Story for Keeping Strong - Arrente (English)
S1: “Keeping Strong” Elders of this land guide us as we tell this story
S2: Hey come over here!
S3: Me?
S2: You, I’m talking to you.
S2: Sit down here.
S2: How are you?
S3: Yes, I’m OK
S2: How come your OK, when you looking after all those children yourself.
S3: The kids all right. There all going to school.
S2: How’s your eldest sister?
S3: She’s got a lot of friends but she don’t see them much.
S3: She’s always by herself. She doesn’t want to do anything.
S2: What are you gonna say to help her?
S3: I don’t know what I am gonna say?
S3: She’s feeling really bad and let down. She’s not sleeping… feels tired all the time.S3 How am I gonna help her?S2 Well I’ll tell you Granddaughter. This is a big story.
S2: This story has everybody in it.. Aboriginal people. White people. Everyone.
S2: I can tell you a little bit about it.
S2: I’ll show you on the ground.
S2: She doesn’t remember her thinking. That girl is so far away. We got to help her to get back together.
S3: How can we make her better?
S2: We gotta take her to the traditional healer.
S3: How they gonna do it?
S2: There gonna do this to her. Smoking. Rubbing. Singing.
S3: Oh yea I seen that done.
S3: Smoking, alright we can get some bush plants. And get her to walk through the smoke.
S3: Then after that, I think she’ll feel better.
S2: And we can do some rubbing.
S2: Traditional healer rubs her body and throws away the bad things.
S3: You talked about singing her so she can feel better.
S2: Singing will get her better.
S4: Singing
S2: If we do those things in our way it might heal her.
S2: But she can’t get better herself. We all gotta help her get better.
S2: All her family gotta look after her.
S3: Yeah … I had a dream last night. One of our family gave me a message.
S2: That dream that you saw, maybe for that girl.
S2: Maybe for you, Maybe for someone else in our family.
S2: This story connects all of us.
S2: My cousin was broken like that.
S2: And then she slowly got better.
S3: Was she like that! Her spirit is really strong now.
S2: Now she got children. She is looking after her house.
S2: This story is not only ours.
S2: It’s got all the families.
S2: She can’t only talk with us.
S2: She can talk to other people as well.
S3: Yes she gotta talk to other people.
S2: We don’t want her to feel like she’s sitting in a dark corner, by herself all alone.
S3: Yes all of us gotta look after her.
S2: Yeah that’s right.
S2: Whole community got to look after her.
S3: Yes ok, we done all that …
S3: What else can help?
S3: Can we take her to the clinic?
S2: You might think that bad spirit inside.
S2: But don’t be frightened.
S2: That’s good to take her to the clinic.
S3: Take her to the white doctor.
S2: If you got a sick liver. You can go to the clinic and get medicine to get better.\
S2: If you got a sick lungs you can go to the clinic and get medicine to get better.
S3: She can go to the clinic to get medicine or talking to help her thinking straight. Yeah even with a wrong head.
S2: Wrong Head?! (laugh) How many heads you got then?
(laugh)
S3: You know what I’m talking about.!
S3: I told you a little bit of story.
S2: Yeah… you got a lot of things to do now.
S3: We all gotta do that.
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