Ngurrju mayi?
Not long after we arrived in Australia in the late 1950’s the potato crop failed. Spuds sold at two shillings sixpence a pound. To put that into context you could buy a crayfish for eight shillings until some smartalec decided to change the name to Australian rock lobster and export them to North America.
(this is not a photo of the original shield)
My father dug up the back yard and planted a crop of potatoes. Unbeknownst to us, 500Km west of us, Nangala’s father was planting a crop of potatoes in the two small paddocks that he owned. In the process he unearthed a carved shield similar to what Warlpiri call a mirta but decorated with short angular parallel carved grooves. Nangala had no doubt it was an Aboriginal artefact. Her mother would have none of it. It must have come from New Guinea and someone had carelessly dropped it where it was found, she proclaimed.
So deeply ingrained in the white-Australian psyche was the belief that the prior inhabitants of the Lucky Country were feckless, simple, primitive, uncivilized savages, that it was just impossible to entertain the possibility that the local natives had created such a beautiful object. It must have come from New Guinea and someone had carelessly dropped it where it was found.
(this is not a photo of the original tree)
The next year potatoes were threepence a pound.
A couple of decades later, Nangala visited her childhood home in the Western District and took some photos of a large gum tree (eucalypt) on a side road not far from the New Guinea artefact paddock. The tree had a scar on its trunk. A meter and a half long oval shaped piece had been deeply cut out of the tree. The tree isn’t far from the Glenelg river, undoubtedly a small canoe had been carved out of the tree.
The next year the tree was gone.
In Bruce Pascoe’s book ‘Dark Emu’, I read that some Western District farmers had removed all traces of stone houses from their properties. These stone houses pre-dated the white colonial invasion. This vandalism was prompted by a perceived threat from pending Heritage Legislation.
The canoe tree’s fate may have been sealed by the same fear, or perhaps the tree was chopped up for firewood, and the scar not recognised for what it was.
Too blind to see it. Too blind to see what you are doing…..(Kym Sims)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXMwMNUGcz4
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence” is a quote attributed to Napoleon. Sans aucun doute he would have said it in French.
He might as well have used “ignorance” in lieu of “incompetence”.
It may well be ignorance which drives the fear and loathing, but all too often are the descendants of the First Australians at the receiving end of malice. Pure unadulterated malice.
Kutcha Edwards – Is This What We Deserve ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LClzKSWEDLM
Writers Kim Mahood— Position Doubtful —and Bruce Pascoe —Dark Emu — recently held a session in Queenscliff at which Bruce spoke on seeds harvesting for flour. A Western District farming couple turned up bearing a large mortar and pestle they’d dug up on their property 30 years ago. Not for a moment did they suggest the mortar and pestle originated in New Guinea.
Neither do the countless grinding stones which can be found lying about in the Tanami (the region Yuendumu lies in) emanate from New Guinea.
I was alerted to a book (published last year) by John Newton- The Oldest Foods on Earth. I haven’t read it as yet but all information indicates this is yet another recent book which unlike many older books about Aboriginal Australia is well written, nuanced and positive.
At a snail’s pace the deliberately obliterated and distorted pre-contact and recent (and current!) Australian Aboriginal History is being resurrected.
Attitudes and perceptions are improving as a result. At a snail’s pace.
It is writers (and readers) who are leading the charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjpDssaf2uI Things can only get better… D-Ream
And now a bit of pissing in the wind aimed at those people most unlikely to read these Dispatches let alone understand them:
Remember the tortoise and the hare you miserable xenophobic assimilationists.
You misanthropic dog whistlers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Kyyvdc-ns Who do you think you are running around leaving scars…. Christina Perri
You ethnocentric self righteous know-alls don’t know what you are missing. Or perhaps your sense of identity is so fragile that to admit the existence of another unquestionably Australian identity is a threat to your self-perception. We Australians speak English yet don’t identify as English. Some of you would perhaps feel better if all Aboriginal languages disappeared, so we would all be in the same fragile identity boat (canoe).
Take a look in the mirror sometimes and ponder what you see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5i1vVgkdu4 Gunner Scott “What Gives You My Rights?”
The race is far from over. Hurry up tortoise, or the hare might (heaven forbid) yet win.
Ngaka nangku nyanyi,
Jungarrayi
PS- we have a few copies of Kim Mahood’s book Position Doubtful for sale in our shop for $AUS 30
For $AUS40 we’ll post them by ordinary mail anywhere. All proceeds to be reinvested in books of relevance to us out here at the front.
All we need is a postal address, all you need are our banking details (provided on request)
PPS- A forum to mourn the 10th Anniversary of the Intervention will be held on the 29th June at RMIT Melbourne. Jakamarra Nelson has been invited to speak, and Harry has appointed me as his cultural advisor! We hope to drive home the message that the Intervention is far from over.