A man goes hunting for some tucker with a pack of dogs, but he doesn’t get what he expected. Dwoort Baal Kaat is the story of how two different animals are related to one another.
This story comes from the wise and ancient language of the First People of the Western Australian south coast, the Noongar people. Inspired by a story George Nelly and Bob Roberts told the linguist Gerhardt Laves at Albany, Western Australia, around 1931, it has been workshopped in a series of community meetings that included some of the contemporary family of both those men, as a part of the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project to revitalise an endangered language.
Dwoort Baal Kaat is written in Noongar, with a literal English translation and English prose, and accompanied by original artwork from Noongar artist Helen (Ing) Hall.
Kim Scott is a descendant of the Wirlomin Noongar people. The only Indigenous author to win the Miles Franklin Award, he has now won it twice, in 1999 for Benang and in 2011 for That Deadman Dance, which also won the South-east Asia and Pacific Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Kim currently works at Curtin University, as Professor of Writing and also in Curtin’s Centre for Aboriginal Studies and at the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute. Kim Scott’s new novel, Taboo, is published in July 2017 by Picador Australia.
Russell Nelly is a Noongar artist and cultural worker who lived at Warburton and has been chosen to represent Warbuton Elders to the media in discussions pertaining to the recognition of Customary Law (2006).
He has recently been appointed a mentor with the WA ministry of justice and returned from overseas where he demonstrated Indigenous art in textile crafts.
The Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project Incorporated Reference Group comprises family members who are descended from the South West of Western Australia and are interested in publishing and promoting some of the stories from that area.
The Group’s main objective is to reclaim Wirlomin stories and dialect, in support of the maintenance of Noongar language, and to share them with Noongar families and communities as part of a process to claim, control and enhance Wirlomin Noongar cultural heritage.
Inspired by creation stories told to the American linguist Gerhardt Laves at Albany, Western Australia, around 1931 and returned to the Noongar people by his family after his death in the 1980s, the stories in this series - Mamang; Noongar Mambara; Bakitj; Dwoort Baal Kaat; Yira Boornak Nyininy; Ngaawily Nop and Noorn were workshopped through a series of community meetings involving elders – some of whom told stories to Laves in 1931 – artists, and linguists.
Helen (Ing) Hall
Helen (Ing) Hall is one of the stolen generations and an acknowledged senior female Elder of the Wirlomin Noongar clan who has been inspired by the reclamation of her family stories and who has a natural talent for painting. She was born at Borden, Western Australia.
