YULU THE KINGFISHER MAN

Producer Liz Thompson
Senior Adnyamathnha Cultural Custodian and storyteller Cliff Coulthard
Adnyamathanha mentee Arthur Brady
Original recordings by Taz Miller and Liz Thompson, assisted by Gavin Spokes.
Sound Engineer Russell Stapleton
Executive Producer Claudia Taranto

SYNOPSIS

The stunning Northern Flinders Ranges Country belongs to the Adnyamathanha people. ‘Adnya’ means rock and ‘mathana’ means people – the Adnyamathana people are ‘the people of the rocks’.

Adnyamathanha songs, stories and Law are all part of the Yuramuda. This program is about the journey of one of the major Adnyamathanha Creation Ancestors, Yulu the Kingfisher Man. Yulu’s Coal explores the travels of Yulu as he moved across Country, followed by two Arkurra, Giant Rainbow Serpents and why the coal mined at Leigh Creek Coal Mine today belongs, from an Adnyamathanha perspective, to Yulu, the Kingfisher Man.

In the first of this two-part series, we will move through Country with Senior Cultural Custodians, learning about important features of the landscape brought into existence by these Ancestral Beings and why there are deep implications for the digging of Yulu’s Coal or Muda (Dreaming) from the ground.

The Yulu’s Coal song was performed by Terrence Coulthard and written by Terrence and Cliff Coulthard and Buck McKenzie.
Welcome Song was performed by Terrence Coulthard and written by Uncle Leo Coulthard, Auntie Shirley Coulthard, Josephine Coulthard and Terrence Coulthard for the Adnyamathanha Women's choir in 1997.