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Rain falls heavily, the streets of the community are quiet, and Moses sits drinking tea on the porch of a house in the community of Numbulwar, Wandu, where he is from, has been flooded in. The country is coming alive with the arrival of the rain; birds walking on lily fronds stoop for prey in the forming lakes. Moses teaches children about blackberry or yardagaga, which goes from green, then red and then to black or Dudumah, and that’s when ‘… we know it’s cooked.’ Moses holds a flower that is called woodugu which tells the custodians 'that stingrays, sharks and everything have got fat’.
Curator’s notes
The different seasons mark different interactions with the land and different food sources. Barra season – October to December – is the time when foods such as yardagaga become available. The signs from the land, whether it is the woodugu or the dropping of the seeds from the pandanus plant, all represent a specific event to the custodians. The land in this way has a voice and speaks to and through the custodians as much as the custodians speak through the land. The exchange of energy between the peoples of the land and the land represents a harmonious relationship. During Barra time, the sea is the main provider of food, and Moses the primary provider of food for his family.
