Celebrating our seasons

Statement provided by the Bunurong Land Council

A year passes on Bunurong Country: the hot, dry January moving to the late heat of March, the cold of June becoming the rains of October. Every year the seasons come and go, and every year they vary. A dry winter and a wet summer, a hot autumn and a cold spring. On this Country, ‘summer’, ‘autumn’, ‘winter’, and ‘spring’ are ambiguous and imprecise names. This language is from a foreign time and space, where the climate is different to that of Bunurong Country. It fails to express the experience of living on Bunurong Country and of its climate and seasons.

Bunurong peoples have held a connection to Country for thousands of years and hundreds of generations. An integral part of this connection is a deep understanding of time and of climate. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the names of the seasons in Boonwurrung, the language of Bunurong peoples.

Bunurong peoples do not simply divide the year into four seasons of ‘summer’, ‘autumn’, ‘winter’ and ‘spring’. Sometimes people speak of seven seasons, assuming that Bunurong peoples divide the year into seven divisions, much like European peoples divide the year into four. This is, however, a fundamental misunderstanding: an application of a Western point of view to Bunurong cultural knowledge.

For Bunurong peoples, there are many names for seasons, each defined by their own climatic, ecological, and cultural indicators. For example, the Western understanding of ‘summer’ can not only be translated as manggiyang ‘early summer’ or wayigabil nhawiinh ‘old man sun’ or ‘height of summer’, but also as nhirrim nhawiinh ‘long sun’ or buladu nhawiinh ‘big sun’. These are not simply four ‘sections’ of summer, but different ‘types’ of summer. Each of these names is a different way of viewing what is broadly translated as ‘summer’ in English, appropriate in different cultural and ecological contexts.

Seasons may also be named for animals or plants that indicate that season. For instance, the time around March might be referred to as yuuk, or eel season, while December might be kurrkkurrk, or kangaroo-apple season. Seasons are therefore defined by ecological and cultural cues: the emergence of particular animals or plants, the beginnings of ceremony, or the reappearance of certain stars and planets in the sky.

This is language that moves with the seasons as they are, without imposing arbitrary Western divisions. This is the language of Country. It invites you to listen, and to understand.

This information is shared with permission from the Bunurong Land Council.