Daeya Stier is on stage singing a very special lullaby to the two-and-a-half-year-old boy she says "fell into my lap" when he was three weeks old.
The Narungga woman is one of a group of kinship carers and parents who have written and recorded personalised lullabies to help their children connect with their Indigenous roots.
“I absolutely loved it,” Ms Stier says. “I was able to write a song, so that was good, because I don’t write. We created a song ourselves, and what the song was about was a big achievement in itself.”
"It gives you shivers. He’s not my biological child, but he’s my baby, and to be able to write that in words, it just helps him with his culture.”
Tuntun Polar – meaning 'sleeping child' in the Ngarrindjeri language – is a pilot program by Lullaby Project Australia in collaboration with The Willow Children’s Centre in which professional musicians support carers to write, record and perform their own lullaby.
Daeya Stier, far right, sings a lullaby the group created with the support of musicians. Source: Lullaby Project Australia
“Even being Indigenous myself, it was still great to write a song about culture to connect with baby,” Ms Stier says.
The Lullaby Project is an international initiative that has been supporting pregnant women and carers connect with their children through song for more than a decade.
Emily Gann, an Adelaide-based music teacher, is the Lullaby Project Australia's founding director. She discovered the program at New York's Carnegie Hall in 2014.
“Ultimately our dream is for every child in the country to be born with a lullaby written for them,” she says.
The project is a partnership with Carnegie Hall and Ms Gann’s organisation, Connecting the Dots in Music. It’s been supporting disadvantaged families to create special family songs in Adelaide since 2019.
The team behind the Tuntun Polar Lullaby Australia Project. From left: Lorelle Hunter, Emily Gann and Sophie Millsteed. Source: Peta Doherty/SBS News
This year Lullaby Project Australia worked with mothers experiencing postnatal mental health issues at Helen Mayo House, a live-in facility in Adelaide.
Ms Gann said the Tuntun Polar pilot program - which was sponsored by the state government - had empowered carers.
“A lot of people may never have written a song, or may not believe they are musical,” she said.
“As soon as you take them on this journey, and have a professional artist support them through the process, it’s suddenly this realisation that, 'actually, I have this innate creativity, and I have this incredible power to tell a story to my child.'”
'Connect to your roots'
The lullaby Samantha Jackson’s sings to her baby son, a child of the Wiradjuri clan from Mudgee in the New South Wales central west, connects him to his Aboriginal grandmother’s life:
“Don’t be afraid to connect to your roots, you are strong and you know your truth,” it goes.
“Your great nan had to hide not to be discovered. You're safe now to finally uncover.”
“We’ve included his nan in it, because that’s the line that he’s come down, and I’ve included the totems, which is the animal each clan is supposed to protect and be protected by,” Ms Jackson says.
“I want him to feel connected to his culture, and not be ashamed of it.”
Aboriginal cultural consultant Lorelle Hunter witnessed how the process of writing and singing strengthened foster carers’ connection with their special charges.
Arabana, Yawuru and Marridjabin singer-songwriter Nathan May working on a tune for Megan Johns' lullaby. Source: Peta Doherty/SBS News
“To let the little ones grow up knowing they are Aboriginal, and that they are all shades of deadly,” Ms Hunter says. “Even though they might not know who their ancestors are, the ancestors know who they are.”
Ms Hunter says it is also a good way for non-Indigenous parents to learn about their child’s culture.
Arabana, Yawuru and Marridjabin singer-songwriter Nathan May helped Megan Johns tap into her son’s dreamtime story.
The song they’ve written speaks to her son’s curiosity for learning, the family’s connection to the coast and the creation of the River Murray:
Never stop learning who you are,
Be proud of your history, it’s who you are,
Let the rivers guide you there,
To the places you belong,
Created by Ponde*, just for you,
Our Curious boy, you bring such joy,
Let’s take you home.
(*Ponde is a giant Murray Cod credited with creating the Murray River in the Dreaming of the Ngarrindjeri people).
“Essentially it’s just about where he’s come from and to keep learning forever, so he can be proud of who he is,” Ms John says.
Her baby’s father only learned he was Aboriginal as an adult and Ms Johns wants their son to grow up knowing he is Ngarrindjeri.
“I just hope he knows we’ve built something special just for him and we are trying to learn so we can teach him to be connected to his culture and know who he is right from the beginning.”
