Irene Stainton AO, Nyungar Elder. Photo by Gina Pickering.

Summary

The podcast and short film, Yorgas kaala katitje, explores the fire knowledge of Aboriginal women. Such knowledge has been essential to the survival and cultural practices of indigenous communities across millennia. However, it was not within early explorers’ frame of reference to see women as fire managers, and these European understandings have shaped the way we have thought about fire management in this country. More than three centuries later, fire is pivotal to land management across a nation seasonally ravaged by fatal bushfires. Increasingly, Aboriginal women as well as men are creating better management by sharing their knowledge, including through the Bushfire Centre of Excellence in Mandurah, Perth and the Kimberley Land Council’s Nyul Nyul female ranger program based in Beagle Bay on the Dampier Peninsula. The role of Indigenous women in fire management differs from men, their primary role is teaching and education of the various fire management functions and practices as they are the ones to teach their children and their grandchildren on how to start the fire and to pass on the fire management knowledge to the future generations. Fires has been traditionally used for smoking ceremonies, keeping evil spirits at bay, regeneration of growth, systems of food supply and preparation, during happy gatherings around the campsites and leading the way into the afterlife.