“I want people to be grabbed by the heart. Let them pause for a few moments to feel the air, the wind that comes along, and dream about Uncle Benjie or someone going up the river with the spear in his hand, looking for food, like they did in the old days. When you hold on to that, you go into dreaming, into culture, go with him, up the river.”

— Uncle Bud Marshall

Uncle Benjie.

Uncle Bud tells stories of growing up with his Grandfather, his Aunties and Uncles, of seasons, patterns and place, and of what it means to live with and as Gumbaynggirr Country in Australia. To relate to Country is to listen and live its connections, to understand cycles and emergent relationships, knowing nothing is static and knowing that, in its dynamism and ongoing emergence, Gumbaynggirr Country is always whole, is always there.

Uncle Bud is leading a project to create a public art installation in honour of his late Uncle Benjie Buchanan, an Elder and revered spear fisherman. Through Uncle Benjie’s sculpture, Uncle Bud will invite people to see and feel Country, to attend to its patterns and its cycles, to live in relationship with it and to understand this always was and always will be Gumbaynggirr Country. The concrete and colonisation can’t change that.

 

Living Sea Country.

 

The land, sea, sky and river are all connected here on Gumbaynggirr Country.  

In the 1950s Uncle Benjie Buchanan and many Elders could often be seen spear fishing around the v-wall, in the river and in the lagoon which reached right up to the cliffs. Uncle Benjie made spears from the kurrajong tree, the wood so light that it floats.  

The old people could read the clouds and the birds. They could talk with the spirits; they knew the stories and they knew the seasons.   

Uncle Bud remembers his Uncle Benjie, Aunty Byne and many of the old people who used to live and hunt around here: 

Uncle Benjie would sit up on that wall there, right in the middle. He’d watch the mullet come across. He’d know exactly where they were going and then, bang, he would spear them. Our job as boys was to hold the end of the line. Uncle Benjie would dive right in after the fish. He could hold his breath for the longest time.  

The Old fellas are still here, watching over us. We are still living with the river.  

The Old fellas are still here, watching over us. We are still living with the river.  

 

The design centres on the symbolic significance of the spear.  The spear acts as Uncle Benjie’s spine as if to say, culture kept Uncle Benjie upright and forward facing. The silhouetted head is actually two heads. The outer profile is Uncle Benjie as an elder and the inner profile is of a younger boy’s face.  This speaks of the intergenerational knowledge that is passed on when younger generations face the same direction as the elders.  

The river element of the three flowing lines is a stylised profile of the Nambucca River. The bended knee or Baga Baga is the part of the river that flows into the heart because of the significance of that story to Gumbaynggirr people.  

The sculpture shows the hairy grubs, the butterflies and the flowers of the wattle that would tell when the mullet were running. There are seasons for everything.  

Aunty Byne would say, “Look out, here they come.” And the mullet would come.  

You are invited to touch the sculpture for a little moment. You could hold your hand on the spear near the figure’s heart. Become part of the sculpture by standing next to it and feeling that you too could be strong in culture. Face the same direction as the Old fellas. 

  • Design.

  • Fabrication.

  • Kurrajong trees.

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