Gulaga

This story is about Gulaga, which is our mother mountain, our sacred mountain. It’s about her two sons Najanuga and Barranguba.

Barranguba is Montague Island, that’s what the white people call it. Barranguba is the older son of Gulaga and the way the story goes is that, Gulaga she had two sons-Barranguba and Najanuga and Barranguba was the oldest.

Just like the older son or older brother who gets sick of living near their mother, he moves away. So Barranguba asked his Mum could he move away from her side for a bit and he went out into the sea to watch the actions of all the fishes and whales. Take care of all that.

The little brother, he saw the big brother going out and he said to Gulaga ‘Mum, mum, can I go out too? I’m big. I’m grown up, can I go out and watch the fish and the whales?’

She said, ‘No, son. You are too little. If I let you go out there, you’d get swallowed up by Gadu, the sea. I’ll put you down near the foot of me, so I can watch you and you can watch your brother out in the ocean.’

She put him down where he is now and that’s where he stayed, to watch the actions of his brother while under the eye of his mother. We call that little mountain `mummy’s little boy’, because he’s always with his mum.