'Barramundi Story' by Uncle Colin Jones

"Remember we had close to 800 languages and dialects they believe, it varies between 600 and 800 but no one really knows. The word Barramundi; it is now believed, comes from around the Rockhampton area and means big scale fish in language. The Barramundi are very unique in some ways because they are all born male. When they reach a certain size, sometimes, they believe that it’s because of the change between the salt and the fresh because they migrate up the salt rivers in to the freshwater as well, the chemical [reaction] occurs and they will change into females and they will stay female for the rest of their lives. And so they start off as males and end up as females for breeding.

The Barramundi is a very popular fish for our people – a good tasting fish. In the painting, if you look at the scales of the fish, you will see that they are built up, and I’ve used 9 dots Starting with the big dot at the base and then I use a metallic silver to get movement in it, and then work it up, that way when you touch the fish, you can feel the scales, it’s like reading braille.

So the Barra here are swimming in a big school of fish and if you look toward the river banks, if you look in the ground area, you’ll see little windows and you’ll see little footprints. Our people are following the Songlines – the maps of the land – knowing where to hunt, where to gather their food source, so they’re coming in here to catch the Barramundi for food. On the other bank you can see the little windows coming in again and you can see the little hands. As I’ve said before, the hands mean that we belong to this land, so we belong to the land, we respect the land, we protect the land and we only take what we need in the fishing with the Barramundi."