Coffs Harbour children learn in Gumbaynggirr [Video]

Sitting in his primary school library on the last day of summer, 10-year-old Darruy Briggs begins to tell a story. It’s about two men – Birrugan and Mindi – and a terrible row they had on the banks of the Clarence River.

The story is long, and sometimes Darruy stumbles, but he carries on with the help of classmates Elsie Peckham and Jayalaani Webb, recounting the Dreamtime tale in the language of the Gumbaynggirr people.

The fact that the children are doing this – in 2024 – almost has Gumbaynggirr language teacher Michael Jarrett in tears.

Forty years ago, his ancestral language was on the brink of extinction, rescued only by the efforts of a group of elders in the 1980s who pooled their pensions and used an old abandoned church near Kempsey to record their words, …