Becoming Fluent In Wailpiri Poem by Kaye Aldenhoven

Hey, your kids are learning to speak Wailpiri.
It's good, eh?
How do they learn so quickly?
Them boys more clever, you know, than their mother.
Nungarai laughs.

Jangala's in the carpenter's shop,
hiding from the cutting desert wind.
After school my kids visit him, swap stories.
He's teaching them bush business.
He teases them.

One afternoon
Jangala looks deadly flash.
See, beautiful, eh? Proper flash this one.
He removes the fine bone ornament
from his nasal septum.
See, him made properly.
Beautiful, eh?
Wailpiri technology.
See these red feathers,
from Major Mitchell cockatoo.
Put feathers in kangaroo bone,
little bone from leg,
stick with spinifex glue,
make him smooth so him won't hurt.

Look me now.
Jangala takes a biro and pushes it through
the hole in his nose.
I make a hole in you mob nose now,
you be deadly flash then,
like me.

My darling first born
jokily declines this offer,
in Wailpiri.
The words knock the breath from Nungarai.
She mutters a warning:
Big trouble now.
Them words secret words - men's business words.
Women and kids can't listen.
Very dangerous words.

Jangala grabs his boomerang.
I thrash you mob, you mob too cheeky!
My three sons run screaming
out of the carpenter's workshop,
and run down the red dirt road,
run for their lives,
yelling, dodging, whites of their eyes huge,
yelling in English:
Sorry, Sorry! We didn't mean it, Jangala!
Sorry! Sorry! Don't hit us!

They run for Nungarai,
hide behind her, hanging onto her skirt.
Sorry, sorry Jangala.
We didn't mean it!
We're sorry Jangala,
Don't hit us.

Them three Jambidjinba.
Them kids.
Very rude in language.
No respect.
Too cheeky! Too cheeky!

Who teach them Jambidjinba these words? Eh?
Nungarai asks.