PhD student captures captivating stories of Badimaya elder
Linguists James Bednall and Rosie Sitorus with Gami Ollie George. Image: Bundiyarra-Irra Wangga Language Centre.
A stunning new bilingual book has been launched on-country at Kirkalocka Station, about 350km east of Geraldton in Western Australia.
Nganang Badimaya Wangga: Yarns with Gami Ollie George is a captivating account of the life of Gami (Pop) Ollie, who is a Badimaya elder and one of the last speakers of the Badimaya language.
Written in Badimaya and English, the book is well spiced with colourful characters and stories of Ollie’s life growing up on pastoral stations in WA’s outback.
ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics PhD student James Bednall (ANU) was involved with the production of the book. James worked at the Bundiyarra-Irra Wangga Language Centre as its linguist from 2011 to 2014. In that time, he worked with Ollie on language documentation projects, which eventually led to the Badimaya dictionary in 2014.
“Ollie is an incredibly humble, gentle man; a person who is passionate about his culture,” says James. “He has been working with the centre since the 1990s, so he has been involved in language documentation for a long time.”
Although 82-years-old, Ollie will happily work all day, day after day on language. “It’s lovely that the language centre and the linguistics community can produce this book with him,” says James. “I see it as a real tribute to him; for being the main driving force behind the documentation of his language for such a long time.”
James says Ollie’s stories incorporate not only references to cultural and spiritual activities, but give a terrific sense of the people he grew up with, including some cheeky references to those funnier moments in life.
The creation of the book has involved the wider community, bringing together language speakers, linguists and Badimaya and other Yamaji artists. The artists came together in workshops held in Geraldton and Mt Magnet to create the original, warm canvas paintings that reflect Ollie’s story, and which are now reproduced in full colour throughout the book.
Ollie grew up at Kirkalocka Station, where the book was launched on 24 May. An exhibition of the book’s illustrations at the Geraldton Regional Art Gallery will open on 27 May. A video about the project, made by Chris Lewis from ABC Open, will also be screened.
This story was orginally published on the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language website.