Knots that bind
Sonja Carmichael's journey to reclaim Quandamooka weaving
Sonja Carmichael gathers ungaire in a freshwater swamp on Minjerribah. Image: Glynn Carmichael
Sonja Carmichael gathers ungaire in a freshwater swamp on Minjerribah. Image: Glynn Carmichael
The long, smooth reed gives easily as it comes out of the swampy ground.
It is laid carefully across the crook of her arm, as Sonja Carmichael reaches for another.
The motion, once practised by ancestral hands, is done with gratitude and reverence.
Sonja Carmichael gathers ungaire in a freshwater swamp on Minjerribah. Image: Glynn Carmichael
“I can feel my Ancestor’s footprints sometimes, and know they’ve tread these same paths,” Ms Carmichael said.
She is in rugged terrain, an inland freshwater swamp on Quandamooka Country near her home on Minjerribah/North Stradbroke Island.
The recent University of Queensland Master of Philosophy graduate is of the Ngugi people of Minjerribah and Mulgumpin/Moreton Island.
The special pink and sage green swamp reeds, ungaire, are to be used in her art practice, with her works held in private and public collections around Australia.
Harvesting ungaire on Minjerribah. Image: Sammy Seljak
Weaving is part of Ms Carmichael’s cultural inheritance, but despite always living on Country, she only arrived at it by chance.
After retiring from a 30 year career in the Queensland Public Service working in education, health and a range of First Nations policy areas, she had more time for creative pursuits.
Ms Carmichael was inspired by a First Nations art show in Cairns, and started to weave using ‘ghost nets’ – marine debris, found on Country.
Harvesting ungaire on Minjerribah. Image: Sammy Seljak
Harvesting ungaire on Minjerribah. Image: Sammy Seljak
She recalls a visit to UQ’s Anthropology Museum at St Lucia in 2014, where a curator who knew she’d travelled from Minjerribah mentioned some ‘Quandamooka bags’ that had come into the collection.
“I was shown three gulayi or women’s bags dating from the 1800s, woven with a unique complex diagonal knot design,” she said.
Ms Carmichael said it was incredibly moving to see objects made by Ancestral hands.
“It was important to share that experience, so I arranged a trip to bring some Elders over from the island.”
The group was allowed to sit with the distinctive flat woven bags, marvelling at the beautiful loop and coil work.
“It was a happy time, seeing how much joy being reunited with the bags brought, but also sad,” she said.
“The materials still had the colours from Country, even that far away from their place of belonging.”
Ms Carmichael returned to the museum several times to visit the bags and learned there were other gulayi in museum collections all over the world including London, Oxford, Cambridge, Stockholm, Philadelphia and Washington.
Image: Glynn Carmichael
She said she was distressed to learn some of the bags in overseas collections have racist, colonial labelling disrespecting the weavers who had created them.
“Some say ‘made by natives’ while another beautiful bag is just labelled ‘from the scene of a massacre,’” Ms Carmichael said.
“It ignited something in me and put me on this journey to reconnect with and honour my Ancestors.”
Image: Glynn Carmichael
Image: Glynn Carmichael
Weaving had once been everyday activity for the Quandamooka people, done for ritual and ceremony as well as function.
Men would use fibre to make nets to hunt dugong, while women would weave bags to collect food, nuts and shells.
Ms Carmichael said some Elders remembered going to gather ungaire for the Grannies.
But weaving on Minjerribah was all but erased with colonisation, with the Moongalba (Myora) Aboriginal Mission opening on the island in the 1890s.
“The intention was really to stop those practices, as well as language, corroboree and song,” said Ms Carmichael.
“The Grannies were made to knit and crochet things and use new basket making techniques to sell to tourists, and their own weaving was interrupted.
“The knowledge was pretty much gone by my Mum’s generation.”
Image: Moongalba (Myora) Aboriginal Mission, Minjerribah c. 1890s State Library of Queensland
Sonja Carmichael sits weaving. Image: Sammy Seljak
Sonja Carmichael sits weaving. Image: Sammy Seljak
Ms Carmichael decided to try and regenerate Quandamooka weaving, and in late 2014 applied for the Master of Philosophy program at UQ.
Sonja Carmichael sits weaving. Image: Sammy Seljak
As part of her thesis she took oral accounts from Elders, pored over the archives of museum catalogues and conducted field work to identify particular reeds and how they should be harvested and prepared.
And she taught herself to weave the unique diagonal knot.
“It was a lot of trial and error, and lots of blowouts along the way,” Ms Carmichael said.
“I still love my first bags ... some had a few gaps but they’re still strong.”
As well as technique, Ms Carmichael was looking through a theoretical, cultural, family and personal lens.
“Weaving is culturally embedded in our community, so making gulayi again is a healing and positive process,” she said.
“The future is about continuing to share intergenerationally what was almost lost and to make sure it never comes close to that again.”
Today Ms Carmichael works actively in the community, sharing her skills in workshops and weaving circles, and passing on her knowledge.
She creates works with her daughter, artist Leecee Carmichael, and shows in galleries.
“I want to celebrate the resilience of our traditions,” she said.
“I feel honoured to be part of this process and honouring our Ancestors in this special way.”
Image: Ryan Smith
The best time to collect ungaire is in the cooler months, or after rain.
The long stalks, tinged with pink and bluey-green and with a pointy needle on the head, are left to dry flat in a shaded place so they retain their colour.
Sonja Carmichael said it’s hard to say exactly how many reeds go into a Quandamooka gulayi.
“But I only take ungaire that willingly want to come,” she said.
She gently shakes the reed in her hand, and watches its seeds fall back to the wet ground to regerminate.
Media: communications@uq.edu.au; +61 429 056 139
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