Thukeri
These four commission work pieces - Thukeri, The Emperor and the Seed, The Prancing Peacock and The Good Samaritan - display universal values and morals through a variety of religious and cultural stories.
Thukeri is a type of fish - also known as Bony Bream (its scientific name is Nematalosa erebi). This song tells an Aboriginal dreaming story where two men learn the consequences of being greedy. Below you will find some information on the Thukeri story. Click on the button below to go to the activities page for this piece. |
What is a Thukeri?
Bony Bream by John Partridge
A Thukeri is a type of freshwater fish found in Australia and Paupa New Guinea. It goes by many names, including Australian River Gizzard Shad, Hair-back Herring, Hairback Herring, Leichhardtian Bony Bream, Melon Fish, North-west Bony Bream, Pyberry, Queensland Bony Bream and Tukari.
Check out this Australian Museum page for more information on this species of fish.
Check out this Australian Museum page for more information on this species of fish.
The Story of Thukeri
Told by Leila Rankine for the Education Department of South Australia, 1988.
This is a story about two men who lived on the shores of Lake Alexandrina. They belonged to the Ngarrindjeri people.
The two men set off in their bark canoe to go fishing on the lake. They travelled along in the calm, cool waters until they came to their favourite fishing place called Loveday Bay, where they always caught the best and most delicious bream fish. In their language, this fish is called thukeri.
They found a good, sheltered spot among some high reeds, tied their canoe to the reeds at both ends, and then settled down to start fishing.
They had made their own fishing lines, called nungi, from cords they had made from reeds. They used very sharp wombat, kangaroo and bird bones for hooks and that morning, they had dug up plenty of worms and grubs to use for bait. They knew the women were collecting vegetable plants to eat with the fish. As the day went on, the two men sat there catching more and more fat, juicy thukeri and thinking about how they would taste after cooking them in the hot sizzling coals.
They were having such a wonderful day catching so many fish and wanted to keep catching more and more, but the canoe was almost full and looked like it would sink. Untying their canoes from the reeds, they very carefully paddled back towards the shore.
As they paddled closer to shore, they could see a stranger in the distance. He seemed to be walking straight towards them. The two men looked at each other. What if this stranger wanted some of their beautiful, juicy thukeri? They were greedy and decided not to share with the stranger.
Even though they had far more than their families could ever eat, they decided to keep all the lovely, fat, silver bream for themselves and quickly covered the fish up with their woven mats so that the stranger would not see them.
As the stranger approached the two men, he said, “Hello brothers, I haven’t eaten anything at all today. Could you spare me a couple of fish?”
The two men looked at each other and at the mats hiding the thukeri. They turned to the stranger and one of them said, “I’m sorry friend, but we caught only a few fish today and we have to take them home for our wives and children and the old people because they are depending on us, so you see we can’t give you any.”
The stranger stood there for a long while and then started to walk away. He stopped, turned around and stared at them.
“You lied”, he said. “I know that you have plenty of fish in your canoe. Because you are so greedy you will never be able to enjoy those thukeri ever again.”
The two men stood there puzzled as the stranger walked away into the sunset. They shrugged their shoulders, then quickly took off the mats and began to gut the fish, but as they did this, they found that these beautiful silver thukeri were so full of sharp, thin bones that they couldn’t eat them.
“What are we going to do? We can’t take these fish home to our families, they’ll choke on them.”
So the two men had to return home in shame, with only the bony fish. When they arrived home, they told their families what had happened. The old people told them that the stranger was really the Great Spirit called Ngurunderi. Now all the Ngarrindjeri people would be punished forever because the two men were so greedy!
And so, today, whenever people catch a bony bream, they are reminded of long ago when Ngurunderi taught them a lesson.
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Thukeri Video
This clay stop animation video was made by a Year 9 student.
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Thukeri Story Explanation
By Veena Gollan of Lake Alexandrina for the Australian Museum
We are now at the site of the Thukeri story. In front of me is Lake Alexandrina. This part of the country belongs to the Ngarrindjeri people, it's my people and it's the site where the two Ngarrindjeri men went out fishing in their bark canoe. A long time ago, the Ngarrindjeri people would have used their bark canoes to go fishing and to trade with other neighbouring groups along the Coorong and also, the Ngarrindjeri children would have spent a lot of time swimming and playing other games along this area.
Here is one part of the original school building that was built round about the time when the Mission was established in 1859. This church was erected by Reverend George Taplin and his role in the community was to protect Aboriginal people, so he thought he was protecting the Ngarrindjeri people, but what happened was the Ngarrindjeri people lost language, lost their right to practice their ceremonies, to pass on the laws to their young people.
Stories were lost because the Elders of the Ngarrindjeri nation could not pass on these stories and were told that you couldn't practice your ceremonies, or do any of these important things for the culture to be taught. What the children get from it is not just looking at how the characters look, but the information they get from the story. It tells of rules, gives them information about the environment as well as the spirit ancestor, Ngurunderi.
Behind is what's left of the jetty. The Ngarrindjeri men used to shear the sheep and bring the sheep's wool down onto the beachfront and then it would be baled up and taken by paddle steamer over to Goolwa and then transported to Adelaide. This area was taken up for farming. The Ngarrindjeri people were very lucky to have all this water, because the Ngarrindjeri people were people who used the ocean and the water for fishing. There are many different types of fish in Lake Alexandrina. We have Cape Barron Geese and swans, when the egg-laying season starts, the Ngarrindjeri people would go in their boats to go amongst the long bulrushes in the lake, where the swan would make its nest and they would take some of these eggs and eat them. We would also eat swan.
The Ngarrindjeri women came down here. There are long rushes that grow along the lakefront. They used these long rushes to weave carrying-baskets, big woven mats to sit on in their traditional camps and also the two Ngarrindjeri men who went fishing on Lake Alexandrina, they took with them a woven mat and a couple of woven baskets and they used these woven baskets to carry the Thukeri back to the camp.
This monument was erected by the young Ngarrindjeri men of the Mission. This commemorated the voyage of Captain Sturt down the River Murray. I think for the Ngarrindjeri people there wouldn't have been any other significance to building it, other than an idea put forth by the missionaries.
For the Ngarrindjeri people, it's very important that these stories are continued and the Thukeri story is told today in all South Australian schools. The story is very important because it teaches the young people about respect. It teaches about greed and lying and it also teaches about respect for your spirit ancestors, the creators of the Ngarrindjeri people and Ngarrindjeri lands.
I see it - as a Ngarrindjeri person - that, while we continue to tell the Thukeri story, our cultural beliefs will stay alive and that the young people - and most importantly the Ngarrindjeri children - will have something that they can identify with.