Reading Spring another way: Indigenous seasonal knowledge across Australia
Before there were four seasons imposed on this continent — a framework built for a different rhythm of cold and heat — there were others. Older ones. Seasonal calendars shaped not by the calendar month, but by what the land itself was doing: which flower had opened, which animal was calling, which wind had begun to shift.
This knowledge does not belong to one people, or one place. It's held locally, across specific Country and and it varies as the land itself varies. What follows are two examples, shared publicly by the communities who hold them and offered here as a way of noticing spring another way.
Djilba and Kambarang: The Noongar Six Seasons
In the south-west of Western Australia, Noongar seasonal knowledge divides the year into six seasons rather than four: Birak, Bunuru, Djeran, Makuru, Djilba, and Kambarang.
Spring, in this reading, arrives in two movements. Djilba, spanning roughly August into September, is the first loosening — the beginning of the region's wildflower explosion, marked early by the gold of flowering acacia. It is a season of overlap, cold mornings giving way to warmer days, the landscape slowly deciding which way it will turn.
Then comes Kambarang, from October into November — a season Noongar knowledge holders describe as transformational. It is the moment the wildflowers arrive in full: yellow blooms, native orchids, kangaroo paw, and banksia across the landscape. Even the grass trees flower here, particularly where fire has passed through in the year before. The moodjar — sometimes called the WA Christmas tree — bursts into orange and gold, a signal, long read by Noongar people, that the heat of summer is not far off. It is also a season of movement below the flowers: reptiles emerging, young birds calling to be fed, the bush audibly and visibly becoming a different place.
Ngoonungi and Goray'murrai: The D'harawal Seasons of the Sydney Region
Around what is now Sydney, D'harawal seasonal knowledge reads the same stretch of the year through a different set of signs.
The Time of Ngoonungi, falling roughly across September and October, is described as the season when the cold winds finally leave. It is marked, in D'harawal knowledge, by the swelling and reddening of the waratah's buds. Where European seasonal thinking simply calls this a spring bloom, D'harawal see it as one part of a much larger unfolding. At dusk, flying foxes gather over D'harawal Country in vast numbers, a sky-dance repeated night after night through the season.
This gives way to Goray'murrai, arriving through November — warm, wet, and alive with new activity. It is the time of the flowering of the Kai'arrewan, a native acacia
(otherwise known as Acacia Binervia or commonly known as coastal wattle) and the season in which the Great Eel is said to call its young to gather. Cloaks were made in preparation for the wetter weather ahead, and the rhythm of the season shifts again.
Another Kind of Seasonal Guide
There is no single seasonal calendar for Australia — no one system that stands in for the multiple Nations and Countries across this continent, each with their own knowledge. What these two examples offer is not a substitute for the seasons we already know, but a traditional way of paying attention to the nature of the continent we live on - a reminder that 'spring' has always been flourishing here, long before it had a name borrowed from somewhere else.
References and sources for further reading: the Noongar seasonal calendar as documented by Jason Barrow for the City of Vincent and Tourism Western Australia; the D'harawal seasonal calendar as documented by the Bureau of Meteorology's Indigenous Weather Knowledge project and Food Fairness Illawarra.
We are always open to expanding what little knowledge we at Deja currently have on the Indigenous seasons and traditions of Australia, and we invite you to share any resources with us to continue our learning via our Contact Us form.