know they're there the spirits are there with you and uh it's it's emotional you feel like they can cry and but it you know that's all we've got is memories now of our old people my favorite would be when we were burning up and it you know when you're ner you look at trees like you had you had no food um you're looking at trees and you're looking for whatever you could find and if there was a beehive in that tree because that was the only sweet you'd get so after dad used to finish work Cho that tree down and there there we are with fire green fire after he opened the tree up and get all the honey out we get plenty of stings but long as we got that honey and that honey it was for our damn put on our damper but we also used to make our toffee lollies out of that honey when we were kids and um you know we never bought sweets or we were too far out well we had no money mainly but that honey did come in very very handy and um to run down into the bush and you look at the little prickly trees where the little black ants lay their little all this little sugary stuff on there that used to be our sweets our IES also the gum from the manag gum tree and the jam gum uh even we get on the tree after been cut down we get it and push all the sap up and we used to eat that sap because it was sweet that's how my favorite memories of the Bush the rivers was a very it was a a real special place for us in the river there were plenty of Julies we take buckets and we get half a bucket of jgies and also we look up into Hollow trees you know the holler in the tree and there was a KL we get a KL out and give them that that was our dinner the river was like um a shopping center for us in those days even to um there was a patch in Beverly where we used to go with the rifle Rangers see all the blue menl long Bush and June and July when the there was plenty of rain you push them over and you get big baries there were baries there we had always had a good feet of baries that was our food now the river's been dredged and there's not a thing in there there's nothing at all oh I I think you'd have to go and get them and go and start putting them back in the water but where's the water W there I think we could all help to do that we can fix our country by putting planting trees black boys or grass trees whatever you like to call them and doing a you sort of looking after the land maybe it will come back I don't know to work with white people too sometimes yes that's right to um plant trees and try and help in you know whatever way we can the wers can learn from nas by listen to what they have to say and how they used to do it years ago there was jgies and there was also the the possums and there were ducks and there were swans and there eggs that was our food before we had any sprays or super the rivers used to be running like nobody's business we had our swimming holes but since the white people came and used sprays and the super and all that sort of thing was just gone nothing the nas used to have the water holes I remember there's a place on side of the river up in bered there was a little a fresh water soak and there was fresh water in there uh the river was yeah for our swimming and also it was a place where Dad used to break in the horses used to get a a you know a wild horse that never been broken in before put a bag of sand on his back and put him in the middle of the river so he couldn't Buck that's how they broke the broke him in and also in those years we had um sulkies with iron tires where they used to burn the tires not the tires the the iron Rim burn it when it was burnt you know it was sort of red hot they throw it in the water when it cool down they pull him out and they wrap bag around him and then put it back on the spokes sort of I sort of tightened the the iron up and it sort of fitted on the cartwheel far as I can remember we had a tap on the reserve there was only one tap and everybody had to come to that tap well I think it would have been well younger skins possums like Kum to take down to the rest of the people and they maybe they had fish because remember we hardly had blankets in those days because we used to get a ration a government ration well there was there was coml skin there were younger skins they used to sleep on them and they used to use them for their book put around them and they wore that I remember when I was a girl I slept on kangaroo skins with my grandmother cuz we didn't have enough blankets kangaro skins and W bags well we got a cing we got berries uh quber nuts quber Little Seeds like berries uh wild potatoes and we still can dig them up now we can still find them now around about springtime the used to burn the grass because it brought back new shoots when the they got the rain all the new grass and the new bushes or you know berries and all that thing had all come up in plentiful and everything used to be nice and green uh but now the white people they they burned the wrong time of the year and the Old Nas they they knew that what time to burn and what what they had to do because the old n's got six seasons and the white people has only got four no the nas ate whatever they could find but they didn't you know knock the trees over because there always another year or another time or leave some for the rest of the people who's coming through well they knocked down a lot of things uh and we're not allowed to go where we want to now because we'd be trespassing lot of how Bush taka is gone they chase the kangaroo away and well no they they they finished the land off I was at no all my life and I always will be I've got my language I've got my culture and we got our bu and that's all means a lot to us waggle is a water snake and a Wago means a lot to all our n our people because it means water if you ever see a waggle you don't kill it you leave it and let it go because the old waggle is a well he's our water snake he lives in the water yes he always will live in the water but maybe there's a certain place for that water where his place is if there's no wer when you are no whatsoever younger is n food and it always will be I think the younger would be because it's it's just free you don't know what they're putting into that shape there's needles and well look the feed what they give them you don't know what's in there don't know Y is right he eat he just eat the grass and he's free and he's relaxed but the poor old sheep he he's got all sorts in him no you can't go around walk like we used to do because you will be trespassing and therefore the farmers don't like that they think you're coming after their Farm or whatever you know and they get the police on you well I suppose you can if you go and ask the farmers to go into their land you maybe you can go in and get the can but not without asking you know you know we used to go hunting whenever we felt like it but now nothing a long time ago there was a lot of our people used to live here and um they were all happy people in those days um well used the kids used to play here and you know used to have good fun used to be School Church everything here