Description

In Wirilla Ep 2: Reserve we move from Dreaming and sky-knowledge to the ground-level realities of segregation, following the creation of reserves and camps while tracing the life of Matthew’s great grandfather Alexander Stanley.

This podcast has been informed by the historical work of Aunty Noelene Briggs, and particularly her books Winanga-li and Burrul Wallaay. To find out more about Aunty Noelene's books click here


This podcast was made with funding from Create NSW.

Detailed Music Credits
"Just Did" by All Stars, "Soundscape" by Mirko Sosai, "Omen" by Richard Johnson, "Guitarline" by Philip Okerstrom, "John as well" by Mirko Sosai, "Fred" by Fred, "Awkward Comedy" by Luca Francini, "Hurt Track 4" by Philip Okerstrom, Damian Mason and Symon Aytonn, "Tranquility Base" by Chill Factor, "Hurt Track 13" by Philip Okerstrom, Damian Mason and Symon Ayton, "Hurt Guitar Track 8" by Philip Okerstrom, Damian Mason and Symon Ayton, "Proud Return" by See More Music, Blusy G'Tar by Mirco Sosai, "Hurt Track 5 by Philip Okerstrom, Damian Mason and Symon Ayton.

A podcast from Matthew Priestley supported by Third Space Ventures and Coequal.

To contact Coequal and find out more, check out our Patreon page, click here

Content Description
This episode contains references to segregation, forced child removal, discriminatory laws, and the hardships faced by Aboriginal families living on reserves and in camps.

Wirilla – Episode 2: “Reserve” Duration: 23 minutes
Setting: Moves between star stories, family history, and the lived memories of the Terry Hie Hie reserve and Moree’s early camps.
Narrators/Voices:

• Matthew Priestley – Mehi Murri man (Terry Hie Hie clan, Gomeroi Nation)
• Dante – Gomeroi young person narrator and learner
• Khalani – Gomeroi young person narrator and learner
• Kim – Long-time friend of Matthew, researcher and collaborator
• Phil – Co-creator, occasional narrator

🪶 STRUCTURE AND CONTENT BREAKDOWN Opening: The Lyrebird — Sound and the Birth of Language

• Matthew opens by explaining that sound itself was created by the lyrebird, and that animals generated the first sounds — before wind had “sound.”
• He frames vibration as an original language, akin to mathematics — a structural, patterned intelligence that underpins how we communicate.

🌀 Themes introduced:
Sound as origin · Lyrebird as culture-keeper · Vibration as language · Science and story intertwined.

Opening Story: The Emu in the Sky

• introduces the Gomeroi sky story of the the Emu in the Sky, explaining how the dark spaces between stars form the celestial emu.
• The changing shape of the emu tracks the seasons — when it lies down, when it rises, and when the birds are nesting.
• teaches how the sky is a living calendar, a guide for movement, ceremony, and food gathering.

🌀 Themes introduced:
Celestial knowledge · Seasonal law · Country as teacher · Reading the sky.


Terry Hie Hie: Bora and the Calm Before Segregation

• The hosts discuss Terry Hie Hie as a major meeting and ceremonial site — one of the largest Bora grounds.
• They note the last recorded Bora at Terry Hie Hie in 1883, and how the cultural practices continued even as colonisation imposed new pressures.

🌿 Themes:
Ceremonial life · Continuity amid disruption · Record vs lived practice.

After Myall Creek: Disease, Poison, and Disrupted Songlines

• Traces the cascading impacts of massacres: disease, poisoning, food source depletion, and broken pathways/songlines that undermined traditional life.
• Explains how these pressures foreshadowed more formal systems of segregation and control.

🔥 Themes:
Cultural disruption · Environmental impacts of colonisation · Fragmentation of communal life.

Creation of the Terry Hie Hie Reserve (1895)

• The Aboriginal Protection Board set aside 102 acres for a reserve at Terry Hie Hie in 1895.
• Hosts discuss the split among white settlers — some professed “protection” motives, others openly expressed racist aims (preventing intermarriage, “protecting” the white race).
• The reserve is framed both as an imposed protection and as a tool for segregation.

🏚️ Themes:
Protection as paternalism · Segregation policy · Control of bodies and movement.

Naming, Registration, and Identity Theft

• The episode explains how births were registered by farmers or reserve managers, Aboriginal names were ignored, and white names or property names were imposed (example: “Dave Combadello”).
• This bureaucratic renaming severed cultural ties and created false official identities that complicated family histories.

🪞 Themes:
Bureaucratic erasure · Identity control · Loss of language through paperwork.

Family Story: Alexander Stanley (Matthew’s Great-Grandfather)

• The life of Alexander Stanley is traced: born 1896, worked on cattle stations, later enlisted in WWI using a falsified identity (a common tactic by Aboriginal enlistees).
• His experience illustrates the contradictions of Aboriginal service: fighting for a nation that denied rights at home.
• Alexander’s post-war life — work, relationships (meeting Rachel Munro), and railway work — ties family history into broader patterns of movement and survival.

🪶 Themes:
Personal resilience · Identity negotiation · Indigenous war service.

The Protection Act and Child Removal Practices

• The episode quotes the 1909 Aborigines Protection Act and describes how it allowed indenturing children as apprentices, controlled wages, and restricted movement — measures used to assimilate and exploit Aboriginal children.
• Hosts highlight that promised pocket money was rarely given and that children were effectively trapped in institutions or domestic servitude.

⚖️ Themes:
Legalised family separation · Exploitation under law · Institutional abuse.

Education, Exclusion and the 1899 School Case

• Tells the story of 11 Aboriginal children in Gullarganbone who were briefly admitted to public school (Feb 7–20) before being suspended due to Department pressure.
• By 1902 Aboriginal children were effectively banned from public schooling — an explicit policy of exclusion.
• The episode uses a sarcastic 1899 newspaper extract to show local sentiment and systemic racism.

📚 Themes:
Educational exclusion · Public humiliation · White anxieties about equality.

Life in Moree: Top, Middle and Bottom Camps

• Describes how displaced families set up makeshift camps in Moree: Top Camp (near Pitt family), Middle Camp (near the dump), Bottom Camp (near the cemetery).
• Living conditions: tin shacks, poor sanitation, stigma
• Council resistance to establishing a formal reserve inside the municipality is discussed, showing local hostility to Aboriginal presence.
• Matthew speaks about the importance of listening to old people and ancestors.

🏘️ Themes:
Spatial marginalisation · Community resilience · Municipal racism.

Returned Soldiers, Memorials, and Hypocrisy

• The episode recounts how returned Aboriginal servicemen were excluded from the Moree Soldiers Memorial Hall despite their service.
• Hosts quote the Hall committee’s explicit discriminatory rule banning “full blood or half caste” Aboriginal people from attending.
• This stark irony underlines the hypocrisy of national celebration built on dispossession.

🕯️ Themes:
Recognition denied · National myth vs lived reality · Moral indictment.

Reflection and Closing

• Khalani and Dante react emotionally — perplexed, angered, determined to learn more.
• Credits and thanks close the episode, with a preview: the next breath of Wirilla will focus on Top Camp.

💬 Themes:
Memory as resistance · Intergenerational responsibility · Learning as activism · Continuing the yarn.

Additional Citation: Fuller, R.S, Norris, R. P, Trudgett, M: The astronomy of the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi peoples and their neighbours in Australian Aboriginal Studies 2014/2