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.