24. Karrbarda (Long Yam)
"I painted a group of papers, all the small paintings of bush tucker. It’s from my memory, all this manme (bush foods). Sometimes balanda (non-indigenous people) want that food from Aboriginal people, to understand that story. I know how to collect that bush tucker. I got my knowledge from my grandmother. She was carrying me when I was a young girl. And my grandfather too. When I was little girl, they told us to eat this one, and that one, so it was in our mind, in our memory. My grandmother took us out camping, and we were digging yam, and they were teaching us. All that is my story.
This one I was drawing is called Karrbarda. Karrbarda, we eat this one. This is manme (food). Karrbarda, we dig it in the ground, it’s really deep. We take it back to the camp for the people, we share it all together. Like all our bush foods. We’ve got names for every yam. There’s so many! They’re everywhere, they grow across all the different countries. We dig it up, same as all those other yams. My grandmother, she carried me, took me out to the bush, collecting karrbarda. This is a good bush food."