High Summer - Journey of the Moon Bird

My name is Aunty Dyan Summers, I'm a Bass Strait Islander, Trawlwoolway, and Bunurong woman and I'm representing my Bunurong community. I'm going to talk about the moonbird as the muttonbird, it’s called the moonbird because when the muttonbird flies out after the season finishes, it always flies out on a new moon. The birds flew towards the moon and our old people thought they'd fly to the moon and back.

Hence the name moonbird, it's a bird that until it's ready to lay its egg or ready to mate, it doesn't touch land. The moonbird might fly and sit on the ocean for 25 years, it doesn't come to land until it's ready to lay its first egg. The story of the moonbird is a songline within our community. Our ancestors, it talks about our culture, it talks about the moonbird.

It talks about our way of life. They're a monogamous bird, they had the same partner every year. One dies, they don't mate again. They come back to the same hole every year. They lay one egg and then it's only when that mother bird dies, or is too old to lay, or no longer has her male partner, that the next generation comes down and takes over that hole.

The muttonbird comes in and scratches out in September, they prepare the hole ready for laying the egg. They go back out to sea and fatten themselves up on krill, they come back in late November and lay one egg. The male and the female bird take turns sitting on the egg until it hatches.

The processing and the harvest of the muttonbird or the moonbird starts in March, it's a cultural practice. It's usually the men that carry the muttonbirds in and pluck the muttonbird. When it comes to the cleaning of the muttonbird, that's usually the women. It's very much a community thing.

I wrote a song, it's called the ‘Songline of the Moonbird’ and it talks about when my cousin passed, how he would go home, he would go back to his elders and the songline of the moonbird would take him there. It tells the spiritual side of how your spirit travels and how it gets to where it needs to go to be back with the ancestors. That's the songline of the moonbird.

We belong to the land and the waterways and the sky. So, we're all part of that, it’s all part of who we are. When the moon fell away from the face of the Earth, it left the moonbird behind.

Moonbird Song

I want to sing the song of the moonbird to you, so your family will sing you back home. We'll walk the path of the moonbird. The mountains will touch the sky and take you back to your home once again, where the songline of the moonbird still lies. Your ancestors, they will wait for you. Your family will be by your side. To take you back to your home once again, where the songline of the moonbird still lies. We'll walk the path of the moonbird, the mountain will touch the sky, and take you back to your home once again, where the songline of the moon still lies.

Through the flight of the moonbird will take you back home, back home to where you belong. Where the moon fell away from the face of the Earth and it left the moonbird behind.

We walk the path of the moonbird. The mountains will touch the sky and take you back to your home once again where the songline of the moonbird still lies.

We’ll walk the path of the moonbird. The mountain will touch the sky. Take you back to your home once again where the songline of the moonbird still lies. where the songline of the moonbird still lies.