In honour of Kooka Yarmuk of the Ulupna Clan, Yorta-Yorta Tribe – speaker of five Aboriginal dialects including French and English – my great-grandmother. Her daughters were taken from her while they were at school while she was washing clothes as a domestic for a white family. She travelled around the countryside on Cobb and Co Coach in search of her babies all the way to Queensland but did not find them. Years later they returned home to her as women. Yarmuk was a teacher and translator of language and it is here I pay my respects to her legacy. This is the story of her translation and song – Burra Ferra, ‘wala’ (water) coming ‘yapaneyeput’ (together).
