Discover the Magic of Mungo’s Songs: Creator spirits, Bunjil & the Rainbow Serpent (Wedge-tailed eagle over Brown Snake)
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Mungo sings its own magical songs. First you see this ancient landscape, then you feel it in your soul. But then the wind moves and you hear it singing in the pines, whispering through the saltbush, bending the spear-grass, drifting with the sand…..
Conservation : poems in search of Mungo’s magic songs.
Barry Wenke’s poems express his thoughts and his motivation for travel. They are positive, refreshing, compact, succinct…..and easily understood.
Most importantly, they contain a strong conservation message.
Barry was a guest on a Mungo Outback & Conservation Journey I was guiding for Australian Geographic Travel and was so impressed by Mungo he penned the deeply moving poems you’ll read in this story.
He reinforced my belief that conservation — and awareness of our impact on the environment — is important to travellers. (Read more about Barry poems)
Mungo’s songs : message sticks from the past
Aboriginal People used inscribed wooden sticks — message sticks — to communicate with other people. They were carried across the land by “messengers” to distant groups.
On still clear nights you may still hear the Messengers singing songs in the dunes.
So often we miss what is right before us but if we learn to listen we may “hear” the songs of the past.
This is the magic power of Mungo.
Read Barry’s “Mungo Messages” where he first hears the song:
MUNGO MESSAGES – read the poem
MUNGO MESSAGES
Our lookout scans the grandest plain
To distant sand-dune ridge
A living place where time stands still
And lonely raptors bridge
All around are message sticks
With stories from the past
The universal metaphors
To show us what will last
Fragments of stone artefacts
Ashes, bones and teeth
Some exposed above the ground
Most are underneath
Millennia of human prints
Preserved in solid rock
Challenge modern scientists
Their secrets to unlock
We need to open both our eyes
To let the Dreamtime in
For us to see just who we are
And what we might have been
Three tribal groups have led the way
In working as a team
And if we listen to their song
Some trust we might redeem
Like kangaroos and emus
We can share this special place
Their only path is forward
Which is the way we face
Barry Wenke 2023
World Heritage Site links wildlife and people
Mungo is famous for its burials — the oldest ceremonial resting places of humans on earth — dating back a staggering 65,000 years. These burials display indisputable evidence of a loving, caring society that mourned the passing of its relatives and friends.
Since then over 2000 generations of humans have embedded their songs in Mungo’s sand.
Mungo is also the resting place for the ancestors of many of Australia’s current suite of wildlife, including megafauna, that lived concurrently with Aboriginal People.
Giant kangaroos, wombats, snakes and emus roamed the lakes and forests surrounding them. Their bones are scattered throughout Mungo’s dunes and are exposed daily by the wind….sometimes alongside human burials.
The link between people and wildlife is palpable and was the reason the huge 240,000 hectare region — which includes Mungo National Park — was proclaimed the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area in 1981.
⚡HEAR MUNGO’S SONGS
Ancestors crafted Mungo’s magic songs
Two major ancestral beings made the stories and songs of Aboriginal People. In southern Australia the great creator spirit is Bunjil, the Wedge-tailed Eagle. In the north and west the creator is the Rainbow Serpent.
Magically both these entities merged while we were at a remote and spectacularly beautiful place called Vigars Well in Mungo. At the time I don’t think any of us realised what an incredibly poignant moment we had witnessed.
In fact, without Barry’s poem, I may not have given the incident another thought:
DUNE – read the poem
DUNE
An unexpected shadow
Slides across us on this massive dune
Causing us to look up
And see a distant wedge-tailed eagle
Performing aerobatics for its mate
I wonder if it did enough to impress
Or if either is aware
That they have drawn our attention away
From the sleek brown snake
Which has crossed our path
The unique pattern of its journey too
Is carved into the sand
As transient as the wind
Which formed this place
And we are honoured to share
Their presence and connection
Our challenge now
Is knowing how to observe
And being aware of who is watching
Barry Wenke 2023
Behind the tiny sandprints at Hattah-Kulkyne
Before travelling to Mungo our 6 day tour spends a day at Hattah-Kulkyne National Park as a prelude to the outback. This park covers 48,000 hectares of beautiful semi desert country filled with sand dunes and ephemeral lakes and bounded by the Murray River.
After 3 wet years many of the lakes were full and wildlife was abundant which led to this short poem:
SANDPRINTS – read the poem
SANDPRINTS
The footprints of a native mouse
Beside this mallee track
A gentle clear reminder
Of the wildlife coming back
We need to learn to read the Braille
That’s written in the sand
To understand our own impact
On this our fragile land
If we just stop and listen
To the small birds in the park
Perhaps we can help Noah build
His second, better ark
Barry Wenke 2023
About the poet – Barry Wenke
Poetry: a distillation of what matters
Barry spent much of his working life as an English teacher at high schools in various locations throughout NSW.
When I met him (at our tour briefing with the rest of the group in Mildura) I discovered a quiet, thoughtful man who began writing poems after he retired from teaching.
This is why Barry writes poetry:
My central aim in writing is to say something worthwhile in a compact, original way that is accessible to a wide audience. I do not subscribe to the view that poetry should be for an academic audience and therefore obscure and cryptic.
I would prefer my readers to smile when they read with a satisfying balance of familiarity and surprise.
Many of my poems are linked to travel. It is clear that poetry can be a kind of personal snap-shot or postcard of experience. It is, however, more than simply a record of what happened, it is a distillation of what matters.
Barry has written two books of poetry (self published)
- “Here-After” 2012
- “Monument” 2021
If you’d like to know more about his poetry please email roger@echidnawalkabout.com.au
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Echidna Walkabout designed and operates Australian Geographic Travel’s 6 day “Mungo Outback & Conservation Journey.”
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