Fishing for fish and for Jaminyjarti in Northern Aboriginal Australia.

Toussaint, Sandy

INTRODUCTION

Fishing activities, including how, where and when fish are caught, cooked, shared and consumed are increasingly important topics in discussions relating to Indigenous groups in the Kimberley and elsewhere across Northern Australia. Jackson et al. (2012), for instance, in a broad study focused on Australia's north, observe that fishing is a significant activity that often consumes around 90% of Indigenous people's time. In another article based on data collected specifically from Fitzroy Valley locations, Jackson et al. (2011) draw on a two-year study to show a high level of visiting frequency to fishing sites by families from the Noonkanbah Community and from the Fitzroy Crossing town-site, both of which are within walking distance of a major river and fishing source. Morgan et al. (2004, 2011), writing about the same region, outline the plethora of Indigenous people's language names and locations for fish assemblages and local flora in the Fitzroy River indicating not only people's knowledge but also their familiarity with local environmental flows and interdependent fish and plant species. (2) With similar reference to Fitzroy Valley communities, Close et al. (2013) stress the priority that Indigenous people give to fishing. They note that 'the importance and magnitude of recreational as well as customary fishing is substantial' (p. 4). Elsewhere, I have shown that Aboriginal people in the Fitzroy Valley 'value fishing and the catching, cooking and consumption of a range of fish and other freshwater species ... as an immeasurable constancy in their lives' (Toussaint 2010:10).

Matters such as these--fishing and fish sharing and consumption as intrinsic to the everydayness of Aboriginal life in the Fitzroy Valley--inform this article. (3) They do not, however, constitute its whole. The lesser-known contribution of kin to assist and comfort families when they suffer the harsh reality of the death of a loved one can claim a distinctive place for inclusion in the description and analysis here about jaminyjarti, a mourning ritual that requires daily fishing activity. The place of fishing and fish in jaminyjarti, as discussed below, tends to be overlooked when fishing constitutes the research focus, including when the impact of fishing and natural resource management more broadly are examined within the context of climate change. As Close et al. (2013) cogently observe, there is an increasingly urgent need to investigate Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishing and the implications of 'heavily fished areas' in current climate challenged contexts (p. 16; see also Leonard et al. 2013 for contemplation of climate change environmental impacts and Indigenous adaptations in Australia's north).

In the discussion that follows, I draw on ethnographic data from long-term field research with Indigenous Fitzroy Valley families and communities to illustrate fish related activities as central to the past and present reproduction of cultural life and kinship. This centrality includes knowledge and understanding about, and active participation in, mourning rituals, in part as a practical means to assist and comfort bereaved relatives.

Writing about people's attachments to various forms of material culture, but with reference to a very different cultural context and emphasis, (4) Miller (2008) is helpful here where he shows how the relationship between 'things' (used generically) and people can create comforting patterns over time. He suggests that via the reproduction of certain influences and activities 'at particular times, certain traits and styles develop which come to characterize them, not as individuals, but as networks of relationships' (p. 293). He adopts the term 'the aesthetic' not as a reference to the creative arts but to encompass 'pattern ... [and] ... the repetition of certain themes in entirely different genres and settings' (2008:293). Broadly applied in an 'entirely different' location and topic, Miller's ideas benefit conceptualization and characterization of the relationship and interconnectedness between people, fishing and fish, especially in the distressing contexts of death and grieving where ways and means to provide comfort to bereaved relatives are crucial to individual and family networks and wellbeing. These matters are elaborated below.

I begin with an overview of the Fitzroy Valley, including the Fitzroy River, and then turn to local Aboriginal cultural life and fishing, and a discussion about jaminyjarti that shows its importance to the vitality of life, as well as its necessity following the anguish of death.

WRITING ABOUT THE FITZROY VALLEY, AND ABOUT FISHING

The Fitzroy Valley region extends approximately 100 kilometres to the east and the west of the Kimberley town of Fitzroy Crossing, which is around 450 kilometres inland from the coastal town of Broome. (5) The Valley encompasses the Fitzroy River, a waterway that is part of a major 'unregulated floodplain system in the wet-dry tropics ...' (Close et al., p. 8; see also Storey 2006). The Fitzroy River, which intersects with the Forrest and Margaret Rivers, and smaller waterways such as Brooking Springs and associated creeks and billabongs, covers a vast area of over 95,000 square kilometres. The Valley's heartland, through which the Fitzroy River flows via Geikie Gorge, and town communities such as Darlgunya, is the traditional homeland of the Bunuba people. Gooniyandi people's land extends broadly east of Bunuba country, and includes communities such as Muluja, Mimbi, Ngarlankadji and Yiyili. (6)

Indigenous groups who migrated north to the Kimberley from their Great Sandy Desert homelands between the late 1940s and the early 1960s also reside in Fitzroy Valley communities. Notably, and not unusually for a colonized population, many who migrated north were forcibly or voluntarily moved from their traditional desert lands during the last century. Some followed families who had migrated before them, as in the case of Walmajarri artist, Jimmy Pike. His widow, author and environmentalist Pat Lowe, writes about this movement in the case of Pike and other Walmajarri families:

[Aboriginal people were] lured by the stories they'd heard of the modern world, with its abundant supplies of food and water, its mechanized transport, its variety of goods, during the 1940s and 1950s people left the desert in small groups to taste the fruit for themselves (Lowe 2012:9).

Those who 'foot walked' north from their desert homelands looked for family, food and work (Richards, Hudson and Lowe 2002; see also Marshall 1988 and Hawke 2013). When in the river country traditionally owned in accordance with the principles and custodianship inspired through Customary Law by the Bunuba and Gooniyandi, desert-affiliated women, men and children continued to retain strong cultural ties and stark affection for their desert lands. The words of a Juwaliny-Walmajarri woman who, as a young girl, travelled north with her family in the 1950s, help to explain a strong connection with, and responsibility to care for, her traditional lands, including a significant waterhole, or jila:

   We were crying when we saw that place [when we returned to our
   desert homelands], The waterholes were black with the kura [faeces]
   of the camels. We had to clean that place out, clean out all the
   kura and kumpu [urine]. We did that juju [ritual]. We tell the
   water we're sorry, we're back now; we won't leave you for such a
   long time again. When we leave that place, we tell the jila, [water
   hole] 'don't worry, we'll come back, we'll see you next time ...'

In addition to Walmajarri and Juwaliny-Walmajarri people, other desert migrants include people from the Mangala and Wangkajunga language groups (Toussaint 1999, 2008; see also Toussaint et al. 2005). During the last half century, there has been a great deal of intermarriage, and sharing of resources, especially between Walmajarri and Gooniyandi people. For example, Walmajarri people now co-exist with Gooniyandi in communities excised from pastoral stations, such as at the Bayulu Community on Gogo Station, and at the Jugerari (also known as Jukurirri) Community on Cherrabun Station. It is also the case that most adults and children continue to make a distinction and to identify as a 'river' or 'desert' person (Sullivan et al. 2012; Toussaint 1999a, 2008; Toussaint et al. 2005) in ways that include enactment of everyday social interactions in the Fitzroy Valley to the recording of evidence in native title reports, such as in the 2007 Ngurrara Native Title Claim where language groups from Great Sandy Desert locations constantly identified as 'desert people' (National Native Title Tribunal, Ngurrara Determination, 2007). Similarly, the Bunuba and Gooniyandi Native Title Claims involved claimants who were listed and self-identified as 'river people' (National Native Title Tribunal Determinations, 2013). Fresh-water people such as the Bunuba and Gooniyandi also distinguish themselves from 'salt-water' people who have traditional affiliations along Western Australia's Kimberley coastline.

In contemporary settings, and within a complex range of life-styles unified by a broad-based Indigenous and regional identity, what everyone shares, regardless of whether individuals are members of desert groups such as the Walmajarri, Juwaliny-Walmajarri, Mangala and Wangkajungka who arrived in the latter part of the last century, or the Bunuba and Gooniyandi as the traditional owners of the broader Fitzroy Valley region and its intersecting rivers, is fishing and fish.

Traditionally, river people fished with nets and spears and they, in turn and over time, taught fishing skills to desert migrants. A Juwaliny-Walmajarri woman explains how this occurred:

As a young girl who grew up in the desert, ngaju [I] had to learn about river life [when we were living on Gooniyandi land]. We had to learn how to catch barramundi and catfish. We didn't have throw nets, marlal [nothing]! We learnt how to fish with string or cotton and old needles. We'd put needles in the fire; shape them like a little hook. Gooniyandi people taught us these things ... (Toussaint et al. 2012:42-43).

Both river and desert people also used fish poison, a technique that continues to be deployed today and which involves the use of bark stripped from the locally grown majarla trees (Barringtonia acutangula, freshwater mangroves) that is thrown into permanent pools to stun fish causing them to rise to the surface so they can be readily caught (Sullivan et al. 2012; Toussaint et al. 2005; Toussaint et al. 2012).

Intersecting socio-cultural, economic and emotional reasons underpin why fishing is so widely practised in the Fitzroy Valley. Contemplated further below, when preparing for a fishing trip, for instance, families draw on different forms of local subsistence knowledge and lived experience that derive meaning and authority from inter-generations of learning. While not reliant on fishing for their livelihood, families undertake a variety of work relating to fishing, evident in the catching, cooking and sharing of fish, and the energy expended to fulfill certain tasks and obligations. Local knowledge talking points include conversations about prospective local fishing spots where fish are known to be 'jumping', often resulting in families driving to specific locations to explore local rivers and pools to assess fishing potential with a view to returning to their communities carrying advice to share with others.

Fishing activities and conversations also embody local aesthetics and comforts, such as with reference to the water's transparency, the type, colour and 'fatness' of certain fish species, and the necessity and texture of adequate tree shade to camp under, especially when the sun is high and temperatures reach 40 degrees Celsius. The attainment of fishing bait, such as by grabbing small frogs from nearby riverbanks and billabongs, under toilet bowls and behind water pipes and tanks at communities, and/or the purchasing of chook pellets as substitute bait at the local store, also derive keen attention and rely on an acquired skill (see also Thorburn et al. 2004:46).

Regular shopping trips that draw on shared resources (money, vehicles, lines, fuel) include the purchase of items such as flour, tinned meat, and tea to enable a one or two-day fishing trip to unfold where a successful outcome is anticipated rather than assured. The re-telling of stories and comparing of memories about fish caught at significant places, and whether sufficient swags (bed rolls) have been packed, facilitate countless 'camping out' trips. A Gooniyandi woman explains:

   I have a history here and I grew up fishing ... Even young people
   crave to go to the river. Any chance they get, nothing can replace
   that [going to the river]. They might go into town [sometimes] but
   the best part is going to the river. They jump at it! It's
   everything for us. The grandchildren like swimming, fishing,
   camping together, everything together. We take tea, damper; we give
   the kids a really good time. Nothing will ever stop Aboriginal
   people going to the river and fishing, that's our life. To live on
   what we've been living on, pastoralists won't stop us. We can buy
   things at the shop but that's just to keep us going when we can't
   get to the river. That's the cycle of life for Aboriginal people.

When a fishing trip takes place and families organize to travel together they drive to a chosen spot where a day or longer term (for instance, a weekend) camp is established and adults and young people get ready to fish by putting hooks on lines, and sinking or dragging nets in the water to see what fish (including large river prawns, or cherrabun) might become entangled. Other ways of trawling for prawns is practised by women, as a Gooniyandi woman tells:

   Do you know how we catch cherrabun? My jaja [grandmother] and other
   women taught us. We sit down in the river, put little bit of meat
   between our toes, meat for bait. Then we pull the skirt under our
   feet so it fills up with water. That cherrabun smells the meat when
   he's walking on the riverbed. He comes up under the skirt to get
   the bait and that's when we pull the skirt tight; run out of the
   water, and throw him on the sand, near the fire or fishing bucket.
   That cherrabun, he's caught in our skirt! (7)

A young Bunuba woman's story also reveals how stories about the river and fishing are transferred from one generation to the next;

   My aunties introduced me to the river ... They told me to put mud
   under my arms and they splashed water over my face. Another time, I
   was only catching small bream so my auntie called out to the
   spirits to give me a big bream. The next time I put my line in I
   got a big bream, they [the spirits] could tell who I was then.

Another Bunuba woman tells a story about bait. Evident in her narrative is what constitutes bait and the pronounced qualitative difference between frozen and freshwater prawns:

   We buy bait sometimes. We buy packets of prawns and diced meat. I
   bought some prawns at the supermarket one time and one kartiya
   [non-Aboriginal person] said, 'you going to cook those up for
   dinner?' I said, no, that's bait for fishing'. He thought we were
   going to cook and eat those frozen prawns!

Signs to look for when fish are biting, as well as learning about how to catch and name fish, are among other activities, as is counting and comparing the yield, talking about how many fish should be cooked on the spot, or taken home to family members. In addition, there is the preparation and cooking of the fish once caught: gutting and singeing it when required, making a coal fire, building a bush oven, timing the bake, turning the fish, and finding leaves and bark from local trees to plate cooked fish (Toussaint 2010; Toussaint et al. 2005; Yu 2006). The eating and sharing of fish, enjoying its tastiness, or comparing the quality of one fish to another, marks the culmination of a good family day, a point I develop below. All of these activities, whether seen on their own as individual parts, or brought together as a whole, reveal their experiential importance to those families who are directly involved, as well as family members who are left behind at their communities for reasons of sickness or age but who will inevitably benefit from a fishing trip. For example, when fishers return with fresh fish, an activity that also results in the sharing of fishing stories.

Knowledge about the widespread, intergenerational passion for fishing, and the sociocultural and emotional emphases that underpin fishing activities, also have the potential to provide a deepened understanding about the everyday value of local cultural life. (8) None of the above activities can be separated from the integrated cultural whole: the act of fishing, and all that fishing embodies, represents a consistent and unifying theme for Fitzroy Valley families and communities. (9) A Walmajarri man, Nyari, whose family migrated from the Great Sandy Desert into the Fitzroy Valley in the 1950s and 1960s, makes plain the intrinsic value of fishing and fish to the comfort and the sociality of family life:

   When I go fishing, I just like to go because I can relax with
   family, [and have a] bit of fun. We have a little bit of excitement
   to go fishing. Get away from things; get away from town. My eldest
   daughter likes looking for bait, but my youngest daughter likes
   going for the big fish. She likes a bit of a challenge. I get a
   real adrenalin rush when I go fishing and catch something. The only
   other time I feel that is when we go hunting and get a goanna or
   kangaroo. When you take the family, it's a good day out, away from
   community, humbug, and we visit country. We tell stories about that
   place, when we're there, when we're at that place. You know, talk
   about when we were there last year, what we caught there. I like
   having a good feed at the river, catching sawfish, cooking at the
   river ... What I like is that you get everyone together in the one
   fireplace, our homes aren't big enough and everyone is spread
   around, you know, one family in one house over there, another one
   somewhere else. With fishing, we're all sitting down at the one
   fire. We can share one fireplace; catch up with family ...

Evident in Nyari's words is that the value of fishing and fish is what is involved in the activity that surrounds it: being with family and all that being with family entailed. The prospect of being able to sit around the fireplace with loved ones, the excitement of successfully chasing and catching a fish, and the quietness that fishing enabled when people were together, infuse his story. It is the spatial and emotional intricacy, as well as the intensity of time and associated activities that fishing opens up, that matter most. Miller's (2008) framework about recognizing the reflexive and integrated value of people's interactions, alongside patterns of behaviour and the comfort that material items provide, engender a useful framework here. In the case of Nyari, there is an obvious joy about being with family, iteration about familiar patterns associated with regular fishing activities, and fish (and necessary lines, nets, bait) as generic yet interconnecting and comforting 'things'.

Nyari's story also reveals that the type and size of caught fish did not matter: the social value of fishing and fish is what brought everyone together. This is commonly the case although there can be occasions when fish size and type prompts an animated conversation, as it can with fishers universally. Fish are rarely treated as a commodity, or as material items that can be bought or sold, despite the occasional possibility of fish sales to tourists. (10) One of the reasons for this is that fish and fishing activity, alongside the river and the landscape in which it is embedded, are bound up with the ethos and practice of Customary Law, a body of thought and practice that is tied into the Dreaming, which is known locally as Jumangkarni, or Ngarrangkarni. A system of spiritual beliefs and behaviours that encompasses a multitude of narratives that recount the creative activities of mythic heroes, and guidelines for the behaviour of all living beings, the Dreaming is described by senior Walmajarri man, Joe Brown: 'Everything we know comes from what we call Ngarrangkarni ... People, even in towns, still know how to sing the story for their country. They follow in their father and mother's footsteps ... every jila [waterhole] has its own songs, stories and skin group [sub-section] ...' (in Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, 2006, p. 37). (11)

Two senior Gooniyandi women expand the meaning embedded in Joe Brown's comments within the context of the river and fishing:

   We follow the law all along the river, Gooniyandi, Bunuba,
   Walmajarri when they came in that riverside; they used to bury
   people by putting them up on stilts, leave them in the trees ...
   One old man's mother was buried near the river ... People had to
   call out to the spirits if they go there. Her spirit will leave
   them fish for a certain time only; then they had to leave ...

   When we're getting ready for juju [ceremony] along the river, we
   catch and share fish for ceremonies. It's culturally important for
   us, all the water holes, we can't use some of those places; they're
   tarruku [sacred] ...

The trading and exchange of fish, and other aquatic species, such as mussels and fresh water prawns or cherrabun, for meat products also occurs in Fitzroy Valley communities. Within the cultural oeuvre I am presenting here, for example, pastoral station beef is traded for turtle from 'salt-water' coastal communities (such as Bidyadanga and One Arm Point on the west coast) for fish and other items. These examples reveal not only their material, socio-cultural and exchange value, however. A Gooniyandi woman explains: 'sometimes we send killer [station beef] from here [Fitzroy Crossing] to One Arm Point in exchange for a large turtle ...'. On other occasions, turtle will be taken by road from One Arm Point to the Fitzroy Valley to assist in celebratory events, such as a birthday. While there will be costs expended by families for fuel and food when these occasions occur (the distance between Fitzroy Crossing and the coast is a round road trip of approximately 900 kilometres), these are not taken into account if the turtle (or beef) is sent as a gift. It is, however, likely that at a later stage the gift of turtle would be returned in the form of something else, such as freshwater barramundi, to ensure that a familiar pattern is reproduced. Culturally-mediated gestures like these highlight that the gift-giving value of the exchange is equal to, if not more than, its immeasurable qualitative value as a cherished material item.

The act of privileging resources in a variety of ways is also evident when it comes to how people pool and allocate money to ensure a fishing trip occurs.

Aboriginal communities in the Fitzroy Valley, like many other Australian Indigenous populations, experience high levels of unemployment (Kimberley Snapshot, 2011). Most adults are on a comparatively low and fluctuating income that depends largely on the biweekly payment of social security entitlements (for example. Old Age Pension, Sickness Benefit, Disability Pension), and occasionally monetary benefits from a solid win at cards, study support, contract pastoral work, or the proceeds from selling an artwork, such as a painting or a locally crafted artifact like a boomerang or ngurti (coolamon, or small wooden bowl). It is also generally the case that incomes are low whereas costs for food, fuel and other items (blankets, clothes, and white goods, such as a refrigerator or air-conditioner) are high due to living in an area where remoteness, cartage and storage adds substantially to local price tags. Despite these limitations, individuals and families regularly demonstrate how much fish and fishing means by devoting a substantial amount of their income to enabling family fishing trips to occur. To give just one example, on a three-day fishing trip in 2011 in which I participated, two low-income families (seven adults, five children and one dog) pooled around $300 to cover fuel and food (fruit, tea, flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, tinned milk, biscuits, potatoes, juice, and chook pellets for bait). In return, three barramundi, three catfish, one sawfish and twelve bream were caught at two Fitzroy River sites. Whilst the fish caught enabled several meals to be cooked (smoked whole in a camp oven with potatoes on one occasion, turned into a stew accompanied by separately cooked rice on another) and consumed, what mattered most to those present was the socio-cultural and emotional value of being together with family. As Nyari (quoted above) put it, 'What I like [when we go fishing] is that you get everyone together in the one fireplace ...', a sentiment regularly captured in the comments, aspirations and activities of other women, men and children. Clearly in such words and illustrations, people go fishing as part of the sociality and emotion that makes up everyday life in a much-loved local landscape that people call home.

Fish and fishing symbolize the qualities of everyday life; but they also symbolize and have value for the rituals and nurturing responsibilities that surround death and mourning. It is here that fishing and fish play an intrinsic part in how people comfort bereaved loved ones during prolonged periods of grief.

FISHING, FISH AND JAMINYJARTI

Like societies everywhere, death and its aftermath result in an intensity of emotional distress and sorrow for Fitzroy Valley women, men and children. Long-held Customary Law inspired ideas inform beliefs that materialize in activities following a death and practices relating to comforting bereaved relatives, as well as ensuring a deceased's spirit departs from grieving kin and the landscape. Jaminyjarti, sometimes known locally as jaminy, (12) is a ritual that accompanies a number of activities during periods of mourning: it restricts the eating of animal meats by bereaved relatives both during and after the funeral. Among Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Mangala, Juwaliny-Walmajarri, Walmajarri and Wangkajungka people, jaminyjarti is regularly explained by local people's reference to Jumangkarni, or the Dreaming, and the requirements of Customary Law: jaminyjarti occurs because 'that's the Law ...'.

Tonkinson (1978), writing about the Mardudjara (also known as the Martu) language group in Northern Western Australia's Western Desert region, explains that the Dreaming is inspiration and authority for the enactment of food taboos during mourning:

   All close relatives become dadji; that is, they refrain from eating
   plains-kangaroo, echnida, native cat, possum and dingo for a period
   of one or two years or even longer. The only explanation for this
   tabu is that it comes from the Dreamtime (p. 85). (13)

'Sorry business' is a term regularly evoked by Indigenous people in the Kimberley and elsewhere to encompass death and funeral activity (Toussaint 2008a; see also Langton 1991 and Glaskin et al. 2008). In Fitzroy Valley communities 'sorry business' is used in conjunction with the term jaminyjarti or jaminy that is enacted and has meaning for relatives after the death of a loved one. The ritual practice can be understood as one aimed at managing people's distress, comforting them during times of sorrow, and providing support to help alleviate their grief. One of the most significant ways that family members look after the bereaved is by cooking and presenting them with a meal of freshly caught fish. (14)

Phyllis Kaberry, who undertook 1930s Kimberley field research, was among the first to document the practice from the vantage point of women. Discussing it under the heading of Mourning Taboos, Kaberry wrote:

They [in this case, women] observe a taboo on meat mi-a:la, and their diet is mainly limited to vegetable foods, small fish, snakes and witchetty grubs (ladjel), the last two being never eaten by the rest of the community, except once by the men during their initiation. The mourning women may not even smell [animal] flesh, and if a kangaroo is being roasted nearby, they stuff their nostrils with grass (1939, pp. 214-215; see also Toussaint 1999:51-52).

As in the past, in present circumstances the jaminyjarti ritual can be relaxed several weeks after the funeral has taken place and visiting relatives have returned to their communities and towns. The restriction can also be sustained for many months, however, depending on when senior relatives decide sufficient jaminy time has been enacted since a loved one's death. (15) Reasons that influence senior decision-making include whether an elderly person shows signs of suffering poor nutrition due to the lack of long-term high-level protein usually plentiful in the consumption of fresh, red meat (Akerman, 1975, provides a fine-grained account where this occurred).

The fast is broken by the actions of a close male relative (usually, an uncle) who smears the cooked fat of a deceased animal on the lips of a grieving kinsperson. (16) The person in mourning will call out loudly and openly weep in response to being released from the restriction. The practice of release, which might occur when families are eating together at home or in a small community setting, is sometimes referred to as 'freeing' the bereaved. Writing eighty years ago about this practice, Kaberry described the process thus: 'The taboo is only relaxed when the deferred mourning ceremonies are over; a male relative touches their mouths with the fat of kangaroo and other meat and they are then permitted to eat it' (1939:215).

In contemporary settings, bereaved relatives are restricted from participating in other activities after a death, such as not being able to return to their family home following a death there, again for varying periods of time, and sometimes not at all (Toussaint 1999:85). The name of a deceased person is usually suppressed, and others with the same name can be referred to locally as kumunyjayi. (17) Close family, especially widows, have their head hair shaved by female kin, and they and other relatives are required to live at a nearby 'sorry camp', a temporary shelter established so that grieving families can be cared for several weeks prior to the funeral.

The home of a deceased, especially if he or she died there, also requires careful attention. Family members select and then burn a small branch and leaves from a local konkerberry (Carissa lanceolata) bush. Kin chant a song as they trail the smouldering bush through a deceased's house. Smoke filters from the wood and any leaves it retains to ensure that the house is cleansed before another family can start living there. The smoking ceremony, or ngunyjurr ritual, helps to reassure and comfort grieving families that the deceased's spirit is no longer worried about leaving family and lands. Smoke is also used medicinally for a variety of ailments (Lowe and Pike 1990:54; see also Toussaint 1999).

After a loved one's funeral, visitors return to their homelands and communities. In many cases, families have travelled in convoys of four-wheel drive vehicles from locations that are hundreds of kilometers away, such as the Pilbara, around 1,000 kilometres south of Fitzroy Crossing, or from coastal communities south of Broome. Meat restrictions for distant kin will ease for some family members. Referred to locally as 'jaminyjarti time', close loved ones will continue to eat fish, as well as increase their intake of vegetable foods such as karnti (potatoes), small game like snake, insects such as witchetty grubs, and locally purchased canned or fresh foods, including tinned fish.

A focus on the implications of death helps to explain various aspects of Fitzroy Valley Indigenous life and the anguish that accompanies extended periods of mourning. It also encourages ideas about how persons related through family connections and through grief can be understood as seeking to alleviate intense sorrow on the one hand, and to generate comfort on the other. The material use of smoke to cleanse a deceased's household, the shaving of hair to symbolize sorrow, and the establishment of a 'sorry camp', are examples where a certain familiarity and pattern of behaviour emerges after a death. A focus on the implications of death also leads to a broader and deepened understanding about how, why and when fish and fishing matter: fishing occurs not only because it presents opportunities for families to get together 'round the one fireplace': fishing also takes place because of the high number of deaths that occur which, in turn, lead to a high and consistent demand for fish when meat restrictions are enacted. A Walmajarri woman puts it this way:

   We always go fishing, one thing is to share fish with family ...
   and then there's jaminy, we need to help jaminy people. If a family
   doesn't have a vehicle, or they're old people, we like to help them
   out. A lot of people don't like takeaway [fish], so we get it for
   them. When it's funeral time, they have to have a little bit of
   tinned fish first, then fresh fish. The fresh fish has to be
   smoked, like the smoke ceremony at funeral time ... If we can't
   catch fish, they have to eat bought fish that we cook for them. We
   have to look after families when they're in mourning. Too much
   sorry business everywhere ...

A Bunuba woman, who had suffered the loss of her husband several years ago, continues to grieve: (18)

   I can't eat meat [right now because it is], sorry business time ...
   I eat fresh fish. I go fishing everyday; sometimes family get it
   for me. I eat a little bit of tinned fish, if I have to, and
   sometimes fish and chips from Ngiyili [local Bunuba-owned
   roadhouse]. But mostly I get bream everyday from the river,
   sometimes I keep fish in the freezer, we save it for a rainy day
   [meaning when no fresh fish is available].

How families assist and support one another during times of grieving is also evident in another Walmajarri woman's story. In her account, it is plain that concerns about the need for fish were relayed from one family to another, and that she willingly caught and supplied the necessary fish. The pattern of sociality embedded in the multilayered value of catching, cooking and distribution of local fish is plain, as is her obvious pride in helping to comfort the bereaved family. The material 'thing' that connected them was freshly caught fish:

   We heard that the family needed fish for jaminyjarti. I'm a good
   fishing woman so they asked if I could help. I used crabmeat, crush
   it, left it downstream, this was after warrambah [flood river]
   time. I caught eight catfish; they were fat ones. These were cooked
   on the spot by the daughters. I gave them the whole lot because
   they needed it for their family, for funeral.

That fish replaces meat on occasions when it cannot be consumed should not imply that fish and meat are of equivalent value: they are simply different foods, one of which is needed during jaminy times to fulfill a long-term practice associated with death and grieving. Hunting for goanna and kangaroo are also much-loved activities but these usually involve long-distance tracking where a few people only need to move quietly and quickly in a way that is not always conducive to extended family activities, especially when very young children and elderly, perhaps frail, people are present and happy to stay at a designated campsite. On the other hand, both old and young people can be present during a 'camping out' trip associated with fishing. They can participate in a variety of active and comforting ways that apply to everyone present, such as looking after a hearth, cleaning caught fish, searching for leaves and bark to plate the fish, and quietly encouraging fishers, especially young children, to catch a good quantity of fish.

Within the context of jaminyjarti is the obvious tragedy it represents for Fitzroy Valley families: an increasing reliance on jaminyjarti reflects the extent to which premature death and death due to age occurs. The shocking poignancy of this statement was heightened not long ago when Nyapajarri, a Walmajarri woman, was lamenting the first diagnosis of Asbestos-caused Mesothelioma in the region. Trying to work out whether the disease could have escaped diagnosis before, and how wide-spread it might be, led to a turn in the conversation when Nyapajarri quietly said: 'Well, we've lost so many of our people, we don't really know [about diagnoses], we've lost so many, and we don't always know what they died from ...'.

Several interrelated matters arise from this discussion. The first is that the calculated incidence of death in conjunction with numbers of fish caught at certain times has not been investigated systematically or spatially as Close et al. (2013) note, indicating that there is clearly room for the pattern and implications of jaminyjarti to be recognized as a factor in studies about fish numbers and environmental river flows. The second is that the practice of jaminyjarti provides Indigenous people with a means to comfort kin via the use, catching, cooking and eating of fish during intense periods of sorrow. And the third reason--the most important of all--is the unacceptably high morbidity and mortality rates that are regularly calculated and give rise to local and regional concern (Toussaint 2003, 2008a). Calma (2008) provides national data regarding premature Indigenous death and death due to age, but PHIDU (2007:7) presents Kimberley data, including information about a high number of 'avoidable' deaths, and Morphy (2010:58) states that the Fitzroy Valley population has a 'high mortality' rate among 'adults from about the age of 40 onwards'. Data such as these reveal the shocking state of people's health status. Behind the statistics, of course, are those left to grieve: loved ones who mourn for the deceased and who try to comfort and to console bereaved family members. One of the ways this occurs is through the materialization and the practice of jaminyjarti.

CONCLUSIONS ABOUT FISHING FOR JAMINYJARTI, AND FOR LIFE

Fishing occurs as part of daily life for Fitzroy Valley Indigenous groups: it is central to what brings people together 'round the one fire place'. But just as it is crucial to life, fishing is central to the anguish that surrounds death and its aftermath. There is a ritual necessity, an emotional intensity, and a continuing cultural practice for concerned kin to provide loved ones suffering 'sorry business' with freshly caught and cooked fish in conjunction with and often long after a funeral. Looking after 'jaminy people' through the enactment of jaminyjarti reveals a great deal about death and grieving in Fitzroy Valley communities. It also reveals a complex and intrinsic yet not widely understood or documented part fish play in aquatic, spatial and other environmental studies about fresh-water fish and riparian environments (Close et al. 2013). Fishing regularly occurs and is enjoyed by women, men and children as 'river' and 'desert' people in Fitzroy Valley communities: it provides opportunities for families to spend time together on an everyday basis. In the sorrow that permeates death, and the need to comfort those who survive, fishing also fulfills jaminyjarti requirements. Miller's (2008) discussion of the interconnecting significance of things and persons that engender comfort in everyday lives helps to frame what is at jaminyjarti's core, while not embracing its whole.

DOI: 10.1002/ocea.5034

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am always grateful to, and mindful of. Indigenous Fitzroy Valley individuals, families and communities for the way in which they regularly scoop me into their Kimberley lives. I am especially indebted to the Bayulu, Mimbi and Ngarlankadji communities, and to individuals such as Marminjiya Joy Nuggett, Amy Ngurta Nuggett, Annette Puruta Kogolo, Rosemary Nuggett, Topsy Chestnut, Jimmy Shandley, Barry Nuggett and Sandy Cox. I appreciate very much the insights of Oceania editors and three anonymous referees whose helpful comments on an earlier version of this article have refined its qualities. The 2010 Report from which a number of quotes have been included was from research conducted through CSIRO Darwin for a Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge project focused on Indigenous Social and Economic Issues. Ethics approval for the project was obtained through Charles Darwin University with support from the Kimberley Land Council. I am also thankful to Arts Faculty colleagues at The University of Western Australia for time and space to write, and to CENRM's Paul Close for encouraging research that crosses disciplinary boundaries.

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Sandy Toussaint (1)

The University of Western Australia

NOTES

(1.) Anthropology, The University of Western Australia.

(2.) Morgan's work also resulted in a series of fish posters that included images and names of various fish species in Indigenous languages such as Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Nyikina, Ngarinyn and Walmajarri. See wwwscieng.murdoch.edu.au/centres/fish.

(3.) My ethnographic focus is on Northern Aboriginal Australia, most specifically the Fitzroy Valley in the Kimberley region of Western Australia's north. A range of research reports and publications address historical and contemporary matters relating to Indigenous people and fishing. Goodall and Cadzow (2009), for instance, provide a series of fishing stories recorded from Aboriginal people in relation to Sydney's Georges River in New South Wales. It is not, however, within the article's purview to consider other Australian regions in which Indigenous people are in the majority, as they are in the Fitzroy Valley (Morphy 2010). My primary aim is to discuss fishing beyond its everyday qualities and as central to mourning rituals in Australia's north. The matter of grieving and fishing is not examined in the relevant southern Australian literature I have reviewed.

(4.) Miller's primary focus is on various forms of sociality and cultural life in contemporary London households. His context and mine are vastly different but the ideas about what constitutes comfort among persons overtime are fruitful. One of Miller's chapters, or 'Portraits', is about an Australian Aboriginal man living in London. Titled 'The Aboriginal Laptop' it concentrates on 'Malcolm' who is exploring ways to connect to his past and present identity, and family, through archival material and digital technology, each of which are regarded as culturally comforting 'things'.

(5.) Toussaint 1999, 1999a, 200B, 2009 and Toussaint et al. 2005, provide further ethnographic material about Fitzroy Valley Indigenous communities. See also Toussaint 2010 for additional data about fishing and fish in a report that contains research undertaken for the Tropical Rivers and Tropical Knowledge (TRaCK) consortium. A number of quotes in this article have been extracted from the 2010 report. None has been published elsewhere.

(6.) Language areas are complex and approximate only. While I do not wish to indicate that areas are fixed, I do want to stress that they are locally known and respected by local Indigenous groups. The National Native Title Tribunal web site provides information on the 2007 Ngurrara and 2012 Bunuba and 2013 Gooniyandi Native Title Determinations. See http://www.nntt.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx.

(7.) Women wear cotton skirts, usually with an elastic waist and large pockets, and shirts when fishing and/or swimming in the river or nearby billabongs. Shorts or long pants are sometimes worn. Bathers are never worn. Hand lines are used to catch cherrabun.

(8.) Yasmine Musharbash (2008) provides a rich account of 'everyday' life at the Yuendumu Community in Central Australia. Some parallels can be drawn between Musharbash's work and a number of Fitzroy Valley communities, although the locations and logistics differ.

(9.) I have only ever encountered one woman who said she was not interested in fishing. Her family explained that she was having an unhappy love affair and was not interested in doing anything much at the time. I am aware of other occasions where people were too physically ill or old to participate in fishing activities. Nonetheless, their interest and desire to fish, and a healthy taste for fish remained, made obvious by families delivering fish to their home.

(10.) The selling of fish is not an acceptable practice, partly because of Customary Law requirements and local sociality, but also because people prefer to go fishing themselves and commit any money they have into resources such as lines, nets, hooks, bait and fuel so that a fishing trip can take place.

(11.) See also the Kimberley Language Resource Centre's Thangani Bunuba (1998), Toussaint et al. (2005), Yu (2006) and Sullivan et al. (2012) for further detail about ritual beliefs and practices related to local wildlife in the Kimberley.

(12.) Walmajarri linguists Eirlys Richards and Joyce Hudson (1990) explain that the words jaminyjarti and jaminy are used interchangeably and generally define 'a bereaved person who is fasting' (p. 25). Jaminy should not be confused with jarriny, which refers to a person's conception totem, although some people's jarriny is fish species, e.g. a catfish.

(13.) Tonkinson (1978) adds that one man suggested the 'deceased's spirit may decide to inhabit the body of these animals, so close relatives avoid the risk of eating the dead person in human form' (p. 85). He does not list foods Mardudjara could eat during restricted mourning times. It is likely that desert groups who migrated into the Fitzroy Valley adopted fish into the jaminy diet instead of other local wildlife to replace restrictions on red meat.

(14.) Sullivan et al. (2012) also comment on the extent of fishing practices among Walmajarri people at Yakanarra, a Fitzroy Valley community, 'during mourning times when meat is forbidden' (p. 50). While the article presents an insightful overview of fish poisoning techniques, no further mention is made of food taboos.

(15.) Some people choose to retain a jaminyjarti status despite being told by relevant kin that it is no longer required. A senior Bunuba woman, for instance, explained that she so missed her late husband she intended to remain on a fish diet for as long as she felt the need to do so.

(16.) Meggitt's work with the Walpiri (also spelt Warlpiri) of Central Australia in the late 1960s does not discuss food taboos following death but states that the widow of a deceased was restricted from talking. When senior men decided it was time to relax the restriction, 'Each man strikes her on the head with his switch and rubs some food on her mouth in order to "open it". The widow eats a portion of the food and the men eat the rest. She gives one last wail and returns to the widows' camp; she may now talk freely' (p. 329). See also Musharbash (2008a) for a contemporary account of death and grieving rituals among the Warlpiri.

(17.) The use of kumunjayi is extended to a person who has the same name of the deceased. Kumunjayi is used extensively throughout Aboriginal Australia. A first name only will be replaced. If a deceased were called 'Ruby', for instance, everyone in the community with the name Ruby would be given, and have to use, an alternative first name. See also Tonkinson 1978, pp. 84-85, about the Mardudjara where the practice is discussed.

(18.) In many ways, it could be argued that fishing for relaxation, recreation and as a form of comfort after a long period of mourning helps a jaminy person. Not everyone returns to fishing for himself or herself.