Aboriginal & Ecological Understandings of Country: A Reflective Journal
EMILY GRACE CORK
“We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice.” - John Berger 2
The relationship between what we see and what we know is rarely parallel. Without a rich contextual understanding, our vision of a place is obscured by our background and inherent bias. The myth of terra nullius and postcolonialism in so-called Australia depends on this lack of sight to exist. Settlers on this land who are uneducated on Aboriginal understandings of Country will only see trees or rivers at face value, rather than viewing them as a vast and interconnected landscape to care for in exchange for sustenance. Thus, unless one dedicates time to research and listen to indigenous perspectives, they are often more inclined to accept the callous colonial lies of this “young” and “free” country. To perpetuate this myth is to continue a regime of deceit and cultural genocide. Art critic John Berger hypothesised that looking is a political act, a process that has been constructed historically (Berger, 1972). Concerned with historical ambiguity and obscured meaning of artworks without proper scale or context (eg. a painting reproduced in a documentary or book without a proper description), Berger’s theoretical footprint left us an invitation to see and know the world differently. I believe his ‘way of seeing’ lends itself to be a compelling illustration of the settler perspective of Australia. Without context, we are viewing a place with no meaning or story. To unconsciously view cultural sites such as the murky ‘Yarra river’ or the Merri creek as mere bodies of water is to extinguish tens of thousands of years of human experience embedded in a sacred, cultural landscape. Personal research and reflection on Aboriginal understandings of Country is imperative to create this sense of context. Once we begin learning the stories of the Birrarung and rich cultural heritage that exists beyond concrete ‘Melbourne’, we can begin to truly “see” rather than look.
3
4
Artists Depiction of Melbourne from the South Bank of the Yarra in 1840 c. 1875-79 Eleanor McGlinn
5
River of Mists The profoundly insightful cultural walk “Walkin’ Birrarung” with Wemba Wemba-Wergaia guide Dean Stewart was one of the first experiences in this subject, inviting ongoing reflection on how I interact with urban Melbourne.
6
Prior to the walk, my main imaginations of pre colonial Australia occurred when I was in nature; from exploring the Merri creek, to secluded coastal coves or towering mountain ash trees on Taungurung country. But as for this urban city? Melbourne’s CBD and sprawling suburbs seem so far removed from the pristine landscape that existed before invasion, a country respected and cared for and not recklessly plundered. It’s indeed difficult to imagine what once flourished underneath harsh and heartless slabs of concrete. In less than 200 years the Birrarung has been brutally stripped away from its Wurundjeri custodians and still remains in the hands of settlers who know little of its spirit. On our walk, Dean showed us colonial era watercolours of how the area had once looked; the banks thick with titrees and mangroves, wetlands brimming with life and biodiversity, a waterfall cascading along the rocks. He explained that even its widely known ‘Yarra River’ moniker is a relic of a coloniser’s blunder, with ‘yarra yarra’ meaning waterfall and ‘birrarung’ being the true name of the river.
It’s overwhelming to compare the story of a coloniser jotting down this word ‘Yarra’ as it was spoken to him by a Wurundjeri person, with what the ‘Yarra’ represents today: with its speedboats, steel bridges, and commercial restaurants dotted alongside it. If you close your eyes on the banks of the Birrarung today, all you can hear is the dirty screech of a city. The squealing of sirens, the rumble of trains, the droning of truck horns. It sounds like any other metropolis, anywhere in the world. The only remnant of how the river would once have sounded was the chirping of birds above us, but even they might also be introduced species. Melbourne was established in 1835, an aggressive colonial project that has changed people, place and ecology forever. Picturing myself in the original landscape and imagining its smells, sounds and natural beauty gave me a fierce jolt of empathy for the original custodians. I was imagining how it would have felt to live in harmony with this idyllic land and have it stolen in the most brutal way possible, by ignorant people who had no interest in its stories or spirit, and did not share in the 60,000 years of knowledge passed down for countless continuing generations. Dean described invasion as a “cultural tsunami”, a burgeoning tidal wave of loss and careless destruction. Perhaps the only way many white settlers would be able to empathise with Aboriginal people is to imagine someone invading their long-held family home, and that someone being the most mindless tyrant possible - smashing heirlooms, evicting relatives, desecrating the structure of the house and swiping everything inside. If it takes an analogy like this for someone to understand what the destruction of land and culture means, their disconnection to the Earth is acute.
7
8
A poignant moment of the walk was when Dean showed us a cluster of rocks which the Birrarung waterfall once tumbled over, one of the only remnants of the precolonial landscape. Seeing them solidified the world I has been imagining in my mind, and also drilled in just how devastating of a loss had occurred. The rocks were strewn with plastic bottles and polluting rubbish. We had to peer over a soulless concrete wall to even glimpse them. Despite the small comfort of there still being a remainder of an environment that had existed for millennia, it was so jarring to see how little was left.
Towards the end of our walk, on the concrete stretch between Queens and King Street Bridge, Dean prompted us to walk across a small strip of grass, and we haphazardly did so as a sprawling group. He then framed that situation in a way that really changed my thinking. If we’d been walking through the wetlands that were originally there, our mindless, wonky gait would have trampled the fragile ecosystem there, harming our community’s food source and scaring off wildlife. He led us through the second patch of grass, where we walked in a single file line, slowly and carefully, weaving around trees and travelling in a loose rather than linear path. Dean explained that this is how Aboriginal people would have sustainably moved through biodiverse country; “many people but one footprint.” While reflecting on all of this, I watched people around us going about their day in a robotic autopilot, adopting the blasé attitude of the metropolis, focused on their next location and next task. Seeming resolute in their favour of concrete fast-tracked roads and paths to get us from A to B, I couldn’t imagine they’d ever agree to weaving their way through ti-trees instead. This settler-colonial mindset is a fast spreading poison. Even our time system itself is a western rite imposing industrial-capitalist constructs with its purpose of measuring productivity and profit. The British dismissal of living by seasons and in nature’s cycle was once a means of rationalising settler-colonialism’s claims on indigenous land - they believed that the ‘time-less’ nature of Aboriginal society was inferior and lacking order (Nanni, 2006). But that is something the majority of Melburnians would never question. It seems as though without intervention, they will happily continue on ‘looking’ but not ‘seeing’.
9
10
MELBOURNE 1836 c. 1886 Reinhold Hofmann
11
The falling sky
12
I was absolutely fascinated by Adam Brumm’s 2010 paper ‘The falling sky’: symbolic and cosmological associations of the Mt William greenstone axe quarry, Central Victoria, Australia, and our virtual class visit to the site. It was incredible to read a detailed account of the way that greenstone from Mt. William is likely to have held cosmological and religious value, and was consequently spread far across the state. The axe quarry was still in use by the 1830s-40s, less than 200 years ago - a miniscule amount in the span of human existence, which puts into perspective just how rapidly management of this country has changed. British colonisation is still so recent, and it is frightening to come to terms with just how much ancient history of this land is vanishing. Over the past few weeks I have asked friends, family, and my housemates whether they have heard of the significant Mt. William quarry, and despite it only being an hour’s drive away, nobody was aware. The story of the falling sky struck me with its vividness, and the fact that it was quite a widespread belief throughout central and southern Victoria. The tale prescribes that the sky is held up by ‘props’ located in the northeast mountainous region of the state, with axes being used in this supernatural effort to keep the sky from tumbling down (Brumm, 2010). I decided to do some further research on this story, and came across information about a similar belief held by the indigenous Yanomami tribe in a book titled The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman (Kopenawa and Albert, 2013). The Yanomami, who inhabit the Brazilian Amazon, believe that nobody will be left to hold up the sky after the death of the last shaman, leaving it to collapse on top of the earth. “The sky, which is as sick from the white people’s fumes as we are, will start moaning and begin to break apart. ... It will truly be terrifying!” - Kopenawa, 2013
13
This mirrors the mentality of many Aboriginal clans in Victoria who feared that “the props were rotting” and that the “world would end” unless offerings of stone axes were sent up into the mountains (Brumm, 2010, p. 188). It’s astounding that such similar yet specific beliefs have been held by First Nations people on opposite sides of the world. I’d like to imagine that it is not coincidence - perhaps one day the sky really did fall down or come close to it, and the story has since been passed down from great ancestors for an inconceivable amount of time.
14
My fascination with the Mt. William story also led me to delve into researching Aboriginal stone arrangements. Constructed to form deliberate shapes or patterns, these arrangements are likely to have been used for ceremonial purposes, however most information about their traditions and original use has been lost since colonisation (Aboriginal Victoria, 2019). I was particularly intrigued by Wurdi Youang, an egg-shaped stone arrangement of an unknown precolonial date located on Wathaurong country near Little River. This stone arrangement has been found to align to the position of the setting sun and the equinox and solstices, with only a 0.25% likelihood that this occurred by chance (Norris et al., 2013). I was astounded to learn about yet another ancient site just outside of Melbourne’s CBD that I had never even heard of, and in the future I will constantly wonder what other secrets and knowledge are hidden to settlers’ eyes across the landscapes of Victoria.
Mt. William Greenstone Axe Quarry Photography: John Stevens
15
Where I stand: My design practise 16
As a communication design student I am particularly interested in the field of design justice, which involves broadening the scope of our work and using opportunities to transform existing power structures and create a fair and inclusive world. I believe that practising design on stolen land comes with the responsibility of representing and elevating indigenous voices wherever possible and refusing to engage in colonial mistruths. According to Wiradjuri designer and academic Norm Sheehan, respectful indigenous knowledge based design is “an essential non-violating weapon, in a continuing battle for the well-being of us all.” (Sheehan, 2011). Achieving Indigenous sovereignty will begin a healing process of deep ancestral wounds and intergenerational trauma, and design is integral to change in cultural direction as it is an “active human intersection” (Sheehan, 2011) between us and the material world. I believe that emerging designers need to focus more on facilitation than creation. This involves deconstructing our own privilege and ensuring that our work is community-focused, and community-led wherever possible. In the future I intend to draw upon new understandings gained through this subject to help communicate the necessity of Aboriginal sovereignty, selfdetermination and decolonisation through my design work.
17
References Aboriginal Victoria. (2019). Fact sheet: Aboriginal stone arrangements. Retrieved 17 June 2020, from https://www.aboriginalvictoria.vic.gov.au/fact-sheetaboriginal-stone-arrangements Berger, J. (1972). ‘Ways Of Seeing’. London: Penguin, p.8. Brumm, A. R. (2010). ‘The falling sky’: symbolic and cosmological associations of the Mt William greenstone axe quarry, Central Victoria, Australia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 20 (2), 179196.
18
Kopenawa, D. and Albert, B. (2013). ‘The Falling Sky: Words Of A Yanomami Shaman.’ Belknap Press. Nanni, G. (2006). ‘The colonization of time: ritual, routine and resistance in the 19th-century Cape Colony and Victoria.’ PhD thesis, History, University of Melbourne. Norris, R., Norris, C., Hamacher, D., and Abrahams, R. (2012). ‘Wurdi Youang: an Australian Aboriginal stone arrangement with possible solar indications.’ Rock Art Research, 30(1), 55-65. Sheehan, N. (2011). ‘Indigenous Knowledge and Respectful Design: An Evidence-Based Approach.’ Design Issues, 27(4), pp.68-80. Simmel, G. (1903). ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life.’ adapted by D. Weinstein from Kurt Wolff (Trans.) The Sociology of Georg Simmel. New York: Free Press, 1950, pp.409-424
19
Images Mt. William Greenstone Axe Quarry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_William_ stone_axe_quarry#/media/File:Mount_William_ Aboriginal_stone_axe_quarry.jpg Hofmann artwork https://trove.nla.gov.au/ work/167140869?q&versionId=182140666 McGlinn artwork https://remembering-the-pastaustralia.blogspot.com/2017/10/melbournefrom-sth-bank-yarra-1840.html
Printed on unceded Wurundjeri land.