fter the floods, the Barka looks “beautiful” again, says Barkandji artist William “Badger” Bates. So recognisable with his bush hat and grey moustache, the 74-year-old has dedicated his artistic life to saving the Barka. Following years of prolonged drought and the ongoing allocation of thousands of gigalitres of water to irrigation in the Murray-Darling basin, “you wouldn’t think it was the same river,” he says.
Nicknamed Badger after a classroom storybook character encountered when he attended a Catholic mission school “now and then”, Bates has two gods: the Ngatji and Jesus Christ. ‘If we call my heart the Barka … if one of those veins muck up, and they don’t unclog it, I’ll die’ … Bates.Growing up, the family would have to “outsmart” government officials “coming to take the kids away and bring them to Sydney”, Bates recalls, so the “fair-skinned” boy would be sent hundreds of kilometres away in a geographic “triangle” to avoid being caught.