Rosie Tarku King

I was born at a jumu [soak water] called Payinjarra in the Great Sandy Desert. I walked out from the desert with my husband when I was a young girl. I left my mother and brother Kumanjayi Pijaju behind at Japingka. My husband had two wives, my older sister and myself. These two passed away a long me ago, here in the river country at Brooking Springs Station.

When we left the desert we walked for a long me, it was a long way. We were walking and hunting. We killed pussycat and wirlka [sand goanna] for food but no kangaroo. I was walking, all the me worrying about my mother but I kept going. My husband and my sister were both cheeky, they hit me for no reason. I was crying for my mother. I got away from them once, they were too cheeky to me and telling me, “come on you have to go”. I told them, “No, I want to go back to my mother”. They kept telling me “No, you have to keep going”.

I was frightened but I came out at Old Bililluna. There were planes landing right there, I was frightened of that plane. From there, all of us kids went walking and looking at the plane that had landed. I didn’t know any English, I just looked at the kartiya [Europeans]. We kept going and we saw kartiya getting water in a bucket from a well. This was new to me too, it was the first me I had seen this. We had no shoes, we were wearing yakapiri [old people long ago in the desert they used to make sandals to protect feet from the hot ground]. I talked only Juwaliny when I came but today I speak Juwaliny, Walmajarri, Kriol and English. After that, a motor car came from Moola Bulla to Old Bililluna and took us to Moola Bulla. We came out there, frightened in the car, we hadn’t seen one before. We didn’t know anyone there either. I met Munmurria Daisy Andrews there and her first son. I didn’t know her before then.