"My people, the Kaiadilt of Bentinck island, had a system for allocating names that included the acknowledgement of family, animals and birthing location. Since our systems were broken down with the removal of our people by the missionaries in the late 1940's, a lot of our cultural systems have disintegrated. I was born in the late 70's on the mainland, and therefore not allocated a language name at the time. When our family returned to the Gulf, our Mother made a priority for us to receive our Kaiadilt names. My big Sister, Angie Dundaman, gave these to us; she named me 'Walawa', the small, shy, little fish with bright yellow tips that darted around the deep water, hardly seen, hiding behind the reefs (as I was very shy and clingy to my Mother)."
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