Sharing stories in Kunwunjku and English

By Jeanette Djidjnguk
This is a story about me and my family visiting Ardarra.
Ardarra is about an hour or more drive kakbi karrikad (north-west) from Gunbalanya on Wardadjbak and Amurdak language country. It’s near another place called Benuk Kadjang (Bush Turkey dreaming). We go to Ardarra from Gunbalanya whenever we can get a motorcar on weekends or holidays, same as we go to many other places. Whenever we get to Ardarra, we set up our stuff, like birndu-ken (mozzie nets) as we make a place to sleep near a mankabo-yahwurd (small creek). Ardarra has lovely short grass for camping, and when we’re there we can smell the perfume from mannguy (flowers) in the nearby forest.
When I was ten years old, me and my parents and my family went on the weekend for camping at Ardarra. One night we had dinner, then we all slept. Then at kukabel (morning coming, at about six oclock) my grandfather Johnny Djogiba, whose skin group was Nawamud, and who I called mamam (mother’s father), heard a noise.  It was coming from the forest and creek, as if someone was talking. My grandfather could hear the sound coming closer and closer towards us. Something or someone was saying ‘djidjnguk….djidjnguk’. Then he saw it was a Djidjnguk man, coming out of the forest right at that moment.
My grandpa heard and saw that Djidjnguk, then woke up his wife, Wendy Nabegeyo, whose skin group was Ngalkodjok. She was my ngalkinbalen (mother’s mother). He said to her, “Ngalkodjok, wake up! There’s a djidjnguk walking towards us! Can you hear him talking and walking along the side of that small creek?” 
She woke, sat up, listened and looked. She could hear Djidjnguk talking as he walked towards us, and then she saw him too. Grandma turned around and said to her husband, “Nakka nungka Djidjnguk kamhre, kambokadjung mankabo!” (That’s him! That’s the Djidjnguk man, walking this way following the small creek).
They kept looking at Djidjnguk. He was carrying his spear and dilly bag, on his morning hunt looking for djenj (fish) in the creek, not far from where we were camped. Djidjnguk is short, fat and hairy. He looks a bit like the Ewok in Star Wars. 
And when he gets kabangmen (angry), his eyes go red. 
My grandparents kept watching as he walked away, and they said, “that Djidjnguk is going back into the forest now, because kamdungbebme darnkih” (sun’s just rising up). It was nearly 7 o’clock. They kept hearing “djidnjnguk…  djidjnguk…., djidjnguk…..” until he disappeared into the thick forest. 
They said to each other, “we will tell a story about this to our family when they wake up, including the kids Jeanette and Andrianna. We will tell them we saw a Djidjnguk man”. When we all woke up, we had breakfast, some weetbix, bacon and wirlarrk (eggs). Then our grandparents told us the story of Djidjnguk. 
That’s why I remember the story of Djidjnguk at Ardarra, from when I was camping there with my cousin sister Andrianna and my grandparents, my parents, my aunties Jill and Leah, my two uncles Alfred and Ralph, and my four brothers, who were Jill’s, Marlene’s and Leah’s sons. It was a real Djidjnguk man that my grandparents saw.
Many families often tell stories about Djidjnguk, because there are nawern (lots and lots of them) in the forest at Ardarra. Today you will still see a Djidjnguk man if you go and camp there, if you listen and keep your eyes open.