Brian Coleman from Caama Radio in Warumungu (Tennant Creek) tells his story and shares some of ours

He had 3 Aboriginal wives, you know, that's why we had such a big family.

Yep.

And then Dad, he married a Western woman.

Yep.

My mum, but my mum, whenever they used to ask about Dad, she used to tell them, oh no, he used to drive a lot of coal trains.

That's one way of putting it. So are you okay with me putting this on there?

Yeah, go for your life.

No question.

And, um, so that's how that come about. And then I married a Kaity woman here.

Oh, really?

You know, and I had all my kids Kaity born there, brought through. So yeah, so that's why I come on Jumpa Larga.

And I married a Cherokee woman.

Yeah, I've just been over with the Cherokees in America just now. I had to go back to Nashville to record again. Oh, did you? Yeah, this year again. So, uh, I went there and done that. And, uh, but, um, there's a— I'm in with a mob called now, it's called Cohesion, which it's a whole heap of Native American tribes are all together, and we're on there like a brother-sister radio.

Yeah, awesome.

And, uh, yeah, so I've done a show in, uh, New York in the basement there, and then I've done a show with a Navajo woman in, um, uh, New Jersey, and then I went to Nashville. I recorded in Nashville. I performed at Memories. I performed at a lot of places out there.

Wow, cool.

And I've just come back, and now I'm getting my whole album being Master's in Sydney, so great. I'm waiting for that to come through. But, uh, yeah, I like— and that's 3 years in a row now I've been with, um, Native Americans, you know. And, uh, I went to Denver. I've been all over the place, been on the reservations.

Wow.

And, uh, no different here.

No, it's not.

Big trouble with grog, big trouble with drugs.

Same.

You know, all the same. Lots of motorcars everywhere, brought in here. Lots of motorcars, yeah.

Same. Yeah, really good and wonderful people and really sad and—

Well, the same as here, you know, like, and but, um, I think, uh, segregation is what politicians and that want. Yeah, so they want you to bloody say, you know, we want this, we want that. Because all it's doing is just segregating people.

Yeah.

It's the same here in Australia, you know, like, um, uh, at Redfern this year, I went there, I was broadcasting there with all the announcers and all that, and, um, Charlie Dobson and all that mob were there, you know, and that's how we were talking. And then they got me, they nearly got me into trouble, to go into the Sydney Opera House And pull the didge out and play it, and they filmed it.

Oh yeah?

Yeah, so I did. But I didn't know that you weren't allowed to do that. Yeah, yeah, so that was Shani Wilkie, they're all there, you know. Really?

Yeah, well, thank you. It's, you know, it's been interesting coming back and connecting, uh, for the first time, and, uh, you know, That was last year. And so this time we came back with a real, you know, real purpose of capturing people's stories and language. It's really how it started, isn't it? We wanted to— because I was trying to learn Wara-Mangu via the resources at the language centre, and they've got great resources, but there's a total difference between hearing someone speak it. It's not pronunciation.

It is all.

And pronunciation, most of it comes with watching lips and watching eyes and watching faces. So he thought, you know what, why don't we try and do a visual dictionary? Take 100 words, just a simple 100 words, and just go through and pick, okay, what would I like as a non-speaker? What do I think I need to try and connect with people on an everyday basis? So we came up with 100 words and people are adding to it all the time. And we want to get a collection of people to speak at them. We've been starting to explore that idea with people, and out of it they started to tell their stories. Well, this is my story. We ran into Stretch down the road the other day, and Stretch is telling his story. And spoke to Bill from Corrections, and Bill's telling his. And Kevin's telling his story.

Yeah, he's down there.

Yeah. Then we had a couple more people tell their story. And so what we're fascinated with is this reflection people have on this town and their great passion for it and their great concern for it and their ideas about what the future looks like. And it's been really interesting. And so we've had it, you know.

This is where you should come next year. I'm one of the board members of Leadership and Governance. and videos, you know. Yeah, I'd love to. And, uh, like, um, everybody comes here, you know. Like, we had Linda Burney, they've all come, you know. Eddie Betts, you know, Sam Friday, they all come. Everybody from all different walks of life, you know. And like, um, I, I'm— I make the, the fact that, um, in Australia there's 360 different languages You know, like clans and all sorts of that. And like a lot of the languages, especially with Warlungur and Mawurri, it's very limited to what it is. Like there's no such thing as good morning in Warlungur and Mawurri, but if you go back to Marmalade and Butterbeer, you know, that's good morning, you know. And like if someone said to you, you know, if they walked up and you said, would you know what that means?

No.

Oh man, you know, you know, koorijee, you know.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's how the language is. And then like they say, um, yarum and minya here, but if you go over to Murujong in Western Australia, Derby, you say yarum, and yarum means horse. It doesn't mean horse here, you know, and minya means cow over there.

Yeah.

But when you come back here Yarraman means working man, and Minya means different again, you know. So it's all— and, uh, in— there's a lady called Valda Shannon. She's, she's the best linguist, and she's an interpreter like me. And, uh, she is the best, but, you know, like, she does all the court cases and everything.

Ah, okay.

And, and like, she says it too, you know, like, it's It's all in pronunciation. You've got to get your tongue around it and word it properly.

Well, we'd love to sit and do that as a separate episode. Sit down and like to say dog, gunapa, dog. Like, if you're trying to learn it, you don't want to hear gunapa and then a sentence with gunapa in it. It's like, I don't know what that means. I don't even know what gunapa is. Then I've got to look through the illustrated dictionary.

Gunapa.

Yeah, gunapa.

See, that's it.

So, and I want to hear I'd love to hear 3 or 4 different people say it 3 or 4 different ways, because like we all pronounce different words differently. And then it's a variety. It's not just a textbook. It becomes a living thing.

So that's, that's, that's where we started with the project we wanted to do this year.

And, um, so yeah, and along the way we started to pick up the stories, and they were fascinating.

Everybody has a story. Do you have a story of how they came to be here?

Oh yeah, well, yeah, like, um, my story, it was hidden by my mother and our whole— my sister, she's done all our DNA, you know. And well, she's down at the tent in Canberra now, right now, you know. But, um, she's, uh, she's got all our DNA and we've tracked down all our family. We've got family on Palm Island, we've got family up on the other side of Canberra, we've got family everywhere, you know. Because our great-grandfather had 3 sisters. They were all sisters, all Jones sisters, all Aboriginal.

Wow.

Right? And he got 6 and 7 kids out of that. All of them, we don't know exactly how many.

He delivered a lot of coal.

Yeah, yeah. And like, um, uh, I can remember when I was about 4, 8-year-old, and, uh, we had to go to a funeral. And, uh, this lady, her name was Ward, and my father said, well, that's your auntie, you know. And she was proper Aboriginal, you know. That's the first time I've ever experienced it, you know. Yeah.

Wow.

But, you know, Dad was— he was under Mum's thumb, you know. Anyhow, I'll just get a bit more information there. So you, you, you're from New South Wales now?

No, from Dallas, Texas. So I've been in America for 25 years working. Yeah, um, entrepreneur, uh, started a bunch of business. We actually, we run a nonprofit for anti-human trafficking and trauma recovery. So we worked on the Epstein case. human trafficking, uh, you know, often where kids or people are sold for sex or labor.

Yeah, yeah.

So we worked on the Epstein case and the guy who took over from it, a guy called Nygaard, helped put that guy away. So, and we run a media company that funds that, and we run a wellness center And we've developed a protocol that's non-pharmaceutical to help people recover from trauma. So I've been using it myself for 15 years, and we've developed it as we go. But you know, I used it to really heal myself when I had recall of what happened to me as a kid. And so that's one of the focuses we've had.

Well, my manager in the States, his name is Stephen Fernandez, and he's maybe got about 150 people working for him, but he's all over America in like all the hotels, like any functions, conferences, all that sort of stuff. He does all the, all the, you know, miking up the speaker, organizes, you know, acts and all that sort of stuff. He does all that, you know. He just done Holy Mustafa Trump, you know. Um, so it's all a good, you know, as far as that goes.

Yeah, we've worked a lot with Trump, um, in the anti-trafficking space. Right.

You know, it was so strange this year when we went over there, because when he left Australia, everybody called him— I should have more water, boy— everybody's calling him Trumpy. A nappy. He's mad, he's mad. When we went over there, everywhere we went, even in, um, what's the name of their coffee joint?

Starbucks.

Starbucks. Yeah, they had cups with this. Yeah, yeah. Based on them, you could buy them ones, you pay extra money.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And like, um, I've done this, um, in, uh, in Times Square. I've done this gig there. Where you go up them stairs and we're all set up there and you look around, all you can see is these Trump caps.

Yeah, yeah, it's all over the country like that, mate.

Yeah.

All right, so what I'll do, I'll, I'll record this so that I can get this up. This will go national too.

Oh well, thank you, great opportunity. And this will hit up You'll get a bunch of views, man. YouTube, and we've got about 120,000 followers on Instagram.

Put it out there to everybody.

We'll do our bit to promote you, Tennant Creek, and all that sort of stuff.

All right, we're going to start.

And what was your name again?

Brian.

Brian, thank you.

Old Man Coleman, they call me.

Old Man Coleman.

Oh, good morning. Good morning, it's Elmer Tom from Karma Radio 102.9 on country in Tannock Creek. And today I have 2 special people, Jillroy John King and Melissa King. Melissa's a Native American and they are traveling around Australia. They lived in Dallas, Texas for 12 years. 20 years, is that right?

20 years.

20 years, and, uh, they were part of the anti-human trafficking thing, and they helped solve the Epstein case. Now I'm introducing you to John and Melissa, and they're going to tell us a little about themselves.

Well, thank you very much, Brian.

Hey, look, say hi.

Hello, everyone. So yeah, look, thanks for having us on. So yeah, um, Went to America about 25 years ago and started in business over there and have been there. You know, that's been part of the journey. And just before my 60th birthday, I— we actually had the opportunity of reconnecting Melissa with her family in her country just before then.

Mm-hmm.

And she sat me down one day and said, John, As long as I've known you, you have been looking at this question of your Aboriginality. You said this thing is— it's followed you, or now I understand the term called you and sung you. And she said, you need to answer this question once and for all, or you need to give it a miss. And, uh, she— didn't you?

I did.

And she did. So we got into contact with some people here and we started the journey. And I don't pretend to have the answer or know what the outcome is, but I'm certainly further along in the journey than I was, and than I have been anywhere in the last 62 years.

Well, yeah, and what about you, Melissa, being Native American?

Yep, my grandma on my mom's side was Cherokee, and There was a lot of shame associated with being a Native American, so they didn't talk about it. They didn't raise us with culture. We really didn't, you know, get the opportunity to be around the tribe or any of the old ways. And so when I was— when John and I were first married, we went east You know, because my grandmother is originally from the mountains of North Carolina. That's her country. And so we went there and visited with the tribe. We spoke with some elders, and we, you know, learned as much as we could. They are very strong. The Eastern Band of Cherokee are very strong as far as their culture and their language now. They, you know, about 20 years ago, they They set up their own school and their children are taught in Cherokee. They're taught mathematics and, you know, history and all the things, but they're taught in language, which is, you know, amazing. So they went from about 120 speakers to now there's thousands of speakers.

And everybody, like the mayor, the police, everyone speaks language. It is just wonderful.

You spoke much language there?

No, no.

Mahukutuk?

No.

Mahukutuk, fly out of the eagle.

Ah, very good.

You know, like, um, yeah, I, I, and, uh, I experienced the kāiwhā this year when I was over there.

That would have been a privilege.

Unbelievable, you know.

Fantastic.

And those people, Mum, uh, they, they've got to fight as well as here, you know. But it's the system that destroying everybody. You know, like Ungwala is really bad, you know. And we've just had incidents, you know, in Town Creek, you know. But if you go to court and every time we go intoxicated, intoxicated. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

It's not a good thing. Now what are you still here now? You're doing something with Mel Gibson or? What was that?

Yeah, we, um, well, we came back for the first time last year and we came back for ceremony again this year. And the— we've got—

we've had a—

they've done a couple of documentaries on my life and my story. And along the way of when we did those documentaries together on my childhood and the recovery process, we met these people. And one guy that we met worked as a comic writer for SNL, has pretty Produced, directed things, and he's connected with Gibson. He was involved in the original Passion of the Christ and this, the next one, the Resurrection that's coming up. And so we've worked with them and they— and we talked about what it was like here and the possibilities and the challenges. And his reflection was he really thinks Gibson is interested in being involved either directly as a producer in it or as a voiceover capacity or something. So that's how the project came around. So what we're doing this time is we're shooting B-roll, which for folk out there is images of country, of town, and places. And we're starting to collect stories. We came here to do a visual language program, as we were discussing earlier. And along the way, when we're talking to people about language, they're always talking about this story and how they got to Tennant Creek. And there's starting to be this narrative evolve out of this. And we're discovering in people talking about the balance between 2 worlds, and how do we straddle 2 worlds, and how do we go back to the elders and start to bring culture back into law enforcement, and vice versa. So we're really at the front end of this thing, and we're looking for people to get involved in the language project and in the story project. But Brian, I think it could be really interesting, a really interesting take on where the town's up to. But also where culture, community, and the Indigenous people of Australia are up to and possible ways forward.

Uh, look, I see it all the time with, um, politicians and, uh, you know, people that get, you know, they, they live on that culture thing for to get votes and all that sort of stuff. But they, they don't understand our law, you know. They don't understand that. They don't understand Country, you know. We have a situation north of here, yeah, around Mataranka and all the forests down there. Like, when I was young, that used to be all full of water, you know.

Yes.

And the fracking and all that sort of thing, it's horrible. The people that live there, they don't want it, you know, but there's a couple that did want it. So the politician ignores the majority and goes with the minority. But that's, that's another story. So yeah, I thought it was— it's good for you to come in, and, um, and I thank you very much. And, uh, I think that, um, that story with Mel Gibson will do well. Um, in any way we can help, um, like, um, uh, to get out on country, you know, like, there's, there's more to country than just down the creek, you know.

Yeah.

And there's, um, some great people, um, in the thing. And, like, and, and don't just stop here. Like, um, go get across the, across the border, you know. Go into the Kimberley. Go and meet Eddie McEwin down at Blue and everything like that. But those people, they, they still got culture, and they come here, they shake their head.

Yeah.

Yeah, like, um, my, my good friend Jack O'Mara, you know, like, um, he, he's, he's tried very, very hard, you know, but unless the respect is there, you know, um, because we've lost, uh, we've lost the The originality of the warrior.

Yes.

And now we've got the gangster.

That's well put, mate.

Yeah, so it's not as much used then. Well, I thank you very much for coming in, and, uh, very good to hear.

Thank you. Well, thanks, mate.

No worries, mate.

It's awesome.