For decades two clans have been locked in a feud over the rightful ownership of a popular northern waterway, which has finally appeared before the Aboriginal Land Commission.
After years of working through a backlog of claims, the Aboriginal Land Commission heard evidence from traditional owners in a dispute over the Finniss River Land Claim.
Filed in the late 1990s, the dispute is between six families from the Kungarakany and Maranunggu clans over who has rightful ownership of the popular fishing waterway.
The river was made by the Rainbow serpent who came from Northeast Arnhem all the way to Bulgul where the river meets the sea, Kungarakany and Iwaidja traditional owner Tom Calma told the commission on Monday.
The commission heard how culture and care of country was passed along family lines, as it tries to resolve who are the traditional owners for the river.
Professor Calma told the commission his people were buried across the country beneath trees and stone.
He shared stories of how his family, who raised him on pastoral lands in the region southwest of Darwin, were always connected to the river.
Earlier in 2024, the commission heard evidence from an on-country hearing before Justice Jenny Blokland.
Kungarakan woman Rhonda Calma told the commission how language in her culture came from the ancestors and of sacred sites, including a billabong, which was home of her language.
She said displacement had altered the ways knowledge had been passed along family lines in modern times.
"In the past when a lot of tribe were killed off and poisoned and all those horrible histories during the occupation, particularly our men were dwindling, that was when ... we made the decision to pass on things to son," Mrs Calma said.
"When I was passing information along to (younger ones) I reminded them they had a role to pass that along."
She explained how parts of the river's dreaming was painted and danced by her family, as it was passed down from custodians from other clans along the river bed.
Mrs Calma accused the Northern Land Council of not acting in the best interests of her family.
"The NLC has a long history of not keeping things confidential," she said.
She said the Northern Land Council anthropologists during the early years of the land claim tried to "pile" families and clans into the one claim.
"We decided to end up not giving them (the NLC) information because it would not be used in the right way."
The hearing will continue on Tuesday.
