Yugarie is the Bundjalung word for pipi, the bivalve mollusc of the saltwater shores. Yugarie shells are cream or violet with pale grey or mauve striations, and they are shaped like butterflies when they are opened up flat. The interiors are smooth and purple. The meat that clings to the shell is the lightest pink.
I first learnt the word yugarie when my family moved up to the Tweed in the 1990s. We’d moved from our ancestral Dharug Country—Western Sydney—to the beautiful watery paradise of the Tweed. I fell in love with yugarie curry the first time I tasted it. One of our Elders had made a huge steaming pot of it for a NAIDOC lunch we had at the school, and it was served with fluffy white rice. The salty, chewy lumps of meat were so delicious in my mouth.
Up until then, I’d only ever eaten curried sausages. When I got older and yarned to other mob from different places, I realised that blackfellas everywhere have their own versions of curry and rice, but this staple delicacy has distinct regional and socioeconomic variations—mostly depending on which meats were cheap and readily available. Our people were using curry powders from the ration days, usually Keen’s, to make all kinds of protein tastier. Some mob have traditions of curried roo, or curried crocodile, or store-bought chook. My family were always poor, so our version was curried sausages. But in the Tweed, where the waters are teeming with life, we were fast converts to yugarie curry.
I was taught how, where and when to gather yugarie: right between the tidelines, and preferably in the cooler months. We were only allowed to take the big ones so the little fellas would have a chance to grow up fat and fertile. We were taught this about all bushfood and seafood from a young age, along with other sustainable wisdoms such as: always eat the fruit that is about to spoil first so that it doesn’t go to waste. These ways show why and how we’ve thrived in our Countries for so long.
These ways show why and how we’ve thrived in our Countries for so long.
Dig your feet into the sand and twist them down until you feel a yugarie, then grasp it with your toes and pass it up to your hand. Throw it back if it’s too small, but put it in your pocket if it’s nice and big. When you’ve taken your fill, put them in a bucket with clean salty water for a few hours so they spit out any sand they are holding. (It’s a jarring feeling to crunch on a grain of sand while you’re eating.) The shells stay open if the water remains at room temperature, and then it’s easier to scoop the meat out. We’d chuck most of the empty shells back in the water, to break down and become sand eventually, but sometimes we’d make jewellery out of them.
I don’t have a Bundjalung bloodline but I belong to a strong Bundjalung family due to generations of adoptions, both forced and welcomed. When I got older, and I learnt more about the history of my family and our community, I learnt that the yugarie was more than a good, free feed for us in the here and now. It’s always been that, yes, but the yugarie also meant survival and identity for Tweed blackfellas, especially during the segregation period of government policy.
The yugarie also meant survival and identity for Tweed blackfellas, especially during the segregation period of government policy.
Ukerebagh Island is a huge mangrove island close to the mouth of the Tweed River. The Tweed is the most beautiful river in the world, my stepdad reckons, and not only that—it has nourished countless generations of Bundjalung people and other blackfellas, including South Sea Islanders, who became part of the Tweed Goori community. The name of the island, yugarie-bah, translates to ‘place of the pipis’ in English. Tweed Gooris were segregated onto this island from 1927, when it was officially declared an Aboriginal reserve. Two things made this place unique among most of the other Aboriginal reserves around this continent: first, it didn’t have a resident manager, due to unsuitable living conditions like how mosquito-infested the place is; and second, the land here was unsustainable for farming because it was muddy and salinated. This helped to establish a bit of dependence on welfare rations—bland and bleached-out foodstuff like white flour, sugar and tea, which were poor substitutes for the nutritious food that Tweed Gooris were used to eating. But, being water people, they had the bounty of the river and the ocean at their disposal, and eating fresh seafood was the key to their survival on the island. They were able to gather yugaries to eat or to use as bait to catch bigger fish.
Our first Aboriginal senator, Neville Bonner, was born on Ukerebagh in 1922. Older people in my family were born on the island too, including one great-granny (Pa’s mum), who looked after many babies who lived there along with her own. Pa’s mum even had the surname of Yuke. I am unsure of whether the name relates to the pipi, but even if it is a happy coincidence, it has a powerful resonance for me within this history.
The reserve was a place of strict curfew—island residents had to be back on the island by 5:00 pm every day. But, because there was no resident manager, like most missions and reserves of the time, Tweed Gooris were able to sneak on and off the island whenever they wanted, using their intimate knowledge of the moon and tides, and using their skills in watercraft and navigation. They were able to visit family and friends who lived in other camps at Fingal and Tweed.
Even though it wasn’t an ideal place to live, Tweed Gooris made the island their home, and so they were mostly devastated when the government closed the reserve in 1951 and forced them all off the island, though some families stayed until the late 1970s. Residents settled down in nearby communities at Fingal and South Tweed. Both places are right on the water, where yugaries and other river food can be found.
Through my Bundjalung family I am proud to be part of this history and to share this story—to show how our culture here in the Tweed revolves around helping each other, listening to the oldies and teaching the younger people, and knowing how to gather a good feed from the waters.
This is an extract from Words to Sing the World Alive: A Celebration of First Nations Languages, co-edited by Jasmin McGaughey and The Poets Voice (UQP), available now at your local independent bookseller.
