A Yolŋu ‘Bothways’ approach to English and Warramiri literacy at Gäwa

In North-East Arnhem Land there are numerous stories concerning the Yolŋu ‘ancestral dog’ Djuranydjura. The most famous concerns his interaction with the Macassans, who established mutually beneficial relationships with Yolŋu over the centuries. Trepang collecting services were traded extensively for articles such as fish hooks, tobacco, knives and cloth (Macknight, 1976). However, in the Djuranydjura story, when the Macassan offers rice and shoes and blankets, the dog rejects them all, in favour of his own land and resources (Warner, 1958; Berndt & Berndt, 1989; McIntosh, 1994). At Gäwa homeland on Elcho Island, this powerful story of identity and ‘defiance in the face of outside intrusion’ (McIntosh, 2003, p. 314) is interpreted to also include the arrival of balanda (white) teachers, and their focus on English literacy. However, it is not that English literacy is devalued, but that it must maintain its proper place; negotiated to sit alongside literacy of the land, and the foundational Warramiri language itself (Guthadjaka, 2013). One approach of applying such a ‘Bothways’ pedagogy through utilising a systematic literacy suite such as ‘Accelerated Literacy’ for both languages and cultures is outlined to demonstrate that synthesis and strengthened identity is quite attainable when teachers and community work together.