The Fish Increase Story
Words Don Rowlands OAM, Illustrations Nick Sidle
Ideas can come from imagination, invention and represent a new departure for an individual or a society. Ideas can also come from being so in touch in a relationship that they seem almost automatic and something it would be wrong not to do. The closer the relationship, the more the chance that it will prompt things that should not be missed, just as much as new things to perform.
Digital illustration – Water hole, Outback Australia
The fish increase story belongs to Don Rowlands OAM as passed down by his Grandfather Watti Watti, who was the ritual leader of the fish increase ceremonies. This was his duty. It was the foundation and inspiration for restoring fish stocks to places which had suffered and lost a fish population during droughts.
Digital illustration
‘In a special place there is an old tree out in the middle of the billabong. This was a particular place where the women would catch and gather yellow belly fish fingerlings filling the trunk of the old tree. The fish were sometimes attracted there by bait left when the time was right.
Digital illustrations
The young girls would then transfer all the little fish to pool formed behind a small dam up on the bank, before carrying them in their “dilly bags” to the river at Ngalpurru- NguRu (Jardine’s fish hole) on the Diamantina River near Birdsville.
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Trees, shrub and lignum around and in the rivers and water holes are important as they provided shelter for the fish and hollows for nesting birds, shade, wood, and another source to collect food. The lignum has been designed to slow the water during flood time, thus preventing erosion, protecting the soils and stories of this place, Our Ularaka (Dreamtime) is about protecting land for ever!
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Fireplace camp “Maka Ngura matters greatly as fire is a very important article of trade, not only for cooking but this is where our elders would “tell” their stories to us about our Ularaka (Dreamtime) about the country, about stories themselves, and as song lines, a virtual road map for us to understand! We accept and learn our responsibilities around campfires at night.
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Digital illustration – Elder sharing the story and the experience with children
Watti-Watti was a very important man and at times he would be asked to attend on other people’s country to “increase” fish in waterholes after long droughts, as well as to lead the stewardship in his own place.’
Digital illustration – Elder sharing the story and the experience with children
Lignum is the Latin word for wood in general as well as appearing as part of botanical and scientific names related to trees and is often taken to mean the structure below the bark. As such, it comes from the Romans and their history and the foundation of Rome through an amalgamation of villages stretches back to approximately 1000 BCE, three thousand years. The Romans are seen as an ancient European civilisation, ‘ancient Rome’ is an established term. Native Australians are thought to have been in their lands for at least 50,000 years. That, and their connections to origins through the Ularaka, represents one of the strongest and most complete relationships between a people, a culture and a land the world has seen. It has prompted many traditions, the ‘Fish Increase Story’ and the management of fish populations through droughts is one.
Digital illustration – Healthy water hole, Outback Australia
Don Rowlands OAM, Ranger in Charge Munga-Thirri National Park, Queensland, Australia, and Wangkangurru Elder
Stories on Cùra Earth by Don Rowlands
Kuti and the Wildfowl Breeding Grounds
Text ©Don Rowlands, illustrations ©Nick Sidle, all rights reserved