Speaking of Violence on Women's Country

We wrote the poem ‘Woman’s Country’ during and after a recent research visit to Bourke, in a rare period of flood. Much of the previous 25 years (particularly 1997–2009 and 2017–2019 (Bureau of Meteorology, 2022)) had been marked by dire and ongoing drought, exacerbated by industrial water theft and overuse, alongside climate change. Among the consequences are great strain and grief for Aboriginal communities as they see their rivers, here the Barka (the Darling), emptying, threatening the continuity of life, culture and Dreaming. When asked ‘What is a river?’ in our research discussions, traditional owner Wayne Knight answered, ‘That river is our spiritual lifeblood’ (Knight 2022). We heard that when the river was empty, Barkindji children, drawing on their own knowledge of Country, asked ‘Where does the Rainbow Serpent sleep now?’