We introduce our Grasshopper Series where Yidumduma identifies the first 2 of 8 groups of Grasshoppers and shares their role in the land as handed down from the spiritual Creation Time Buwarraja.  Yidumduma’s principal totem is Lidi the grasshopper, which represents one of the major species and for Bill can also refer to all the grasshoppers.

Lidi is strictly a katydid who invented many types of grass and traded these to the ants and termites who in turn made their nests and invented medicines for the people. 

Nidban is a katydid who invented the woolly yam magulu and the long yam megerrman. He sang the long yam creating the milk poison which he traded to the poisonous snakes king brown, taipan and death adder.

Director’s Notes: Jalala The Cosmic Tunnel Funnel

Related Links:
• Black Soil Termite Mound
• Rainbow & Flying Fox
• Burial Law: Red Ants
• Before Galileo: Stars
• Biomimicry-Life’s Principles: Applying the Laws of Nature

Transcript

Lidi
Species identified by Yidumduma
Mataranka
Secsiva differens
Austrosolomona zentae

The one…invented all the different grass.
He made all the grass and he made 4 or 5 different grass.
When he made those grass…he traded them to Red Ants…
What they did, they took it, then cut it up…gave it to the Bull Ants as well,
they cut it up real short and then traded them…to the White Ants…
and the White Ants made all the termite (mound) ngardan,
with all those medicine…put all them together so it won’t fall to pieces.
They put it together with the spit…the song, and the straw…ngardan
And then another one, the Red Ants, they still had some…straw.
He made all this tall ngardan, taller one.
He built it up and also…he used his spit….and he made it go hard, like a cement.
It won’t break up… And underneath there, they lay all their eggs.
If you pushed the termite over, you would see a lot of eggs like tapioca, like a rice…
…you can eat that like a rice, that all the Red Ants eat,
clean your system up, open up all your valves inside, and that little Red Ants does it…
So, connected to healing? Connected to healing, and also,
that Lidi…cut up them other thinner grass again, he made up, the Lidi,
and he traded again to the Brown or Red Ants.
And then what the Brown one did…they cut it up in half and half
and kept many of them and he trade that to another type of White Ants,
give it to them and they built the great big ant-bed, very thin and hollow,
that’s a storing place. They stored all them underneath a big termite (mound) called jarrulu…
Then…in the wet season also…
the little White Ants…made a trade…to all the other Red Ants again…
give it back to them from the Brown Ants or Red Ants…
and they built all this black termite round one.
They built it like…a cement. You can’t even break it with a sledgehammer.
But that’s their main home base…
And they put all this tube from underneath,
go underground, and come out and taller termite (mound).
And that’s what they did with all this…spit and straw
and they built that other lot of lower termite…a hard one again,
still called ngardan. And the taller ngardan…when they made it,
very tall with like a human head, like a shoulder,
like a woman shoulder carrying a kid…
They built it with that with…all the straw again, and all those straw…came from Lidi…
And ngardan is the termite mound, so he’s a big connection to the ants and the termites,
and the mounds, and then the healing. Healing and all.
And he makes the straw, does he make the funnel?
Well, the straw have the funnel already…
When they spit it, like a plaster inside…they put like a plaster.
You can’t even break them up. You have to get an axe to cut it up.
It’s just the way they build it, in all these different tubes…
And Lidi is brown? Lidi…some Lidi a brown one and this one a grey one.
Some brown, some grey and he’s slimmer than Nidban?
Oh yes, he’s more slimmer than Nidban.
Probably about 2 inches long, maybe 1 inch long.
And he’s got wings too? And he got wings and he fly everywhere.  

Nidban
Species identified by Yidumduma
Armadillagraecia triodiae

Nidban, the one in Creation Time he fed many people in the country,
he the one invented magulu, the woolly yam…
…when he made the woolly yam and fed everyone,
and he made megerrman also,
…he sang song and put all the milk in it… Megerrman is the long yam…
Now, with the megerrman, what he did, he gave that,
traded to Black Headed Python, Walijabbi, …carried it,
and he said to all the other snakes,
“You mob bite this…pretty hard, and I’ll sing a song for you, and all the juice will come out,
where you got no arm or leg to fight,
we’ll give you that, will go into your teeth.”
That’s what he told them.
And they all bit it hard and then old Walijabbi sang that,
and all the milk went into King Brown, Taipan, Death Adder…
it’s the strongest one he give it to them, that’s why they become a poison snake.
But others he gave it to just to protect,
he can bite you, but they can’t kill you.
But some of them can make you just a little sick, then that’s all.
And that’s the milk they get it off megerrman through Walijabbi, Black Head Python.
Black Head Python trade the poison to the King Brown and the poisonous snakes.
And that all goes back to Nidban
And that’s all gone back to old Nidban,
Nidban, he’s got a green pot-belly.
He got a green pot-belly….and he made magulu, that’s the woolly yam…
 and the long yam…megerrman.
And he’s got wings, too. …he can fly.
And in the night he…likes a lot of light. He likes to hang around near the light…
He doesn’t fly much. …he jumps like a fly and land.
…he jump and fly and land and that’s all he does.
That’s why he got all the food in his big pot-belly…
Like he’s got the yam in his belly…like all the seed…
His body is shaped like the yam…
That’s what Nidban does.