My friend, Terry Piper, was at one time a ranger at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory - he now lives in Cairns. He wrote this song decades ago, but its theme is still very relevant. Just recently, a mining company blew up sacred sites in the Kimberley.

BAW BAW BIG BILL
(Terry Piper)

It’s been ten long years now
Since they first found uranium
Did you know what it meant
Did you see through the lies
When they hounded your people
Did you know it was no good
Did you give up the fighting
Just for some peace and quiet

Chorus:
And it’s baw baw Big Bill
Will the brolgas keep dancing
Will the bones rest safe
In the caves where they lie
Though the people keep coming
And the mines keep on growing
Who’ll look after the land
One day when you die

In come the people
With machines and their buildings
And they take what they want
Do they ever give back
And they stay only long enough
To earn what they can
They just couldn’t give a damn
They’ll never return

Chorus

You’re a rich man now
But will that really save you
Where will you spend it
And what will you buy
And your culture will change
When it’s all you’ve to cling to
And they’ll use all the money
As a cheap alibi

Chorus

You’re watching the old people
The once proud and bold people
They get fewer each day
Its hard to survive
When the drink takes its hold
It soon takes its toll
When there’s so much to run from
Is it easier to hide

Chorus

It’s been ten long years now
Since they first found uranium
And you land has changed more
Than in ten thousand years
And the scars will live on
Once the tears have long gone
Will they poison the world
While your people disappear

Chorus (x2)

My intro:

Big Bill Neidjie was a traditional owner of the northern Kakadu National Park area. Fearing that he might take his language and traditional secrets to the grave, he shared many of his stories with anthropologists despite the taboo against revealing them to the uninitiated.

The English language has a word that closely links human distress to a sense of place. The root meaning of ‘nostalgia’ – nostos, return to home or native land and algia, pain or sickness – was a concept related to a medically diagnosable illness.   It is well-documented that dispossessed indigenous peoples worldwide have been likely to experience such a pathology. They have experienced physical and mental illness at rates far beyond those of other groups. Their social problems – unemployment, alcoholism, substance abuse, disproportionate rates of suicide, incarceration etc – have led to community dysfunction and crisis. Yi-Fu Tuan, the eminent pioneering researcher of sense of place, points out that such serious distress of nostalgia can also be produced by a feeling of changes occurring too rapidly and without one’s control.


--Stewie