Sovereign budyaan flying together: sovereign relationships across the Wiradyuri PhD journey

Abstract

First Nations sovereignty is core in supporting research experiences of First Nations PhD students. This article is based upon the relationality of three sovereign budyaan (birds), and the sovereign Wiradyuri (sovereign First Nations in so-called New South Wales, Australia; also spelt or referred to as Wiradjuri) cosmology, by exploring a Wiradyuri Wambuul (Macquarie River Clan of the Wiradyuri Nation in so-called New South Wales, Australia) scholar’s experiences with her two sovereign yalmambildhaany (teachers), connect with Wiradyuri concepts of teaching, speaking and Country. Yalmambildhaany guide and support the First Nations researcher to learn from Country, ancestors, buyaa (Wiradyuri cultural law) and songlines to ensure their research embodies sovereignty. This article highlights the importance of sovereign research for First Nations peoples and the need to centre First Nations cosmologies.

Introduction

Budyaan (birds), in Wiradyuri (sovereign First Nations in so-called New South Wales, Australia; also spelt or referred to as Wiradjuri) language, fly through Country on the paths the ancestors call them to. Sometimes budyaan cross paths with each other, while other times they soar differing trails. Our journey and relationship as three sovereign scholars mirror the ways of these budyaan, as the paths of Jess whose totem is Maliyan (Eagle), Sue whose totem is Waagan (Crow) and Chris whose totem is Buralang (Black-Faced Cuckoo Shrike) in Wiradyuri language and Gunidjaa (Black-Faced Cuckoo Shrike) in Gamilaraay (a sovereign First Nation in so-called New South Wales, Australia; a neighbour to Wiradyuri Nation) language converged at the time and place of Jess’s Wiradyuri PhD.

Throughout this article, we move between Wiradyuri and Gamilaraay language, with Wiradyuri considered the primary language of the article to centre the relationship of each author to Wiradyuri Country and the Wiradyuri cosmology, which is used as a framework for our critical reflections. When speaking about Chris, we refer to Buralang|Gunidjaa. Gunidjaa to honour his Gamilaraay ancestry, Buralang to maintain the core focus of Wiradyuri language and we chose to use them together to acknowledge the relationship between both Nations. Within our reflections, we shift between referring to ourselves as the birds, first and second person. This is to capture the way we speak and communicate in our cultures in line with the Wirayduri cosmology, which is explored within this article.

Relationality emerges as a common thread throughout First Nations research scholarship, highlighting the foundation of relationships in First Nations cultures, epistemologies, and methodologies (Shotton et al., 2018). In Wiradyuri culture, everything is understood through relationships (Grant & Rudder, 2014). Hoffman (2013) sees the principles of relationship and relationality as fundamental to understanding the world and knowledge, emphasising that it is through relationships that knowledge is shared. Moreton-Robinson (2017) furthers this understanding, describing relationality as the interpretive and epistemic scaffolding shaping First Nations social research. This article is based upon the relationality of three sovereign budyaan and the sovereign Wiradyuri cosmology.

First Nations research is fundamentally rooted in relationality, including in the positioning of oneself with Country to assert the inseparable relationship between people, Country and knowledge (Martin, 2017). Williamson-Kefu (2019) builds upon this perspective by arguing that knowing and knowledge are inherently relational upon a researcher’s connection to Country. In echoing the sentiments of Tuck et al. (2014), who perceive Country as both a teacher and a conduit of memory that fosters relationality with knowledge and the process of coming to know, the foundation of our story lies in the sovereign relationships embodied by three budyaan, who themselves are conduits of sovereign memories and knowledge. The three sovereign budyaan, their relationship with the PhD thesis, each other and Wiradyuri County are interrelated. Grant and Rudder (2014) articulate this interconnectedness clearly: “If everything is based in relationships, the logic is also based in, and only exists, in relationships” (p. 6).

This web of relationships is further understood through the Wiradyuri concept of yalmambildhaany (teacher), which connects with the following Wiradyuri concepts through the word stems of ya (related to speech) and yal (related to speech; Grant & Rudder, 2010): yalmambildhaany—“teacher” (Grant & Rudder, 2010, p. 250); yalmambirra—“teach” (Grant & Rudder, 2010, p. 250); yalaligarra—“do it again, repeat” (Grant & Rudder, 2010, p. 477); yalalinya—“speak again, repeat” (Grant & Rudder, 2010, p. 477); yarra—“speak, say, tell” (Grant & Rudder, 2010, p. 235); and yalbayarra—“speak, telling to speak” (Grant & Rudder, 2010, p. 235).

The relationship between the connected meanings of the above concepts further emphasises the relationship between the three budyaan as creating a sovereign space of learning between teacher and learner, where knowing emerged through speaking, or flying, with each other repeatedly. The teacher relationship also demonstrates how knowledge itself is a mentor (Lopes, 2016), a yalmambildhaany, reinforcing the idea that relationships with knowledge are inherently instructive, where knowledge yalalinya speaks to us again and again to teach us our sovereignty.

In Wiradyuri culture, relationships are central, and this relationality is core to First Nations research. In the context of the Wiradyuri PhD, the relationships between the PhD candidate, Maliyan and their yalmambildhaany, Waagan and Buralang, were pivotal. Through the yalmambildhaany relationship, we flew together as three sovereign budyaan, soaring in unison in an untethered relationship to Country and each other, embodying a profound connection that encapsulates the essence of relationality in Wiradyuri culture and the journey of coming to know sovereign Wiradyuri research through the Wiradyuri cosmology.

The Wiradyuri cosmology is the system of knowledges and buyaa (Wiradyuri cultural law) that underpins Wiradyuri culture, worldviews, peoples and Country. This sovereign cosmology is woven together from five interrelated and interdependent parts: identity, relationships, transformations, focus and actions (Grant & Rudder, 2014; Green, 2023; Russ-Smith, 2023). It is important to understand that these five parts are not disparate beings, but instead are sovereign beings that are always in relationship to one another (Green, 2023). The power and embodiment of the Wiradyuri cosmology is explored by each author below as we delve into the Wiradyuri action of wayamiilbuwawanha (critical self-reflective practice; Russ-Smith, 2023). Just like the interconnected parts of the cosmology, the wayamiilbuwawanha of each author calls to be seen as relational and a doing of sovereign Wiradyuri research. In our wayamiilbuwawanha, we start with reflections on our identities. In Wiradyuri, identity is the core of our being that never changes, we are always anchored to our identity. Our identities and how they are seen are transformed based on the relationships we hold, the focus of these relationships and the actions we take within and through these relationships. Through our wayamiilbuwawanha of identity, relationships, transformation, focus and action below, the interconnectedness of the Wirayduri cosmology emerges, and we come to know and share how our paths as three sovereign budyaan flying together asserts sovereign Wiradyuri research.

Identity

Maliyan

I am a sovereign Wiradyuri Wambuul (Macquarie River Clan of the Wiradyuri Nation in so-called New South Wales, Australia) woman, granddaughter and daughter. I am a Smith and a McGuiness. I grew up on Wiradyuri Country with my family learning from the love and wisdom of our family matriarch, my grandmother. Through the profound embracing of the Wiradyuri cosmology and the guidance of my supervisors, the core of my being, my identity, unfolded before me in new ways, revealing my identity not just as a granddaughter, but also as a grandmother. Grant and Rudder (2010) outline the cosmological meaning of identity as discovering who you are, not what you are. In Wiradyuri culture, the relationship between grandmothers and granddaughters is sacred, and grandmothers and granddaughters are seen as being not just in relationship “to” one another, but a relationship “as” one another. I always grew up knowing myself as a granddaughter; however, it has only been in the last few years that I have understood my sovereign identity, who I am, as a grandmother. Through our many supervision sessions, Maliyan sat and listened to Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa as they yalalinya, spoke again and again of their knowledges. I heard and watched in awe of their sovereignty where I sat as a granddaughter listening and learning. I soon came to know that I was being spoken to not only as a granddaughter, but as a grandmother. In these moments of yalalinya, Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa gently reminded me of my sovereign duty and identity as a grandmother and granddaughter, encouraging me to explore and embrace the depths of who I am as I soared alongside sovereign budyaan. The soaring flight of these budyaan shows the journey of my coming to know my sovereign Wiradyuri identity and research, a journey enriched by the relationality embedded in Wiradyuri culture and guided by the wisdom passed down through generations anchored through our identities.

Waagan

I am a Galari (Lachlan River Clan of the Wiradyuri Nation in so-called Australia) Wiradyuri mother and grandmother, daughter and granddaughter. It took me 50 years to start the journey of understanding my Wiradyuriness. I grew up knowing that I was Aboriginal. My identity formed through my relationship with my father, who removed himself from his community after his mother died when he was 3 years old. He instilled in his children that we were Aboriginal, but he himself did not find out about being Wiradyuri until after we, his children, were removed from him. By the time I found him at age 24, he had returned home and was able to tell me that we were Wiradyuri people. But it was not until I started travelling home to Wiradyuri Country to learn my language that I started to learn what it means to be Wiradyuri. I quickly learnt that I was not just learning words to speak in Wiradyuri language, I was learning Wiradyuri culture, and I was learning what it is to be Wiradyuri. I was learning who I was, what my identity is as a Wiradyuri woman. Within 4 years of the start of my journey travelling home to learn, I returned home to live, with my husband, children and grandchildren joining me. I returned to the embrace of the mother, Country and to the soul of my identity. Country is everything, I am Country and Country is me. Country gives me my identity and is the basis of everything about who I am. I also have identities within the Wiradyuri totem system. I do not know all my totem identities, but I do know my individual totem is Galin-balgan-balgang (Dragonfly), my geographical totem is Waagan and my nation totem is Gugaa (Goanna).

Buralang|Gunidjaa

I am banuwa (black soil) Miligal (Gamilaraay clan name), belonging to the black soils of Gamilaraay Country of the Mooki and Namoi Rivers, now the Liverpool Plains in so-called New South Wales, Australia. I am a father and a son, but birralii-bala ngaya—I am also a child. My journey to understanding who I am, and have always been, is new to me, and continually unfolding. I am regularly reminding myself to guraay ngurambaagu yanawaaya (keep going home slowly). My slow journey home has been one of following the dhaygalbaarrayn (the Darling lily), a lily whose path connects me and my family from where my family has been, where I am now and to where I and my family will be. In this, I understand I am dhaygalbaarrayn. The dhaygalbaarrayn, connect me between Gamilaraay Country and to where I now live on Wiradyuri Country through the pathways of girrawiin (a quiet place with many flowers) in Gamilaraay language, and girrawiiny (a quiet place with many flowers) in Wiradyuri language and, a shared word and knowledge system that connects our Countries, and so also connects Maliyan, Waagan and me.

Through our emergent relationship as sovereign budyaan, being Buralang|Gunidjaa became seen to me. I am the Black-Faced Cuckoo-Shrike. In Gamilaraay, Gunidjaa means both Black-Faced Cuckoo Shrike and orphan or a motherless child (Ash et al., 2017). Gunidjaa, the bird, wears the grey mix of ash and pipeclay to cover its body apart from its face, the paint-up associated with the appropriate mourning process. Gunidjaa, as a word and meaning, stems from gunii (mother) and dhalibaa (without) or perhaps bidjaay (paint). While Gunidjaa and Buralang are the same bird, they are also not the same bird. I am still to come into my understanding of Buralang.

Relationships

Maliyan

At the heart of my PhD journey, the concept of relationships took root, echoing the sovereign cosmological knowledge of Wiradyuri culture. In Wiradyuri, relationships can be understood through the concepts of kin and care, for example, miyagan (relations and kindred) and miyan (one that cares for another; Grant & Rudder, 2010). Through my miyagan with my yalmambildhaany Waagan and Buralang, I, Maliyan, was cared for by my sovereign kin. To be sovereign and to do sovereign Wiradyuri scholarship, as revealed through the concept of miyagan, is to exist in a relationship with family and community, which is what Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa did throughout my PhD. Through these relationships, I came to know my thesis itself as my kin (Tynan, 2020) formed through the sovereign relationships of miyagan and yalmambildhaany. My thesis co-became through the embodiment of the Wiradyuri cosmology by Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang. In sitting together with kin, I and my PhD emerged alongside my sovereign yalmambildhaany as I came to understand caring for kin through relationships is where my thesis needed to be born from. Wiradyuri Elder Uncle Stan Grant Snr says that being Wiradyuri is bala budyaan-ngaan (being bird-like; Russ-Smith, 2023). Through yalalinya with my yalmambildhaany I came to know that bala budyaan-ngaan is for Maliyan to fly again and again alongside Waagan and Buralang. Together, we soared in our sovereignty as kin, just as our yalmambildhaany, the Wiradyuri cosmology, taught us.

Waagan

For Wiradyuri, relationships are the foundation of everything, and it is through these relationships that we know ourselves and that our identities are formed (Grant & Rudder, 2014). We each have many different identities, such as woman, mother, grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, aunty, teacher, student and so on. My relationship to Country makes me Wiradyuri. Country is more than just a geographical location, but it is language, culture, social order, law and lore and much more. My relationship to all else, such as dirt, water, air, plants and animals is what makes my identity as human. For each entity, I will have a particular relationship, which in turn determines my focus and actions with that entity. I can also have more than one relationship with a particular entity, depending upon the time and setting. With Jess, I have multiple identities, starting with teacher, a Countrywoman and transforming over time to a friend. I have also learnt many things from Maliyan, which then means at times I have been the student, and she has been the teacher, and we have also been work colleagues. Similarly, with Buralang|Gunidjaa we met as colleagues, became friends and at one point Buralang|Gunidjaa was a student whom I taught, so I became a teacher, and he has also taught me many things and I have been his student. Our relationships transform over time moving back and forth depending upon the time, place, our interactions and the purpose for those interactions. I do not change who I am but rather our relationships transform our identities within those relationships. Relationships give us the meaning for who we are, what we do and how we do it.

Buralang|Gunidjaa

Yambuwan bandali yambuwanguwalgu, means in Wiradyuri, all things, always connected to all other things (Orchard, 2024). Relationships in Wiradyuri are understood to have both interior and exterior worlds (Grant & Rudder, 2014), so yambuwan (all things), necessarily includes the things that are yet to be seen. Yambuwan is known and unknown, seen and unseen, interior and exterior. This is seen in the act of tying together places and things into an interior frame. Such as, you do not put your shoes on, instead you make your feet go inside your shoes. When you say bandali (being always connected, tied and connected), everything to everything else, you are also saying, all things are inside all other things. All relationships are already there, the connections already exist, they are just waiting to become seen. In this co-becoming, at times I am yalmambildhaany, I am dilaang (brother). I am budyaan-ngaan (bird-like), I am Buralang|Gunidjaa and gulagamaldhaan (one who makes space for others).

Wiradyuri and Gamilaraay are matriarchal. There can be no becoming a man, doing men’s business, until you have showed that you have learned all that you need to learn from the women and that you respect those teachings. In our relationships, Gunidjaa becoming seen to me, or me being Gunidjaa is not because I am literally motherless. It is a reminder that I need to continue learning the right way, learning the cultural way. Birralii ngaya (I am a child) and my place is to learn and share among the mothers, grandmothers and granddaughters. I am also dilaang. Being Gunidjaa is to remember that it is not the men who take you to become a man. When the time is right, it is the women who let you go through this transformation. Being Gunidjaa reminds me to continue to learn among strong sovereign women, to respect and honour that knowledge where I hold it with care and am a custodian of it; to recognise that first knowledge always comes from women, and it is women who permit you into further knowing. It is also a reminder that as I guraay ngurambaagu yanawaaya, keep going home slowly, that slowness means being invited into spaces and not expecting to be in them. Everything comes at the right time, including being invited by the women when I am ready. I am Buralang|Gunidjaa, and with Maliyan and Wagaan we are gulagamal-ayla-dhaan.

Transformations

Maliyan

Wayanha (transformation) tells us that while the core of a being, the identity, remains constant, the outward expression transforms. To capture the meaning of wayanha, Grant and Rudder (2010) call us to look to the butterfly, a being which has many stages of transformation. Across each stage, the butterfly expresses itself differently including as an egg, pupa in cocoon or caterpillar, yet its core identity remains a butterfly and the butterfly always exists regardless of how it expresses itself. As sovereign budyaan flying together, our wings created the air through which the butterfly of my thesis transformed from cocoon. The sovereign identity of my thesis always existed; however, how it expressed itself and the stories it holds transformed over time. For majority of my PhD candidature, I flew alongside only one sovereign bird, Waagan. During this time, the thesis was an egg and a caterpillar coming into its cocoon. While I wanted to flap my Maliyan wings like the butterfly, I was not yet at this stage of transformation and I had to keep moving with yindyamarra, going slowly and gently, listening to Waagan grandmother’s wisdom. Towards the end of my candidature Buralang|Gunidjaa flew alongside Maliyan and Waagan, and the PhD transformed into a butterfly. Buralang|Gunidjaa provided a brotherly care, nurturing Maliyan to soar into a butterfly. Once again, wayanha came and my PhD outwardly expressed itself through sounds, looks and feeling echoing an ancient sovereign song that was always at the core of my identity as a Wiradyuri Wambuul woman. Through the sovereign love of Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa, I came to know more about my identity through its many expressions of butterfly, egg, pupa in cocoon and caterpillar all at once. I came to know my sovereignty not as separate stages of transformation, but as an intricate relationship between transformations where my sovereign identity came soaring into expression. These transformations embody waganha (a sacred ceremonial dance) where many sovereign budyaan transform as they dance in the rhythm of Country.

Waagan

For Wiradyuri, there is no such thing as change, things transform from one state or stage to the next. My identity does not change, the core of who I am always remains the same. My identity and how it is expressed or seen is based upon relationships, time and place and thus transforms in each situation (Grant & Rudder, 2014). As explored above my relationship with Maliyan and Buralang|Gunidjaa has transformed my identity depending upon the roles we are in with each other. However, the core of who all three of us are remains the same. Moreover, our relationship with each other did not start at the time that we first met, it always existed. Wiradyuri has no beginning or ending, everything always existed, even if one is not aware of it (Grant & Rudder, 2014). Thus, Maliyan, Buralang|Gunidjaa and I have always been connected. Maliyan and I are connected as Wiradyuri people, our families are connected, even though we are different clans. Buralang|Gunidjaa and I are connected as neighbouring mobs Gamilaraay and Wiradyuri, who regularly meet to have ceremony, trade and intermarry, thus there are blood relationships between Gamilaraay and Wiradyuri. We also have the shared experience of the legacy of colonisation and the impact upon our families and communities, and we share the experience of postgraduate studies and becoming academics within the academy. Our relationship to each other is built upon our identities as Gamilaraay and Wiradyuri people and our professional identities as First peoples within academia. This relationship has always existed but has transformed and continues to transform as we interact with each other and with the world around us.

Buralang|Gunidjaa

In the Gamilaraay language, we have two connected verb forms related to the act of transformation, the transitive verb Gayarra-gi (to search for, to look for, to find) and the intransitive verb Gayarra-y (to turn around, revolve, turn into, transform and to tangle up; Ash et al., 2017). Through an ongoing process of seeking and finding, we come into seeing relationships, in which we turn, transform and become further entangled. When Buralang|Gunidjaa found me, and I found Buralang|Gunidjaa, I became Buralang|Gunidjaa. When our relationships become seen, we continue to transform.

These Gamilaraay verbs function like the Wiradyuri wayanha. Gayarra-gi and Gayarra-y also connect the rivers in our identities, the Mooki or the Namoi, the Wambuul or the Macquarie, and the Galari or the Lachlan, bringing us into deeper relationships. Connecting us in numerous directions from Dharriwaa, also known as Narran Lake (Ash et al., 2017). Our relationship is not new. It is multigenerational, as it existed through the waterways of our ancestors. This transformation in its current state of Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa is our ancestors and generations coming meeting each other with respect.

In my own PhD journey, I concluded by saying to live well means to be always open to the infinite possibility of transformation in relation to becoming with all things (Orchard, 2021). I did not yet know yambuwan bandali yambuwanguwalgu. I knew transformation was a heatedness. I knew it could feel like a fibrous thread pulling through you. I knew it meant critically attending and being radically present in the lives of all your kin. I also knew transformation as a process of string making, and of weaving. Now, I see our wayanha as sovereign budyaan is also as a process of bandali, but also is wayba-li (always weaving), as our journey is always weaving and connected (Grant & Rudder, 2010). With each movement and moment, we transform each other in a process of flying together and weaving together. I think of this relationship as string making and weaving where each thread is meaningfully held in relation to the next.

Focus

Maliyan

In the intricate tapestry of Wiradyuri language construction and relationships, the cosmological concept of focus serves as the foundational thread from which meaning is woven. Wirayduri language evolves outward from a central focus. The focus shapes the sentences, context of conversation and the relationships discussed (Grant & Rudder, 2014). The focus of my PhD transformed many times, as did the focus of our relationship as PhD student and yalmambildhaany. However, amid this transformative process, the essence of the focus remained relationally anchored to the concepts of yalmambildhaany, teacher, and yalmambirra, to teach. The focus of our relationship to Wiradyuri sovereign ways of learning from our yalmambildhaany was seen within our yalaligarra, repeated sitting and speaking with each other, as well as through our shared experience of the Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage. Our relationship to and experience of the language course, emerged as another focal point from which my PhD and our experiences of yalmambildhaany and yalmambirra were shaped. Just as Wiradyuri language flows from the focus, so too did our story unfold from the focus of our relationship as sovereign budyaan and yalmambildhaany. In this intricate dance of language and relationships by three sovereign budyaan, the focus acted as a guiding sovereign cosmological force, shaping the doing of my sovereign Wiradyuri scholarship.

Waagan

All three of us are connected through teaching and learning; we have all taught each other and learnt from each other. We have also all done and completed the Graduate Certificate of Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage but at different times, which has allowed us to support each other through this cultural journey of learning how to live in Wiradyuri Country and what being Wiradyuri means. We are three very different budyaan, with different identities, genders, ages and experiences but we are also the same in many ways. We fly in the same sky, sometimes in different places and other times in the same place. We have crossed and weaved paths in order for us to work together and to play our roles in protecting our cultures and languages, to help others to see how to live on and with Country. To do this, we need to be in bangal—“time, (or rather) place” (Grant & Rudder, 2010, p. 297), thus we have had similar experiences that have brought us to this time or rather place that we are at now. For each one of us, our PhD degrees have played a role in bringing us together and also into the Wiradyuri Graduate Certificate. What we have learnt in the course and through our relationships, shapes and forms our focus. While at the same time, our focus, that is, how we see and understand the world, brought each of us to this time and place and defines our relationship. We are united, we fly and dance together to weave the stories of being sovereign researchers. Our focus is our responsibility to those stories and to our Gamilaraay and Wiradyuri Countries and determines our identities and relationships with each other.

Buralang|Gunidjaa

I have rarely thought of myself as yalmambildhaany, teacher (Grant & Rudder, 2010), though I suppose I am. I have always thought of myself as a holder, or connector, perhaps bandaldhaany (one who ties). What I know of now in Gamilaraay as gulagamaldhaan. I have not always had the right words, despite having a feeling towards how I am supposed to be in the world. Several years ago, while doing my own PhD, Sue invited me to present to a second year cohort of the Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage. While presenting to the cohort, I made the remark that once my own PhD is done, I would like to do the course myself. Sue spoke to me afterwards to say that I had a decision to make on whether I wait, or whether doing the course might support my PhD. Sue would email me that night to say that due to admissions processes, I had 5 days to decide. I sat on it for a few days, not knowing which way to go.

I woke up on Friday, February 21, 2020, got in my car and drove, knowing Wiradyuri Country would give me the answer. I drove over 300 km that day, dhaygalbaarrayn, the darling and Wilcannia lily were out in flower in their tens of thousands. I could see girrawiiny and girrawiin. I knew the ancestors were speaking loudly through the emergence of the lily from hiddenness, or insidedness in the earth, to outsidedness in such abundance. I got home and applied. I was at my first intensive school a week later.

I felt then like the language came to me more easily than the nation building elements of the course. I felt like I was learning language that already lived inside me. After the Wiradyuri course, I went on to learn my own Gamilaraay language. This has helped me further understand how deeply we relate and allowed me to see, hear and speak across Countries.

Learning from Sue as my yalmambildhaany and others on nation building, I was challenged but this also lit a fire in me to support in whatever way I am asked to build Wiradyuri nation. Building a stronger Wiradyuri nation also strengthens every other nation it is in relationship with. A strengthened Wiradyuri nation, proper way, also means a strengthened Gamilaraay nation as giirr ngiyani winangaylaylaya (we learn from each other). I sometimes test my children, “Son” or “Daughter,” I ask, “what’s the most important thing?” and on hearing their reply, turn inwards and reflect, because they inevitably let me know that their current focus is family, Country, dinner. Right now, if I said to myself: Buralang|Gunidjaa, what is the most important thing? I would say as three sovereign budyaan flying together, it is being present. It is about making space for holding each other and our ideas, to yalbilidhaany, speak where and when I am asked (Grant & Rudder, 2010) and to accept what role I am asked to play in contributing to a strong Wiradyuri nation, knowing that it in turn builds a strong Gamilaraay nation.

Action

Maliyan

The sovereign actions of yalaligarra, yalalinya and yarra, interwoven between Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang, manifested as tangible expressions of our interconnected relationships and sovereignty. As Maliyan, I sat with my yalmambildhaany and listened as they spoke again and again of their sovereign knowledges. Every learning and teaching moment of sitting and listening was a dynamic and evolving action of sovereign knowledge sharing. Yalaligarra, yalalinya and yarra are actions to be done with and to one another. Each moment of teaching and learning was marked by the dynamic actions of yalaligarra, yalalinya and yarra, which became a living testament to the sacred sovereign bond shared between three sovereign budyaan. These actions were not solitary exercises of being, instead, they embodied a doing and a movement of the Wiradyuri cosmology. The teaching and learning journey of yalaligarra, yalalinya and yarra, echoes the sovereign actions of our ancestors, unfolding as a story of shared wisdom and responsibility to Country that I would centre in my PhD research.

Through the actions of my yalmambildhaany, I learnt to observe sovereign budyaan in their natural rhythm where they take flight, land on Country, eat, return and nurture their young. As I observed again and again, the profound knowing of yindyamarragubu wirimbiligubu ngadhubu giyirabu (respecting, loving and caring for self and future) emerged (Russ-Smith, 2023). This wisdom witnessed in the sovereign bird’s dance of rest, flight and care, reflects the essence of yalaligarra, yalalinya and yarra in my relationships with my yalmambildhaany. The action of sharing stories across generations becomes an embodiment of our sovereignty, a commitment to the preservation of knowledge and a duty to honour the paths our ancestors created. As we engaged in these sovereign actions, we not only shared knowledge but also continued the legacy of the Wiradyuri cosmology through our actions of flying together as sovereign budyaan.

Waagan

My identity as a mother and grandmother determines my focus and my actions with others. I see myself as being someone who supports others on their journey and in their development. However, I also acknowledge that I am also supported by others in my journey and development. It is a great honour to be part of another person’s journey and to share their challenges and successes with them. Both Buralang|Gunidjaa and Maliyan are the ages of my children and I do feel quite protective of them and quite proud of their successes. As a Wiradyuri person, I do not see the roles of mothering and grandmothering as something that is less than the role of men or of academic and professional achievement. In fact, the roles of mothering and grandmothering are the most important roles there can be and are roles that should be nurtured and encouraged. Wiradyuri is a matriarchal society, which gives women important responsibilities. Ensuring that the next generations are able to grow, learn and take on their responsibilities are the most important roles there are, and these are the roles of mothers and grandmothers. My relationship with both Buralang|Gunidjaa and Maliyan is not one of them being inferior to me, they are my equals, the same as my children and grandchildren are. It is just that I have particular responsibilities and obligations to them. They also have responsibilities and obligations to me. It is a great honour to have those responsibilities and obligations. It is what being Wiradyuri is all about. We are all interdependent on each other, and outside of our relationships we cannot know or understand ourselves or what our focus and actions are or should be. Maliyan and Buralang|Gunidjaa have given me so much understanding of who I am and my place on Country. I am who I am because of them.

Buralang|Gunidjaa

Gamilaraay has a single word that holds the entire way I am to meet the world, gulagama-li (embrace, hold, cuddle; Ash et al., 2017), though it means significantly more than this. Like the Wiradyuri dhaany—a suffix that transforms a verb into a noun (Grant & Rudder, 2014), the Gamilaraay language has dhaan—a cognate suffix that transforms a verb, such as the act of doing, into the noun of a doer (Giacon, 2017). Like Wiradyuri, word meanings in Gamilaraay are heavily encoded, relational and can be shifted in myriad ways to transform their meaning. Gula- (word stem associated with ideas of being able to contain something or concaveness), like in coolamon, an Aboriginal carrying vessel usually made from wood, and coolabah from which the colonial renderings of words emerge are related to acts of holding. Gula- is linked to ideas of hollowness, concaveness, of holding, both physical things and ideas. Importantly, it is also a concept of being complete or achieving purpose by being in a meaningful relationship with what it holds. When it is transformed into gulagamaldhaan, this becomes the thing, the one, the doer who makes space for others, the one who holds for and with others, both in physical and in thought.

When in Wiradyuri Country, in relationships with Wiradyuri, supporting Wiradyuri sovereign research, I am to follow Wiradyuri protocol. This is to act always with yindyamarra. What I would say in Gamilaraay, gulagamalaylaya ngiyani (us mob), I know of in Wiradyuri as yindyamalaya ngiyanhi (we all). Meaning that we all continue making space for each other and we all go gently, slowly, honour each other, respect each other and be polite. We are only complete by being in relationships centred on care and reciprocity. On Wiradyuri Country, to be yalbilidhaany, one who speaks when bidden, to be yalmambildhaany, means also to be true to myself as gulagamaldhaan, and to act in Wiradyuri Country according to Wiradyuri protocols as yindyamaldhaany, the one who does slowly, gently, honourably, carefully and respectfully.

Conclusion

Together, our sovereign budyaan (bird) wayamilbuwawanha emphasises the omnipresence of relationality as the guiding principle, shaping our understanding of the world and our knowing of the Wiradyuri cosmology and sovereign Wiradyuri scholarship and research. This work goes beyond Indigenous methodologies or Indigenising and decolonising Western research methodologies, to sovereign research where the many sources of First Nations knowledges and cosmologies, are privileged and centred (Chilisa, 2012; Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, 2016; Tuck & McKenzie, 2014; Yunkaporta & Shillingsworth, 2020). The interconnected meanings within the wayamiilbuwawanha resonate with the broader discussion on relationships as the epistemic core of First Nations research. Similar to Wilson’s (2008) concept of research as ceremony, this article’s focus on the Wirayduri cosmology asserts that relationships are ceremony. Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa flew in the ceremonial dance of waganha as yalmambildhaany, where they weave together all parts of the cosmology that resulted in sovereign Wiradyuri research. The symbiotic dynamic between teacher and learner, akin to the intricate flight patterns of sovereign budyaan, highlights a sovereign space of learning where knowledge emerges through repeated relational engagements, speaking or flying, between sovereign kin as guided by Ngurambang (Country). As explained by Maliyan (Russ-Smith, 2023) in her PhD, the Wiradyuri word for Country is Ngurambang (Grant & Rudder, 2010), where ngu as a prefix (beginning of a word) indicates belonging (Grant & Rudder, 2010), which demonstrates that one belongs to Country. When a word begins with Nguram—it is about home, camp, country (Grant & Rudder, 2010). Bang, as a suffix, is an intensifier—something is large or larger).

As ngu indicates, the Wiradyuri concept of sovereignty that is linked to Ngurambang is grounded in belonging. Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa have each reflected upon their belonging to Wirayduri Ngurambang and how their relationship to Ngurambang and each other has formed their focus and actions in research. Furthermore, through relationships, Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa together intensified the expression, or transformation, of sovereignty within Jess’s Wiradyuri PhD research. While the three budyaan are separate identities, their action of flying together intensified the relationality of sovereign Wiradyuri research. As with the Wiradyuri cosmology, sovereign Wiradyuri research is interrelated and interdependent of all of its parts. Wiradyuri sovereignty cannot be partly sovereign, it must be and can only be wholly and intensely sovereign. The ceremonial dance of Maliyan, Waagan and Buralang|Gunidjaa captures the bang, the intensity, of the sovereignty of First Nations research. We invite you, the readers, to honour and centre First Nations sovereign cosmologies in scholarship, research and supervision.