SHINING A LIGHT ON THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF WHALES

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There is something very special about whales. Their literal and spiritual presence in Indigenous culture is as massive as the numerous 30ft Aboriginal whale engravings that dot the coast of Australia.

Whales are a highly significant, totem species for a number of Indigenous language groups across Country. For the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the word Gadigal literally means 'whale people', and certain Gadigal ceremonies feature the 'song of the whale'. For several coastal language groups, the whale features in many Creation Stories - stories that detail the origins of many elements fundamental to cultural life. "So much of our existence was along the ocean”, says Myangah Pirate, a Budawang artist from the Yuin Nation, whose skin name means sea eagle. “Whales are such a big and powerful animal to any Indigenous person. They must have power, right? They’re a strong totem."

Maintaining connection to Gurawul - the whale - is all part of a deeper promise

Someone with a particularly strong connection to whales was Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison. In his book Gurawul the Whale, Uncle Max Harrison shares the whale Dreaming story passed down to him, and a promise is central to that story as well. In this story, the act of beaching is the act of bringing the lore of the sea back to Yuin mob on the land. Max’s grandson, Dwayne Bannon-Harrison, explains it’s all part of a deeper promise to maintain connection between Gadu (Saltwater Country) and Minga (the land). Nurturing that relationship with whales is 'an old promise to the old people'.

When Uncle Max was 10, he was given Gurawul’s story by his grandfather Muns and three Uncles. “On the ground, in the dirt, they drew the whale Dreaming story and asked me to make a promise: to go to the southern land and search for the whale Dreaming passed on by the Ancestors. When I made that promise, I had no idea what it meant or that it would take me 70 years to keep it.”

Protecting whales to ensure they thrive is naturally part of keeping that promise. “[Whales are] our totem; they're our family, and we have to protect our family”, says Dwayne. "For certain Elders and their families, watching whales return from their migration is like family members coming home.”

A symbiotic relationship

Nestled beneath the towering peaks of three mountains - Biamanga, Gulaga, and Balawan - lies the Sapphire Coast. This ancient landscape holds profound meaning for the Yuin people. Biamanga, Gulaga, and Balawan serve as sites for deeply significant Yuin ceremonies and Knowledge passed down through generations. They are central to Yuin cultural practice, heritage and identity.

The migratory patterns of orcas off the Sapphire Coast have long been understood by both Yuin people, a Knowledge sharing relationship with the whales spanning back generations. The Yuin believed that when whalers or warriors passed away, their spirits would be reincarnated as orcas, who they call Beowas. 

These very special whales would continue to provide and care for Yuin people even in death. Rituals honouring these intelligent, mighty creatures were routinely performed on the shores of Nalluccer (Twofold Bay). First Peoples witnessed the orcas herd grampus, a type of dolphin, towards the coast to feed the Yuin people. This ancient symbiotic relationship was built on respect and mutual aid between the Yuin tribe and Beowas.

“The orcas have a special gift, and old people could speak to them”, Dwayne Bannon-Harrison reveals.

“We depended on whales,” explains Myangah Pirate. “At Eden and at Wreck Bay, clans there worked in harmony with orcas for thousands of years. Orcas were driving the humpbacks onto the sand. We cut the humpback’s tongue out and gave it back to the orca and it became a symbiotic relationship for generations.” 

Pirate reveals that his family has a specific background with humpbacks, sperm whales, orcas, and dolphins. “All were part of our family. If a dolphin washed up on Wreck Bay, we thought it was the spirits of our Elders. We gave it a human burial with the same ceremonial rites, with axes and fishing spears. I often represent that in my art as that Knowledge was passed down to me by my Uncle.” 

“I like to represent whales in art because it creates a conversation”. For Myangah as an artist, the sheer size of whales makes them both a significant and practical subject. “I'm very visually disabled, so all my art is very large, so I can see it. And I found whales attract anybody.” 

For generations, whales would literally attract many to the coast to take part in a sacred ritual, the whale feast.

Whale feasting “was an important ritual to restore peace to the land.”

According to oral histories, the ancestors of coastal Aboriginal People lured whales into shore through song rather than actively hunting them, making use of sustenance and materials from stranded whales.

Descendants of the Ngarrindjeri clan confirm that select members of Lower Murray tribes had songs to attract whales into the Murray Mouth. When a whale did beach itself, its pungent aroma would travel far inland, calling people from all around to converge and feast

Whale feasting is a vital cultural practice for a number of coastal language groups, including Ngarrindjeri and Yuin Peoples. The feasting would last over days, sometimes weeks, and portions of the whale meat would be divided equally among the tribes. According to Uncle Max, “It was an important ritual to restore peace to the land. Gurawul gave up its life and its body so that people would unite”.

The prized blubber would be cooked before consuming, and whale oil rubbed on the skin as protection from harsh winds and heat - nothing from the great whale went to waste. 

Historical accounts indicate active Aboriginal stewardship over whale strandings, with tribes considering the whale bounty as provisioned by spiritual songs passed down through generations. Occasional strandings of whales were events that reportedly attracted the Mirning people for feasting at the Head of the Bight in western South Australia.

‘Singing up’ to the ‘ancestor of the sea’

The relationship between First Peoples and whales is indicative of its deep spiritual interconnectedness. In his youth, Uncle Max would ‘sing up’ to whales while travelling along the Yuin coast - a practice shared by a number of coastal language groups. 

Yuin Elder Aunty Vivian Mason, who belongs to the Walbanja Clan, says of ‘singing up to whales’, “We sort of do it. I don't know, there's just a connection. You feel like something's always there when you see them, you know?”

Uncle Dean Kelly, who describes whales as the “ancestor of the sea”, says singing is giving whale mothers and babies safe passage back home to their Country, “the cold waters”.

Many years later, the morning after Uncle Max performed a sacred whale song and dance ceremony, over 300 whales converged around a small boat containing those present at the ceremony. “When I think about singing Gurawul up, it just happens. All the babies were coming back.” For Max’s grandson, Dwayne, the response to Uncle Max’s call was clear. “The big message from the old people was, be careful what you wish for, you shouldn't sing 'em up too much!”

Upon the passing of Uncle Max, “follow the bubbles, I will show you the way” is now a mantra for his descendants, according to his grandson, Dwayne Bannon-Harrison. According to lore, whales blowing through their blowholes was their way of leaving a trail so that tribes could follow them across the Bassian Plain at the end of the last ice age (around 12,000 years ago). Those who didn’t follow the whales were eventually separated from the other tribes for thousands of years, isolated by what is now known as the Bass Strait -(which finished forming around 8,000 years ago).

The Whale and How Vital Things Began

Ceremonial dances, songs, and all lore centred around the whale really highlight their cultural significance. Sacred dance movements mimic their travel along the Eastern Seaboard. Indigenous seasonal changes in the landscape have been connected to whale behaviour for generations. “When we see the golden wattle, we know that these whales are going north to have their babies”, wrote Uncle Max in his memoir.

Want to decorate your desktop and devices with this beautiful Indigenous whale artwork?

Uncle Max’s 70-year search for Gurawul ended in St Helen’s, Tasmania, when he was guided by Aunty Gloria to a rock engraving depicting whale bubbles.

While this is how one whale story ends, they are present in several Creation Stories detailing how many important things began.

In Kaurna, Ramindjeri and other language groups, whales are called kondoli. The story of Kondoli the whale is a creation story sacred to Ngarrindjeri people, detailing how the ability to make fire was bestowed upon them.

Interestingly, moments in Kondoli’s Creation story where he and his friends are running away from people wanting to steal his fire, take place along locations that are part of whale migration or blue ‘highways’, e.g. Granite Island and Wunangg, the mouth of the Inman River. There is a reef at Wunangg today, and the spray that rises with the waves is the whale spout, which represents smoke. Other versions of the Creation story place emphasis on the origin of fire relating to conflict between Ancestors, involving the Whale and Shark. Nakkudla -who in the Creation story became a shark, is thought to keep ill-gotten flint and pyrites (wintjimi) Kondoli needed to make fire in his teeth.

A number of Creation stories share that the whale’s blowhole is a result of being speared while in human form. Whales that frequented the shores off the mouth of the Murray River and the rocks at Encounter Bay, where they often came close in shore were called winkulare, literally the 'whistlers' or 'blowers' from the intransitive verb winkulun 'whistle' because of their 'blowing'. Magical spells designed to entice the whales ashore were practised by the 'clevermen’ of the local language groups.

For multiple Indigenous language groups, the whales explain how and why we’re here.

“Every migration season we go down to the border, we watch 'em and they talk to us, quite vividly", says Aunty Vivian. "We could hear 'em off the rocks. Yeah. Wow. We say to them 'Wallawaani', which means 'safe travels through our waters.'"

On the east coast of Australia, the whale features in many Dreaming stories. The Dharawal Dreaming story about Wondangar the Whale and Goon na Ghun the Starfish Ancestors details how the Dharawal people came to the Illawarra, and, more broadly, how animals came from across the ocean to be on mainland Australia.

It shares similarities with other Whale Creation stories, Wondangar’s blowhole is also told to be a result of being speared, but uniquely, Wondanger is betrayed by his trusted friend Goon na Ghun the Starfish. Goon na ghun distracts him so the animals, who in the beginning were people, could steal his large and never-shared canoe, and row to the mainland, specifically the Wollongong area.

Protecting whales is part of maintaining connection

For many First Peoples, the relationship between protecting whales and maintaining cultural connections with them has been apparent for generations. “Whales came from the land to the sea, and when they come back, and they beach themselves, they're giving the laws of that sea and their responsibility back to the people,” Dwayne explains. “So that then keeps that connection, that harmony. Just because they're out there in the water doesn't mean that they can't hear us, you know?”