Paddy Roe

Paddy Roe (Lulu)

Paddy Roe OAM (1912-2001), a Nyikina Aboriginal man affectionately known as Lulu, was born and raised in the bush by his famed Nyikina tribal father, Bulu, and mother, Wallia, on Yawuru country at Roebuck Plains in the remote West Kimberley region of Western Australia. Lulu was widely respected for his wisdom, cultural knowledge and maban (spiritual) power, and was acknowledged as a founding father of reconciliation. People often remarked that he was “deep in the Law”. His conception totem (spirit self) was Yungurugu (or Yoonkoorookoo), the Rainbow Serpent. He was the founder of the now internationally renowned Lurujarri Heritage Trail on the remote Dampier Peninsula in Western Australia. Though speaking seven Aboriginal languages plus Malay and ‘Broome English’, he chose not to learn to read or write, saying it inhibited the unimpeded flow of ‘true feeling’, namely, the knowing emanating from, in his words, “the ground at the bottom of everything.”

Early life

Towards the end of the 19th century Lulu’s people fled to Roebuck Plains following the brutal occupancy of Nyikina country by its British invaders but were still not safe. It is why when Bulu passed away the family decided to safeguard Lulu by sending the young boy deep into the desert, out of reach of the invaders. He was accompanied by his older tribal brother and lifelong mentor, the widely renowned maban man ^[1] Joe Nangan ^[2] and several other family members. They re-emerged eight years later, Lulu now a fully initiated Lawman having been taken into the Law at an unusually young age and passing through all the stages. The returnees camped on Roebuck Plains, which had become a cattle station, where they cared for the last of the old Nyikina people while working as station hands. Lulu was soon an accomplished drover and installer/repairer of windmills. Though only in his late teens, his intelligence, capabilities and balanced demeanour were so apparent the British station manager left Lulu in charge whenever on holidays.

Marriage and custodianship of Country

Circa 1931, Lulu ran away to the Damper Peninsula with his wife-to-be, Mary Pikalili, a traditional Karajarri woman. They passed through Rubibi (Broome, part of the land of the Djukun people), continuing north into Ngumbarl and Jabbirjabbir country where they met Walmadan, the powerful, much-feared leader of the Jabbirjabbir people and two equally powerful senior Jabbirjabbir Law women, Nabi and Gardilagan, both janggungurr (female equivalent of a maban man). The Jabbirjabbir Law women informed Mary she would have two children (to join young Thelma who Mary had with her previous husband). They said two rayi (spirit babies) belonging to Nabi could not enter Nabi because she was too old for children, so they would both enter Mary. She subsequently gave birth to Teresa and Margaret. The Law women explained that Mary’s children would have many children who would have many more. Once again, there would be a big mob to exercise custodial care of Country. ^[3] This was extremely important to the Jabbirjabbir elders because all their young people had been removed to missions; the first of the Stolen Generations. ^[4] Only the old people remained with none to carry on their traditions and care for Country as their ancestors had done for tens of thousands of years. It is why the old people began walking young Lulu and Mary back and forth through Country (from Broome to Gariyan, south of Carnot Bay) showing them the hundreds of sites along the coast, sharing the associated songs and stories, introducing them to the mamara trees and murruru places (flora and rocks with special power) and providing other essential cultural information. It was how Lulu, Mary and their descendants became the recognised custodians of that Country. They took their new responsibilities seriously, never ceasing to fulfil the trust placed in them.

The War Years

The war with Japan saw all non-Indigenous people evacuated from Broome (apart from military personnel). Lost labour was replaced by bringing in Aboriginal people from the bush. Lulu was told by the authorities to work in the lemonade factory supplying cold drinks to the military while Joe Nagan was assigned to be the town butcher. When Japan began bombing Broome in 1942, the horror of impersonal modern warfare saw Lulu turn to alcohol, but after the war ended he stopped drinking and never resumed. He later explained that he became aware it was weakening his liyan, the subtle thread connecting the individual to the whole and through which ‘true feeling’ flows. It was an important realisation that contributed to him becoming a steadfast pillar of Aboriginal Law and culture on the Dampier Peninsula, whose senior Law keepers (Majas) recognised his standing and took him into their Law, where he also became a Maja. He now carried the rare distinction of being initiated into and carrying responsibilities for two Laws.

Protecting Living Country

As the West Kimberley came under increasing pressure from developers, miners and tourism, Lulu’s recognised authority to speak for Country meant many of those who wanted to know what might be possible came to his ‘office’, a tamarind tree in Dora Street, Broome where they would find him sitting on the red pindan beneath its shade carving boomerangs, shields and lizards or making decorations for ceremonies. Devoid of fear, greed and egotistic ambition, immersed in the reality of the Dreaming, he was far-sighted and ever-respectful, a bedrock of integrity, honesty and kindness. Despite having witnessed horrors perpetrated on Indigenous people and having personally experienced the oppressive ways of the usurpers he carried no anger or bitterness and remained steadfast in his belief that the way forward meant everyone learning to walk together, starting with the experience of ‘Living Country’. In 1974, informed by knowledgeable local Aboriginal people that Paddy Roe and his family were the area’s recognised custodians, archaeologist-anthropologist Kim Akerman carried out with them the first archaeological survey of a 16-kilometre stretch of coast north of Minariny (Coulomb Point), recording 36 old Aboriginal camping sites and workshops. ^[5] Other collaborative efforts followed to record sites and cultural knowledge. ^[6] In 1981 South African archaeologist Dr Patricia Vinnicombe, famous for her work with rock art ^[7] , was introduced to Lulu by Akerman and, on behalf of the WA Museum, worked with him and the family to record more information about the sites and mythology. To help bring people together and protect the lands and waters for which he and the family carried the cultural knowledge and exercised custodial responsibilities Lulu established the Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation (GMIC) ^[8] and the now internationally renowned Lurujarri Heritage Trail (also known as the Lurujarri Dreaming Trail). ^[9] Lulu’s commitment to preserving Country from harm was illustrated in 1990 when the listed mining company, Terex Resources NL, sought approval to exploit mineral sands on the sacred domain of the Songline. Lulu and the other Majas led a range of interests in opposition to it. Though it is rare for objections to mining exploration approvals to succeed in Western Australia, the Warden’s Court upheld the objections and the exploration license was refused, the Warden citing the significant Aboriginal cultural heritage values and environmental values of the area. ^[10]

The Lurujarri Heritage Trail

In the 1980s, Lulu began talking about his vision of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people walking together, camping under the stars and experiencing the power of Living Country and the ways of traditional culture. He dreamed of a walking trail as a means of uniting and uplifting Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples alike through the agency of Country, which in turn would provide a way for it to be cared for respectfully. Lulu’s vision manifested in 1987 with the first walk of the Lurujarri Heritage Trail, two or three happening every year thereafter and continued by his family today, usually comprising 20-30 visitors and 20-30 Goolarabooloo men, women and children. The Trail traverses an 80-kilometre section of coast, part of a 450-kilometre-long Songline that winds its way from Swan Point on the northern tip of the Dampier Peninsula to Gariyan (Cape Bossut), south of the Karajarri community of Bidyadanga. For tens of thousands of years, the members of its seven communities have continued the ceremonies in which the Country of the Songline is sung and renewed and knowledge of First Law ^[11] transmitted. The archaeological evidence facilitated by Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people helped attract funding from both the State and Federal governments and in 1988, the Trail was officially designated a heritage trail. In turn, this led to the WA Museum’s Aboriginal Sites Department commissioning archaeologists Elizabeth Bradshaw and Rachel Fry to carry out the first fully professional survey of the entire coastal strip encompassing the Lurujarri Heritage Trail, from Broome to Bindingangun (Yellow Creek). ^[12] In 1993, Emeritus Professor Jim Sinatra, head of RMIT University’s Landscape Architecture program in Melbourne, joined Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people in walking the Lurujarri Heritage Trail. Sinatra was so impressed by the opportunity it afforded for people to see and know the natural world in a different way that walking the Trail became a course of study for landscape architecture and design students at RMIT, and remains so today. ^[13] The first chapter of his 1999 book with compatriot Phin Murphy, Listen to the People, Listen to the Land, introduces readers to Lulu and a different way of seeing and relating with Country. ^[14]

Awards

In 1990, Paddy Roe's standing and his work for the community over many decades was recognised when the Governor-General awarded him the Order of Australia Medal for “service to Aboriginal welfare”. ^[15]

Books and videos

From the early 1980s onwards, recognition of the significance of Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people spread when several books were published in collaboration with professor of linguistics Stephen Muecke ^[16] plus other publications. ^[17] In 1991, Greg Campbell was invited by Lulu to live on Country and work with him and the Goolarabooloo people to write one book. The 31-year collaboration extended well beyond Lulu’s lifetime, culminating with the 2022 publication of a landmark 720-page book, Total Reset: Realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living. ^[18] It was followed by a revised first edition in 2023 (682 pages) along with a 36½-hour audiobook ^[19] narrated by Nyikina man, accomplished actor and creative, Mark Coles Smith. In his Foreword to Total Reset, GMIC General Manager and Maja, Lulu’s great- grandson Daniel Roe, expressed the Goolarabooloo people’s delight at Campbell recording their oral history and telling their true story, “one that seeks to preserve, maintain and pass on knowledge of how to live with Country proper to the generation of today and those to come.” ^[20] In 1992, British anthropologist, Harvard professor David Maybury-Lewis and his team chose Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people to represent the Australian perspective in a global project examining different Indigenous cultures. The outcome was Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World, ^[21] an award-winning documentary series of 10 videos and a book. Paddy Roe and the Goolarabooloo people feature in the sixth video, Inventing Reality. ^[22]

Death

Lulu’s peaceful passing on 5 July 2001 was widely reported, Senator Aden Ridgeway, Deputy Leader of the Australian Democrats, standing in the national parliament to deliver a eulogy in which he said, inter alia: I would like to bring to the Senate’s attention the passing of a great Australian who was a leader in his own community and someone who generously shared his great wisdom and understanding of our ancient country with all Australians. His name was Paddy Roe (who) established the Goolarabooloo community to protect the region’s Indigenous culture (leading) to the construction in 1987 of the Lurujarri (coastal dunes) Heritage Trail… As Mr Roe said, “We should all come together – European and Aboriginal people, Countryman and Aboriginal man, Black and White – to look after Country”… Despite the history of this one significant man in the Kimberley who has contributed so much to his community, I think that he ought to be remembered as a person who contributed so much to the Australian nation. His life will be remembered far beyond his home country of Broome in Western Australia. I hope that his life experiences will go on teaching young Australians about how it is possible for cultures to coexist and adapt to change but still maintain their own integrity and power. This is a message that was borne out by Mr Roe’s life – it is his legacy. ^[23]

Legacy

The enduring impact of that legacy was evident not only in the continuance of the Lurujarri HeritageTrail walks but in the remarkable struggle by the Goolarabooloo people during 2005-2013 to prevent the industrialisation of the land of the Songline when several of the world’s largest corporations, including Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BHP Billiton, and British Petroleum together with Woodside and the government of Western Australia sought to build a massive LNG plant at Walmadany (James Price Point) and a port. It was seen as providing the necessary initial infrastructure for export-orientated mining of the vast and pristine Kimberley region, widely considered among the most significant, precious ecosystems on Earth. The Goolarabooloo people, inspired by their Majas, Joseph Roe, Phillip Roe and Richard Hunter, led one of the great battles in Australia’s environmental history, bringing together people of all interests and persuasions to stand up for the well- being of Country and all life. The case for Country was made out in numerous publications. ^[24] The full story is told in Total Reset. ^[25] Their success illustrated how realities can change when people and Country are functioning as one family under the Dreaming, in line with Lulu’s messaging:

“No more dividin’ people, settin’ one against another, makin’ one more big, one more small. Not the proper way. We all gotta come together, work together – blackfella, whitefella, yellafella, every kinda fella. Don’t matter who we are, if we dig below the white soil on top an’ find that black soil inside at the bottom of everythin’, yair, we can see. Then we know – all one under the Dreamin’ – an’ we go that way.” ^[26]

Works

• Greg Campbell with Lulu and the Goolarabooloo Family, Total Reset: Realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living. 2022, (1 st ed. rev.) 2023. Dunsborough, WA: Total Reset. The printed book and the 2023 audiobook by Mark Coles Smith can be previewed at http://www.totalreset.com.au Part 2 of Total Reset contains a comprehensive account of the stories and deep knowledge of Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people (1st ed. rev.; in particular pp.143-436).

• Stephen Muecke & Paddy Roe, The Children’s Country: Creation of a Goolarabooloo Future in North-West Australia. 2020. London: Rowman & Littlefield

• Kim Akerman. Brief Notes - Paddy Roe and the Goolarabooloo (Native Title) Findings. 2018. In the private collection of the Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation and published in Total Reset (1 st ed. rev. 2023, Appendix 3).  Jim Sinatra and Phin Murphy, Listen to the People, Listen to the Land, 1999 Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. The 1 st chapter (pp.11-30) – Black and White, a trail to understanding – focuses on Paddy Roe and the Goolarabooloo family.

• Aboriginal Voices: Contemporary Aboriginal artists, writers and performers, compiled by Liz Thompson. 1990. Simon & Schuster, Australia. Features 31 Aboriginal writers, painters, dancers and story-tellers from western, central and eastern Australia including Paddy Roe, Jack Davis, Archie Weller and Sally Morgan

• Krim Benterrak, Stephen Muecke and Paddy Roe, Reading the Country: Introduction to Nomadology. 1984. Revised edition1996 by Fremantle Arts Centre Press; 2014 edition by re.Press

• Paddy Roe (Stephen Muecke editor), Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley. 1983. South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. The book won the 1985 Western Australian Week Literary Award.

• Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley, Stephen Muecke (editor), Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1983, ISBN   978-0-909144-65-4
• "Paddy Roe: Storyteller", by Paddy Roe, in Aboriginal Voices: Contemporary Aboriginal artists, writers and performers, compiled by Liz Thompson

References

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Aditional References

1. Maban is the name used by Aboriginal people of the West Kimberley for a man who has access to supernatural powers of one or more ancestral beings of the Dreaming and has been endowed with the ability to utilise those powers in a variety of ways, usually in support of community well-being. The name of the female equivalent is janggungurr. Across Australia, there are a variety of names for ‘maban’ such as karadji, gingin, kurdaitcha and bán-man. Commonly known as a ‘clever man’, a maban is also referred to in the literature as a ‘medicine man’ or ‘doctor’ though their functions are much broader. In the Americas, Siberia and other places, the equivalent is a shaman.

2. Ethnologist Dr Helmut Petri, leader of the 1938 German Frobenius expedition to the Kimberley, wrote of Joe Nangan, “From his earliest youth he had been regarded in the whole northwest as a maban wánggu-djáding, a medicine man of the first rank”.

See Pawsey, M. (trans.) & Akerman, K. (ed.) 2015 Cologne to the Kimberley – Studies of Aboriginal Life in Northwest Australia by Five German Scholars in the First Half of the 20th Century. Carlisle, Western Australia: Hesperian Press.

3. Where the word ‘Country’ is capitalised its meaning encompasses not only the countryside but all material and non-material elements of earth, waters and sky and their cultural implications. In essence, Country is the entire natural world (visible and invisible), often referred to by the First Peoples as ‘living Country’.

4. https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations

5. Kim Akerman. 1974. Aboriginal Camp Sites On The Western Coast Of Dampier Land, Western Australia. The 12-paper can be viewed at: www.parliament.wa.gov.au/publications/tabledpapers.nsf/displaypaper/3814927c9205b6 6b7f2d21b648257a790009255f/$file/4927.pdf

6. Akerman, K. 1976. Notes on the experimental manufacture of long blades and points by percussion flaking. Occasional Papers in Anthropology. Anthropology Museum University of Queensland. 6: 117-28.

Akerman, K., 1981. Horde areas and mythological sites between James Price Point and Coconut Well on the west coast of Dampierland, WA. Broome: Kimberley Land Council.

Akerman, K., & Bindon, P. 1983. Evidence of Aboriginal lithic experimentation on the Dampierland Peninsula, in Smith, M. (ed.) Archaeology at ANZAAS 1983. Perth: Western Australian Museum, pp. 75- 80.

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Vinnicombe

Also, see p.466 of Total Reset: Realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living. 2023, by Greg Campbell with Lulu and the Goolarabooloo People. Dunsborough, Western Australia: Total Reset.

8. The Goolarabooloo Millibinyarri Indigenous Corporation (GMIC) is a body incorporated under the Australian Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006. The name ‘Millibinyarrri’ refers to Aboriginal land in the Coconut Well area, 24 km north of Broome. The name ‘Goolarabooloo’ (Goolara = west coast/sundown/seaside; booloo = people/place) is both a generic name for saltwater societies of the West Kimberley region of Western Australia and the name of the community whose apical ancestors are Paddy Roe and his wife Mary Pikalili. In her 1899-1902 fieldwork, Daisy Bates called them the Koolarrbulloo and the Koolarabooloo. In his 1940s work, archaeologist- anthropologist Norman Tindale referred to the Goolarabooloo as the Kularapulu. The Goolarabooloo people include members of the saltwater communities of the West Kimberley: Bardi-Jawi, Nimanburr, Nyul Nyul, Jabbirjabbir, Ngumbarl, Djukun and Karajarri plus non-Indigenous people.

9. https://www.goolarabooloo.org.au/lurujarri.html Publications providing descriptions of the Lurujarri Heritage Trail include:

Total Reset: Realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living. 2023, by Greg Campbell with Lulu and the Goolarabooloo People. Dunsborough, Western Australia, Ch.29, pp.436-54

The Children’s Country: Creation of a Goolarabooloo Future Future in North-West Australia. 2020, by Stephen Muecke & Paddy Roe. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

Stranger Country. 2019, by Monica Tan, Crows Nest, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, pp133-75.

Being with Country: The performance of people–place relationships on The Lurujarri Dreaming Trail, (PhD). 2016, by Ourania Emmanouil. Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory. It can be viewed at: https://ris.cdu.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/33354486/Thesis_CDU_60267_Emmanouil_O.pdf

Protecting the Songlines, 2015. Episode 6 in a Canadian documentary Native Planet series, hosted by acclaimed First Nations actor Simon Baker. It focuses on the Goolarabooloo people. https://nativeplanet.tv/episode/protecting-the-song-lines/

10. Mining Warden’s court hearing in Broome 22-25 July 1991 in relation to Objections Nos 1-5/890, 18/890 and 3-4/901 to Applications by Terrex Resources NL for Exploration licenses EO4/645, 646 & 647: findings of 20 August 1991 by the warden, Dr JA Howard SM, available at the WA Department of Mines’ list of Warden’s Court decisions for 1991, Vol 8, Folio 8AA. www.dmp.wa.gov.au/Documents/Wardens- Court/Vol08_FOLIO08AA.pdf# <viewed 6 December 2024>

11. Like the millions of other species on planet Earth, homo sapiens is inextricably part of the natural world and under its law. Some refer to it as Earth Law or Natural Law. For Indigenous Australians, it is First Law, telling how the non-human-created laws of the universe operate for our species. So long as any species is aligned with its Law it fulfils its purpose in the scheme of things, maximising the prospects of its continuance and that of the whole system. Non-aligned, extinction awaits.

12. Bradshaw, E. & Fry, R. 1989. A Management Report for the Lurujarri Heritage Trail, Broome, Western Australia. Perth: Department of Aboriginal Sites, Western Australian Museum. https://library.museum.wa.gov.au/fullRecord.jsp?recnoListAttr=recnoList&recno=63175

13. http://www1.rmit.edu.au/courses/014736

14. Jim Sinatra and Phin Murphy, Listen to the People, Listen to the Land. 1999. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. The 1 st chapter, Black and White, a trail to understanding (pp.11-30), shares perspectives of Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people.

15. Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) awarded to Paddy Roe for service to Aboriginal welfare. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/120874672

16. Paddy Roe (Stephen Muecke editor), Gularabulu: Stories from the West Kimberley. 1983. South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. The book won the 1985 Western Australian Week Literary Award. Krim Benterrak, Stephen Muecke and Paddy Roe, Reading the Country: Introduction to Nomadology. 1984. Revised edition1996 by Fremantle Arts Centre Press; 2014 edition by re.Press

17. Ray Aitchison, on behalf of the National Library of Australia. May 1986. Audio recording of a 90-minute interview with Lulu. https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/126350 An edited transcript of a portion of this interview (from the 38:09 to the 46:40-minute mark) is available at www.totalreset.com.au, under ‘Storytelling’ on the ‘About Total Reset’ page. Liz Thompson (compiler). 1990. Aboriginal Voices: Contemporary Aboriginal artists, writers and performers. Australia: Simon & Schuster. Lulu is one of 31 respected Aboriginal writers, painters, dancers and storytellers from western, central and eastern Australia featured. https://www.amazon.com.au/Aboriginal-Voices-Contemporary-Artists- Performers/dp/1876622040

18. Total Reset: Realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living, by Greg Campbell with Lulu and the Goolarabooloo Family. 2022 & 2023 (1st ed. rev.), Dunsborough, WA. The printed book and the 2023 audiobook by Mark Coles Smith can be previewed and are available at www.totalreset.com.au Part 2 (1st ed. rev., pp.143-436) contains a comprehensive account of the stories and deep knowledge of Lulu and the Goolarabooloo people.

19. The audiobook can be sampled and is available at www.totalreset.com.au

20. Total Reset, op.cit., p.xi

21. Maybury-Lewis, David. 1992. Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World. New York: Viking

22. Inventing Reality, 6 th video in the 10-video series Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGZK0v3JaEo/ (Lulu and Goolarabooloo people are featured from the 38:30-55.28-minute mark)

23. Senator Aden Ridgeway’s full speech can be read in the Parliament of Australia’s Hansard (Senate) transcript of 20 August 2001. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/search.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=_fragment_number, doc_date-rev

24. Murray Wilcox QC (compiler). 2010. Kimberley At The Crossroads – the case against the gas plant. Broome: Save The Kimberley P/L. The full-colour PDF version is accessible at https://www.savethekimberley.com/2012/09/19/kimberley-at-the- crossroads-pdf-now-available/

Eugénie Dumont. 2014. Heritage Fight. Keystone Films presentation of a 90-minute documentary. The trailer can be viewed at https://en.unifrance.org/movie/38380/heritage-fight

Damian Kelly. 2016. James Price Point: the story of a movement. Broome: Damian Kelly Photography Peter Botsman. 2012. Law Below the Top Soil. Broome: Save The Kimberley P/L

25. Total Reset: Realigning with our timeless holistic blueprint for living, op.cit., pp.456-521

26. Ibid, p.x