Guys, Just before we get started, we have some exciting news.
You can join us for our first ever live podcast recording and it's on Sunday, the fifteenth of December at two pm at the Apple Store on George Street in Sydney.
We'll be sharing yarns about the importance of storytelling.
As you know, we love a good yarn and the power of podcasting.
And we would love for you to come along, so make sure you register. We have the link in our bios, on our social media pages or in the show notes.
Let's get into it.
Let's do it.
Welcome to first things first, I'm Broogletting. My pronouns are she huh.
I'm Maddie Miles. My pronouns are he and him. And before we get started with like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we record, and that's.
The Gallicol people of the year or nation.
Let's get into it. Why laughing at.
Me, Maddie and I feel like we're going back in times of times. So he's opening up he invisit line container, which is so funny.
Because in a case, it really it's like.
It is like these teeth.
And now that I've finished my coffee, I'm going to put my little nice, beautiful retainers. So I'm gonna pop them in. Do you want to hear? Okay, so this is me putting my invisiline retain it back in.
No, I don't need to.
Oh you can't really hear it.
It's okay, so disgusting. I cannot believe this. That isn't that, Rachel. That's an out for late and you're going to talk and you're gonna have like.
A little everyone. No, I'm kidding, but this week I got my biziline, so I've kicked off the inbizzline. Obviously, I can hear myself that little lisp that I have.
I know.
Can you just pull yourself back from the mic because it's gone.
Yeah, okay, you've had a visil It sounds so bad. I need to take these out.
Honestly, I don't know why you put them in. I always have mine.
Well, I don't want to have them forever, so it's like I will have them in every minute.
I haven't had them forever, but.
I will have them in as many minutes as I can in.
Okay, anyways, anyway, but actually talking about teeth, I know this is like two things that are weird, but like growing up, I had really like it's so weird now that I have like straight teeth, Like I look in the mirror and I actually really like my smile even though it's like not completely finished yet, Like my.
Your teeth are straight now. Yeah, but they were gay.
Before they were very gay. They were literally like fighting to death.
No, I had this really big gap in the middle when I was nine years old. I had a gap in the middle of my teeth that I could fit a two dollar coin in the middle.
No, for real, where are the photos because.
I've only got one photo the original.
I've like scribbled over my mouth because I hated it so much.
Was it that whide was so big? Oh my gosh, isn't that did you? Was that like your party trick?
Yeah?
Kind of look like I can do. I've got a quain slot between what parties?
I was nine years old.
I don't know going to your little kids parties. But I was a loser.
NEI did anything.
I was poor, Yeah, because you couldn't take a present, so you wouldn't go.
Yes, And I actually never got invited because I was so lame.
I guess come on, no, oh god, how far have we come?
Oh? Yeah? For real, though you don't have any gaps in your teeth anymore.
This is like such a surreal thing.
I U believe this video last week about thirty one days until I'm like, actually thirty, and I was like, holy shit, I can't believe this is happening, Like this is crazy, Like that's all we have for twenty twenty four.
Oh when this year has to have been the quickest year, I feel like it just flew by.
Yeah.
I feel like there's something about like time that's like starting to freak me out as I get older a little bit, because I'm like.
Do you feel like it's going slower?
Well? The thing that breaks me out is when I think about thirty and then I think of another thirty years and that's sixty. Yeah, And I feel like the first thirty went really quick, so I feel like I'm going to get to sixty in no time, and I'm breaking out about that.
And then you have to start thinking about death and retirement.
Well, yeah, yes, I'm like, bar do you think of.
Do you guys ever think about dying? I don't know where, I's just that.
I'm just dying to dance. Well, speaking of death.
Is going.
It's a great no. But when I was on my way here, my dad called me and he was having biggest yarns. It's nine o'clock in the morning, and he wanted to talk about funeral plans. Oh that's sad, and I understand it's an important conversation. But there's many black fellows who would know this. There are Aboriginal funeral plans that a lot of mob paid for through their pension or through their government benefit, through a company that went bust.
So now there are all these mob who have paid thousands of dollars for their funeral cover that don't have any funeral cover. My dad included wow and an ITV's on a big like yarn on this big story. But there was a funeral insurance company, and there's so many mob like I would hundreds of thousands of mob who paid for their funeral cover that don't have cover anymore. They went bust, and the government needs to fucking step in and cover the costs. I feel like I actually.
Thought about this when I was organizing, because I've organized three funerals in my life.
It's a lot crazy.
Yeah, culture culture culture culture Gil.
Because neither my fan they did either.
So when we when I was like eleven and I was helping my auntie at the time, my only Brenda, who was organizing my mum's funeral.
Which I pretty much did, like I wrote out the eulogy like.
There were so many spelling mistakes, but we were we weren't hold that again.
A lot, so.
Picking flowers and caskets and then songs and like I guess like poems and stuff like that, and like it was in the church, so it was very unusual. But yeah, I thought about this because I and then my nana's and then my sisters and my sisters was probably a little bit closer to home because I think I was pretty isolated in COVID because I was in a Yeah, I was literally in an airbnb.
In Surrey Hills.
No no, no, this was in Perth.
So I finished the bachelorette back to per Earth, which I had to like argue to try and get back. So there's this legislation, I think as well, this is actually really important for mob to know that if work are not allowing you to go home for sorry business, there's a clause kind of thing that's like they can't stop aboriginal tosun to people from performing cultural practice. Okay, yeah, I'll try and find it and i'll put it from the resources.
But like it's probably a part of the discrimination Act.
Right it is, yeah, or there's something else. It's like, yeah, you can't. So we kind of argued that because sorry, business is cultural protocol, and they let us in during COVID. Anyways, I got isolated. I was organizing my sister's funeral, and then you know, I realized I was like, Wow, if this is really hard and difficult for me, who you know, is pretty financially able, pretty clearly like intellectually and mentally stable, how hard would this be for other mob who are in that position?
And so I was like, well, surely there's a place where.
I know that they have like funeral directors and places that organize funerals and.
Stuff like that. That amasatz duds.
But they rip off and I think, like my mum and Nan don't even have a didn't sorry, didn't have a gravestone until I got one in Yeah ten grand each, Yeah, it's like thirty grand. Then I've had to walk out just for a fucking stone. It's like this is ridiculous. I feel like I thought about starting like a business that looked after that process for mob and actually like worked with a you know, like a gravestone provider.
Like a funeral home or like more just for like gravestones.
Both. Okay, like this support as well.
You know how there is the funeral company called White Lady Funerals. Yeah, yours could be called Black Lady Funerals.
But for real or like there's like all these names like the or the and I feel like.
They just rip you off.
Yeah they do.
Yeah, And I that's partly why I did party was the reason why I also wanted to do celebrates so I can do funerals too.
Well. My my brother's funeral, I helped do a lot of that, like organized a lot of that. It was his birthday yesterday actually, so yeah, that was you know a tough day for my dad and I was on the phone to him a lot yesterday and this morning.
But yeah, my brother's funeral. The funeral director who looked after his funeral was an absolute dud, to the point where we're halfway carrying the casket from the car to the graveside and there was no direction of like where to go, what to do, Like he was legit like giving us nothing, like no assistance at all. And I just remember saying to him, like yelling at him at the funeral, what did you say? I said, Tim, what
are we doing? Like he need what we needed? Guidance you know of where we're putting the casket, you know what I mean? And there was just none of that, and I just remember feeling really frustrated and at the end of the day, like we actually didn't pay him the full amount because of his services what we got. So when I first arrived at the funeral home, my brother was in a cardboard box, a cardboard fucking box.
And it makes me really sad to think about that, but I remember when I got there, Yeah, and his body was like almost contorted because it was a female like casket. It was so small, and I remember looking at him and thinking like, oh, his feet were like this,
like it was disgusting. And I was like, take me to where the caskets are, and so he walked me out to this like garage and there were all these beautiful caskets and he had my brother in this like like it was literally a cardboard box, like plywood and I was like to him, I want this one, and it was the nicest one. It was redwood, gold handles, and he was like, you can't afford that, Like gobsmacked.
I was like, my brother is going in that. It was like I think it was like a five thousand dollar casket or four and a half grand, right, and the one that he was in was like a thousand dollars. But he, because we're black, follows, he legit thought we could only afford the cheapest. And it was literally a cardboard box. And the directions that we gave him were that we wanted a white casket and all the all
the kids, we're gonna put their handprints on it. Right, we got that and this like white fucking cardboard box. He was like, you guys got the paint, you're gonna put your handprints on it. I'm like, my brother is in like a woman's casket. Like it was like a female like small body casket. And then I went on to the website and he had done this to so many families, like the reviews. But there's only that funeral provider in the town, you know, Yeah, there's no one else.
They have a funeral home and they have all the business in town, and he's really old, like he's been doing it for years. But I think he's like past his expiry date. Maybe he should be in the cask. No, but it just made me so angry. So when I ended up paying the invoys for the funeral, I remember, I was like, he put in something like services funeral services, and there was an amount, and I like, I think I paid like seventy percent of it, and I was like,
you do not deserve the full amount. That's good that time with the family. You're supposed to take care of them, you know.
Well, I think you're providing a service where you're trying to help like that process easier for the family. Totally, you're not really or actually contributing, which is actually quite harmful and not really a service that you should be advocating for.
You want to know how fucking like odd this funeral home is. He said there was a girl who was communicating with us when we got there. He said that she quit because he got angry at her for doing dowies in the hearse at the funeral car. Supposedly she was doing dowies in the hearse And I was like, what is this fucking funeral home, Like what are we talking about?
Maybe that was a request from the friend family, like maybe maybe the person.
Maybe the person that was No.
I actually don't think there was a body in hers. I think she took it for a spin around town. Oh fucking honestly.
Culture.
Culture, there's other parts to culture that that I feel like I missed out on, you know what I mean. And I feel like when I was a young kid, I always felt like something was missing. I always felt like, oh, like there was a part of myself. And I know that that comes from the fact that my dad had left when I was very little and the whole story of him being dead. And I always felt like this sense of loss because of that, even though it was false, you know. And so I remember my younger years always
feeling like something was missing. And then as I grew up and got to meet my dad, meet my Aboriginal side of my family, and like connect with the mob, I felt like their experience, they were gypped of their culture.
A lot of the stuff, yeah, they didn't get to learn.
They didn't get to learn, like the stories that my dad tells me of like a segregated town and like the black fellows were only allowed to live on the mission, you know. And when my dad was in school, he was allowed to be in school, he had to go to school, but he wasn't allowed to learn. They would put the black fellows up the back, the white kids at the front. The black kids were just singled out
and always embarrassed. My dad has stories where he was like taken to the front of assembly where teachers were looking through their hair and knits in front of the whole school. I think there's a big part of my dad and there's a big part of grief that comes with that that is like intergenerate you know.
Yeah, I mean I also have that feeling with intergenerational shame as well. My nat used to tell the same similar stories, and I also have had that experience of
being singled out and sort of ostracized. I feel like you and I because of those experiences was obviously we change the narrative, which is so good, But sometimes I also get a little bit sad too about it, because I think there are also moments with our young people that that's still partly happening and in communities, and I get like a bit angry and a bit like he be GB because I just don't want anyone to ever experience that, that feeling of being robbed or losing, Like
I feel like, language is one of the things that I get so upset about that I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, do you feel the same way. Yeah. One of the things about the Cammillary language is that there's a lot of it, you know, there's a lot of it still documented and out there. There are courses for the Camillary language, and I don't think a lot of First Nations people have that, you know, like I feel like, especially on the East Coast, there's obviously a big impact of colonization here, you know, Gadigaul and through New South Wales is like there's a heavy impact of colonization in
terms of cultural loss and language loss. If you look towards the more remote rural communities, of course, a lot of their languages are still intact and they speak the language, you know, but a lot of mob here don't. Yeah, and a lot of Camillary mob don't speak the language.
But it is documented. There's a lot of documentation of the language and it's something that I've always wanted to do because there's the course at redfern Our Community Center for Commitllerary Language, and I felt like I've always wanted to do it. Ani Duly what's her last name? She I used to work for a company called Young Mob. It's part of World Vision, like with youth, and she was a part of that. She was one of the founding members of this youth program, and she teaches language
at the Red Fern Community Center. And I've always wanted to do it because I feel like language is a deep sense of connection with who you are, you know what I mean?
Yeah, and if you can try to integrate it in your daily life, like it just feels I feel more connected if I am. Do you know our language, yeah, Like you know, we were really lucky, I think in a weird sense. I don't think lucky is the word, but I think colonization obviously happened this side and then they sort of, you know, moved across. But like I feel like our culture in WA is still very rich
and still very like there. I don't know, I feel like we do have that closer connection than over east here. Ye when I speak to mob here, like that is a true disconnect where when I go home, it's like.
It's there, the words are there, and integrated totally. So that's I feel very I guess, like in a way so lucky to be Noma.
Like my grandmother, I like had this little memory flashback and it's my grandmother and she would yell at us kids in English and then she would translate it. And when she translated translated it in that's when you knew you were in fucking trouble. Like it didn't have an impact when it was in English, but when she translated it in language, it was like you better get the fuck home.
Knew, Yeah, he knew.
And I'm trying to remember what she used to say. But the Nunga language is it's really beautiful. Like our way of saying hello is like kaya and we've got these like elongated like nonga aye and it's got like no like that kind of like in your back of the.
Palette, like I found. I find that like like that phrasing really hard for me because we don't have that. Yeah, that's the gamel gamill roys a lot of are but rolling, you know.
So it's crazy how we're both first nations and people always try to box us together.
But even just now, the difference in.
Dialect totally, totally Yeah. I was doing a project where I had to say a lot of the different words, and I was using language words, and I found it really hard to say that. Like, and there's a dialect coach but also a linguist, like a First Nation's linguist in the room, and she'll trying to teach me. And I found it really difficult to say language words that were so like, I don't know, they're just so particular in terms of like especially central desert mob you know,
like that it's like that eng sound. Yeah, I can't do it.
Yeah, Yeah, I think it's a very like i'd say the ng sound is more like on the wa side. Yeah, because I think like there are similar like the energy language as well, Like because I grew up in Caernarvon is a bit like similar to Nonga, but it's just a bit like slanging and a bit different.
You know what. When I have to pronounce like a Nonga word or like a hard language word on TV, I shit my pants because like I'm reading the auto Q when I see it coming and I'm like, oh my god, Like it just stresses me out because I don't want to butcher it because language is important and it's that I always practice. I'm always in my dressing room like trying to get it right, you know, and I write it phonetically on the autocube, but sometimes I just think, oh, did I say it right?
Like is this true that there's no case in the Gamilla Roy alphabet?
Yeah? Yeah, And even Camillarroy people say Camilla roy. You know, Camilla Roy. That is just an English way of saying gamill roy.
You know, it's just to give pronunciation.
Well, I think that with translation. So when they were documenting mobs and tribes and language, they documented it as kery. You know, that's lost in translation. But there's Gamillroy, Gomroy, Gamilla Ray, Camilla Roys. Four ways to say my tribe.
Well, that's like there's different ways of spelling, but like we sometimes have to put the y in there so that people know that that's a yeah like sound yeah yeah, like so because like I just say, oh, I'm just longer, and I would spell it and double o n g R, but sometimes you would don't understand that pronunciation, so they put it and why U n g R.
Did you ever see that video that was like flab jaba and long? Where did that come from?
That was a vine.
Yeah, where did that flight? It was that flajava? Where did that come from?
It was just this old follow He was just saying. No, actually that was like a guy taking.
The piss oh was it?
Yes?
Okay?
But then I think mob like took on the sound as a joke because you know, we make.
Trauma claim it.
I think that's I think Uncle Ernie Dingo once said that he's like make light and comedy sometimes and when people see like you're not being so serious and you know, taking the piss out of yourself, it can't hurt, it can't. You know, you don't let it like penetrate you.
Yeah, my words today penetrate. But I wanted to ask you something because this is like a like a thing that always crosses my mind. Like as First Nations people, we try and share as much as our as ourselves and culture so that we you know, can not earn respect, but can gather like an understanding of who we are from the wider community. Right, And I always feel like acknowledgement some countries should be done by someone who isn't First Nations over someone who is First Nations. What are
your thoughts on that? Because whenever someone says to me, can you do any acknowledgment? I always think to myself.
You can do it.
Why don't you do it?
Well?
Am I? Why do I have to acknowledge? You should be acknowledging? You know.
I think welcomes should be done by MOB, and.
I think that they should be paid for their service m because compensation, time, effort, language, culture, culture. I think acknowledgments. If you don't want to pay for an actual proper welcome, you can do an acknowledgment that's equally as respectful, but it should be done by.
Someone outside of our community. Yeah. I agree too. I've been asked in many acknowledgments and I'm like, you know, fuck, that's.
An out for me for fucking twenty twenty five doing acknowledgments.
Yeah, yeah, get fuck, I'm not acknowledged. I've been here your mom.
And nah for real, though, I have a responsibility and accountability that I put on myself to represent MOB, and if I don't feel like it's something that MOB would be happy me doing in a situation or a scenario like I wouldn't do it, you know.
And I'm not saying acknowledgments.
Are that, but if I have had a conversation and it's made me feel like icky and like not good.
Yep, I'd just be like no, I'm not.
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I have taken opportunities to do acknowledgment so that I could say more than an acknowledgment, like honestly.
Yeah, like you always do that he's rogue.
But the thing is, I actually like to like teaching them something, you know, Like for me, it's important that, like if I'm asked to do an acknowledgment, I see it as an opportunity to give something else, you know what I mean, It's not just the acknowledgment. So it's like, maybe teach them what Gadigel means if I'm doing an acknowledgment on this country.
You know, I love that about you.
Yeah, whether it's like that what Gadigel means, or whether it's like that it's a part of you know, twenty six clans within the ur nation, you know what I mean.
So Bondai means Bundy.
Bundi, yeah, and you know Gadigl means people of the grass tree. That one's not gully at the end of a word is people of Yeah. So if you hear Camago people of the high water that's North Sydney. Kiribilly is a good fishing spot.
Up.
In our language, anything with up is water water. Yeah, so like yelling up, yeah, dwelling up.
They're all water places.
Yeah. I learned a lot about this, like the urination, from doing that project with Wesley Enock. But I also love that I know much, like much more about this place because I live here, you know, and this place has been welcoming to not just more, but so many people. You know, this is a hub for the world, you know what I mean, Like it's a meeting place Sydney.
I feel very like glad that there are people like you out there that are taking those little moments kind of like you know, a majority would be non indigenous people. Yeah, yeah, you know, and then they take away that one thing and that's like.
A ripple effect.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love that because I think that's really special and I think even some things that you have said to me have stuck with me. And I am not from here, right, I'm a visitor to Sydney, but I feel like I'm more connected because I know that stuff, which is why that's your intention of what and why you're doing.
It, which is cool.
Sometimes we want that responsibility not to always fall on us, and we want other people to actually do the same and contribute and then pass knowledge on because I think shared knowledge is powerful. I really think that that's what we kind of started this podcast and have connected so well on because I came late into my culture and in a sense, I was so connected being in community up until eleven, but I didn't know anything about my
Nunga culture. Like I'd grown up with a Nunga mother and grandmother and they used to speak language, but I thought it was Yamogy because I was on Yamaging country.
Like everyone used to just think that we were Yamagy mob.
But it wasn't until my mum and grandmother died that I went back to Perth to live with my dad that when I was at a school event, like a an Aboriginal tutoring event, that this Aboriginal auntie she goes, oh, who's your mob, And I said, I'm My last name's Blurton.
And then she's like, oh, I know all your Nonga mob and I.
Was like, oh, oh, yeah, that's right. My grandmother's Noma. And this is like when I was like still like about eleven or twelve. I'm pretty sure, Like I was enrolled.
Yeah, it was like still same year my mom passed. Yeah, so I was eleven and.
She could just put it straight away together with like just my last name, and I thought that was just so fucking epic, like howful.
I want to be one of those aunties that are doing that year.
You know what my my my big Camillary last name, like my name's last name is weather Ll, and that's one of the biggest Kimillroy families. So if you ever hear weather All, you know their Camilla Y same thing, you know, Blurton weather Ll, Kimilla Roy. It's big family. So my nn my matriarchal side of my lineage or weather All, and my pop is a meals So Queensland mop. So I'm Korean Murray Nice, I'm a cool Murray. But I want to ask you as we wrap this up,
what's your favorite thing about being a black father. Why do you love being an Aboriginal? Why do you love being an Aboriginal?
Literally, there are actually so many parts of me that I love, and when I think about my English heritage, I just don't think really entails who I am. Which is so like it is who I am because obviously it runs my blood yeap. But I think for me, like I have always been so connected to a lot of things in terms of I love country like I love feeling the sand in my toes. I love the ocean like I love that sort of feeling when I am there and experiencing like in being in nature. Like
I know it wholeheartedly that I have that connection. I can I can yeah, like I can zone out. I can zone out people's voices and I can hear everything around me. And I think that is a really powerful connection that I have, and I think that really does come from.
My first nation's culture.
Beautiful.
I think I do have, like you know, that social emotional wellbeing WILL that I talk about all the time. I know it's like a little I'm like I would describe myself like it's like my center and that's like my little pieces and that entails like connection to ancestry and kinship, connection to culture and community, connection to oneself. Like I just think there's not one thing that I love about being black. It's all of those things.
And I think like for me, I just love that.
I also like it's kind of like being part of a VIP club that you like, this side.
Is so much better VIP very indigenous.
People literally like being on this side is like the best.
Yeah.
So I think, like I.
Look at people who are you know, Australian or like why, and I think I feel partly like sorry for you that you don't have this type of connection or this type of like belonging because I think the whole world, like I think humans as a race.
Oh my god, I'm going real like deep for a second. But one question, it says you fucking half this podcast. Is you chatting? Motherfucker?
I said nothing, please this woman, I reckon, what's your favorite part of being Aboriginal? Forty six years later, we still are.
That's that's probably it. The yarns.
Yeah, we love you do there you go? Noah, I keep going. I want to hear more.
Everyone in this world everything black, black.
Everyone in this world. This is the biggest.
Yellow, purple, green, Alphaba Glinda.
Their whole thing, right, Their motivations or they want in the world is to.
Belong see no, truly truly.
Now he's been a parrot, motherfucker.
No, but belonging is at the core of.
One and you know why I love being black is because I belong to something and someone and a community she belongs to.
What's your favorite thing about.
Well, the other day I went and got a massage and it was really lovely. Laying down, you know, this lovely tire woman is walking on my back and like she's little, but she's up there. She's like full on like on my back. And at the end of the massage, I was in my zen mode and she says, where are you from? And I said, I'm Aboriginal. She goes, You're not gonna believe this, she ges, but you're white and you don't have a big knows.
That's so rude.
It's so racist, so rude. She had no like she didn't know she was being racist, and she was not trying to be She was like innocent, but like in her mind she sees a very specific gimage as an Aboriginal person. She's just Skinna's white. And I was like, this woman I think has no like understanding of like the complexity how different we are as people like First Nations people, Aboriginal people, and also the complexities of identity
when it comes to skin color. So when she said that, I honestly, when she called me white, I was so offended. And that's when I knew. That was the moment where I was like, oh my god, I have no connection to my white side. It is like it's something that that I'm shunned, like like I want to shun I'm like, oh, she caught me white, Like. I was so offended by that because I don't feel connected to that part.
Of me truly.
And I think when I had to do the school thing and I had to acknowledge and do like an assessment and like learn about my British identity, I felt so icky. I felt like like I just couldn't. I was like, no, my white dad, who's the British ade has probably caused me more trauma than anything, like, and people think that original people are fucking problematic.
Fuck you, Okay, let's go.
Well that's all we have time for today.
No, but yeah, I do feel a bit icky when I have to. But you know, if you don't acknowledge all of you, you won't.
Accept all of you.
I hope people have been listening to this and being like not thinking that when we hate hate white people, we love our white friends.
Sometimes I've got white friends I.
Know, imagine a world where it was like all black people and the white people with a majority minority minority.
Okay, well you know what I think. I say it all the time, but the thing I'm most proud of in my life is being Aboriginal. Well that's all we have time for today. If you love what, you're here to leave us a little rating in a little review, and maybe a black your own red.
Heart ifyone wants to cover anything on the pod, reach out by our socials. My handle is that brooked up burden Maddis is that it's Man and Mills. We'll see you next Bye bye,