SASS' DIARY: DAY TWENTY FOUR

Day Twenty Four
Kakadu
BOWALI INFORMATION CENTRE:
Southern ridges : Jawoyn country
Much of this country was created by Bula. As Bula and his wives travelled they created and named the features of the landscape. Eventually, Bula entered the ground where his ngan-mol (essence) lives peacefully today. However, if Bula is disturbed and his country is treated badly he can be dangerous, perhaps unleashing earthquakes and volcanoes.

As Bula can make people sick, Jawoyn have always known his country as buladjang or “sickness” country.

At Ubirr, there was a painting of a person with swollen joints – the tribe did not move rocks, walked in single file in their ancestors’ footsteps in certain “sickness” areas.

In 50’s and 60’s there were 13 small mines.

The old uranium mines of the South Alligator river valley, although small, were producing very high grade uranium ore. Hazardous radon decay products can build up in these old mines. Waste materials from many of them are “hotter” than the ore at Ranger.

“Buladjung” – sickness country, areas have been found to contain very high and high uranium rock types and unusually high levels of arsenic , mercury and lead.


from personal diary:
“Kakadu heat making me weak
I have no energy
But it is beautiful here
Beautiful to be welcomed
So colourfully yesterday
I keep quivering on the edge of tears,
Watching the action this morning,, reading Jabiluka press articles …
At the dying of the light…
Kakadu mozzies screeching, crickets, birds serenade the mildness of dusk.”