The Story of Dumbi

Translated by Howard Coates

‘This is an old time story told by the earliest, profoundly knowledgeable elders,’ said Mickie Bungunie [an old man from the Wunambal Aborigine tribe, Western Australia].

In those ancient days Gajara was still a human creature, living along with his wife and with his sons who themselves were also married.

It came about that the earliest-time children living in those far-off days mocked, tormented and ill-treated the Winking Owl, Dumbi. They plucked out his feathers; they spat on him; they pierced him many times with grass spears, even thrusting a hole through his nasal septum.

Up into the air they tossed him, jeering at him, ‘Now fly!’ But he fell down on to the ground with a thud. This they did again; and again Dumbi thudded to the ground. A third time those children threw him up into the air, but this time Dumbi continued to go up and up through the clouds out of sight and right on up to Ngadja, the Supreme One.

‘What has happened to you?’ asked Ngadja, the Supreme Being. ‘What have they done to you?’

The owl then presented his complaint to him, saying, ‘The children mocked me; they held me in ridicule and persecuted me.’

Ngadja, the Supreme One, was inwardly grieved and felt deep sorrow for him, so he gathered his followers together and held a council with them. Among the many followers of Ngadja gathered to this council meeting were Maguriguri [the sidewinder lizard], Windirindjal [another kind of lizard], the eel, the freshwater turtle, and the black goanna.

‘Go,’ said Ngadja, ‘see where these people are; peer over the range and see if they are still camping in that same area, then come and tell me.’ This he said to his followers for he was truly sorry that these children had mocked Dumbi.

The first one to be sent was Maguriguri. He, the quick-legged one, ran to the place called Dumbey which is the range that lies across the country in that place. On returning he reported that they were all still there. Ngadja sent him again, saying, ‘Go again to the same place; see if they are still there.’ Maguriguri went to spy once more and returned again with the same report to Ngadja.

Ngadja, the Supreme Being, then instructed Gajara [who at that time was still a man], saying, ‘If you want to live, take your wife, your sons and your sons’ wives and get a double raft. Because of the Dumbi affair, I intend to drown every one. I am about to send rain and a sea flood.’

‘Put on the raft long-lasting foods that may be stored,’ he told him. ‘Foods such as gumi, banimba, and ngalindja, all these ground foods.’ So Gajara stored all these foods. He also gathered birds of the air such as the cuckoo, the mistletoe-eater, the rainbow bird, the helmeted friar bird and finches—those he took on the raft, and also a female kangaroo.

Ngadja then said, ‘All is ready now.’ He thereupon sent Maguriguri to peep at the people for the last time. ‘Ah!’ the lizard said, gesturing in their direction. ‘They all remain in one place!’

Gajara gathered his sons as the crew, and his own wife and his sons’ wives together. Ngadja the Supreme One gave Gajara some of his own foods. Then Ngadja sent the rainclouds down, shutting the clouds in upon them. The sea-flood came in from the north-northeast and the people were closed in by the saltwater flood and the tidal waters of the sea. The flood began to sweep all the living creatures together and was pushing them all along to one place, Dumbey. Here the waters were spinning in a whirlpool and the people were screaming as they looked for a way of escape. Ngadja whirled the flood waters and the earth opened, drowning and flattening them all. He finished them at Dumbey.

Meanwhile, the flood carried all those who were on the raft with Gajara along on the current far away to Dulugun where the world ends and the waters flow over. That is where the flood had been taking him all the time, the place of the dead, where there is no land. The waters were rolling him this way and that way and spinning him around for a long, long time.

At last, however, the flood-waters brought Gajara back in this direction. He sent some birds out from the raft, first the cuckoo. The cuckoo found the land and did not return to him. Gradually the waters were going down. The first land that Gajara sighted was the hilltop at Ngumbindji [Doubtful Bay]. ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘I have found a hill!’ and he was glad within himself. Then, as the waters continued to go down, he sighted Numbuzare [Mt Waterloo].

Later on, the other birds returned to Gajara and he sent them out again the following day. They arrived on the land and met Dumbi, the owl who said, ‘Oh, you have returned already!’ and invited them to stay. The land was already drying the waters up and the living creatures found a home and food. Soon in many places the owls were breeding.

As the flood subsided Gajara noticed that it was leaving a water-mark like a painting along the hills. This is the flood spirit line, left there where the flood made it. The waters were taking him past Munduli [Montilivet] when he bumped into a rock. [Munduli is ’the tomahawk place’ where they used to get stone for tomahawks.] Gajara was bumped off the raft with a splash and sank to the bottom. On the bottom of the sea he walked to the shore of the mainland.

His sons and his wife paddled the raft towards the shore where they met him. His sons wailed for him, crying. ‘Father has come out to us with a lot of heavy seaweed and oysters all over him,’ they said among themselves. They removed some of the oysters, prising them off, and threw the seaweed into a heap. The heap turned into a lump of rock, where it remains a monument to this day.

The Wandjina’s spirit went out into the cave where he is painted. ‘I want to turn off here,’ he said; so he turned off, and for this reason the place is called ‘The Turn-off Place’. He went into the cave and lay down. The hornets are numerous down in that cave; we do not touch it; it is taboo. That is, the Gajara cave is taboo.

With regard to the kangaroo which they had taken with them on the raft and which was still with them when Gajara went down, and forced his way through the sea, and came out on the shore, they killed it after landing; and Gajara’s wife Galgalbiri put it in the earth oven and cooked it with other foods.

The smoke rose slowly until it reached through into the sky. Ngadja, the Supreme Being, said, ‘Oh, what is that smell? Ah, they are cooking a good kangaroo! The marrow smells; I can smell the odour.’ He could smell the steam and smoke rising from the female kangaroo as it was cooking and he was pleased.

Ngadja, the Supreme Being, put the rainbow in the sky to keep the rain-clouds back.

The rainbow lies bent across the sky; he ties up the clouds behind it and the rain does not come. The rainbow keeps the clouds back and protects us so that the rainfall does not rise too high. Our people understand the significance of it. When we see the rainbow we say, ‘There will not be any abnormally heavy rain.’

Art by Joshua Bollback Butler depicts the events of the tale.

Another account of the story from one of the field crew members.

"Dumbi is an important story for all three Wandjina-Wunggurr People. He’s associated with the flood story, the first story… this is a story we all heard since we were little.” - Kirsty Burgu, Dambimangari Director and Cultural Advisor

It was day one of the fieldtrip on Dambimangari Country and the chopper slowed as we neared our intended camp – a stretch of river selected from satellite imagery. Here, rugged sandstone ranges slope down to a broad watercourse, lined with galleries of tall joongoonbeem paperbark trees and stands of dense jarliwunarn wunu Pandanus. Most of the riverside was rocky and vegetated, but a large open area of white sand was the perfect place to camp, providing a safe chopper landing site, shade and plenty of freshwater.

We had several aims for this survey, one being to deploy an array of acoustic recorders to detect the threatened and culturally important Dumbi, the Northern Masked Owl. We did not know if the species occurred here, but the habitat looked suitable and camera surveys nearby showed a healthy mammal population, the owl’s preferred prey.

Dumbi, the white owl, is a sacred animal: ‘Dumbi is an important story for all three Wandjina-Wunggurr People’ says Dambimangari Director and Cultural Advisor Kirsty Burgu. ‘He’s associated with the flood story, the first story… this is a story we all heard since we were little,’ she adds.

An unexpected discovery

After deploying several recorders south of camp, we headed north to set the remainder of the array. It was here, just 500 metres upstream, that we experienced our first exciting bird encounter. There in a tall joongoonbeem was a Garr garr, Red Goshawk, mainland Australia’s rarest bird of prey! This species was recently uplisted to Endangered due its disappearance from over a third of its breeding distribution within the last 40 years and is a priority species in the Federal Government’s Threatened Species Action Plan 2022–32.

The Garr garr is a striking bird of prey, with a streaked upper chest and, as the name implies, a rich rufous colouration to the body and wings. After watching us for a few minutes, this female bird flew to land next to a nest – a large assemblage of sticks in a joongoonbeem. This is the first scientific confirmation of the Garr garr on Dambimangari Country and only the tenth nest recorded in the Kimberley. Although the landscape contains ideal habitat, the remote, rugged and vast nature of the region makes it challenging to survey its rich biodiversity.

A sacred animal

Exhausted after a big first day we crawled into bed…only minutes later to hear an unexpected, loud and haunting screech cut through the night air. Was that Dumbi the Masked Owl… or Yuwurn the similar Eastern Barn Owl? All was quiet for a few hours until the calls were heard again… and again… and again, so loud they must be nearby. So, bleary eyed, we poked our heads out of tents and shone torches into trees, only to find the majestic form of Dumbi perched just 15 metres from the campfire – confirmed by its large body and strong taloned feet with thick furred legs.

The next morning, it was the talk of camp. ‘I was so excited, it was amazing’ said AWC–Dambimangari Biodiversity Ranger Azarnia Malay. ‘I’d heard lots of stories about the owl and then I saw it, and it was good to see it in the wild.’ It was great news for the survey too, we now knew they were here. But it got even better.

As we sat around the fire the following night, a series of soft trills and ‘chirrs’ could be heard coming from a hollow in a dead joongoonbeem. Upon investigation, a young Dumbi was seen poking its head out, making this the first confirmed nest tree for the Northern Masked Owl in Western Australia! For the remainder of the trip, we were entertained and enthralled each night by the young owl and its parents, as they fed and attended to their chick. ‘Oh the little owl got me so excited, I couldn’t believe it, we saw a whole little group, a family, not just the baby, but the mother and father,’ said Azarnia.

The Northern Masked Owl is listed as Vulnerable and very little is known about the subspecies in the Kimberley. PhD researcher Nigel Jackett has been studying the only other known nest area in the region at Yampi Sound Training Area where AWC works in partnership with Dambimangari Traditional Owners and the Department of Defence. The abundance of mammals (particularly Golden Bandicoots, Common Rock-rats and Pale Field-rats) found at Yampi has led to a pair of Northern Masked Owls raising chicks during three of the last four years. Acoustic recorders deployed in this area have revealed further insights into the year-round calling behaviour and movements of the owls within the landscape, which has helped detect owls in other remote locations across northern Australia.

Healthy Country

To have found the nests of two enigmatic threatened bird species within a kilometre of each other is incredible. As Dambimangari Ranger Peter Cooper said, ‘seeing a lot of threatened species, it’s telling us how healthy Country is, and how lucky we are to have Country like that.’ According to Kirsty ‘the moral of the story of Dumbi is… you have to have respect for animals.’ ‘By knowing the job that we’re doing, we’re keeping all these species safe’ adds Peter.

The Dambimangari–AWC team are looking to monitor the success of both nests which will provide important information for the conservation of these threatened and enigmatic species. We will continue to work together to look after Country, protecting and respecting its wildlife.