Shifting Viewpoints Part Two
Examing An Aboriginal Worldview In Shifting Contexts
The article Shifting Viewpoints dealt with moving house, from an Indigenous point of view. Part Two is about what happens when you get to the other end...
Toxic Spill
The picture above is where I am staying right now. The spear in the photograph is not what western "primitive" artifact dealers would call a "traditional" spear (See my article on Cultural Colonisation to find out why I resist commercial versions of "culture"). This one is a wire-tip spear I made for my nephew while I was on holiday in New South Wales a couple of years back. I found the piece of black bamboo I used for the handle floating in some stressed out mangroves that had been half-destroyed the year before by a sewerage leak, in an area that was described on local signage both as an "environmental area" and as a "public facility".
I only found out about the leak when I visited a local Indigenous family to ask them about the oysters there, which were fat and ready to eat in that season, and they showed me their shell midden that they had to finish building the previous year with the sewerage spill disaster. That's why it's always good to ask traditional owners first - mercury poisoning isn't a lot of fun, and local councils are always reluctant to advertise their toxic accidents at tourist "facilities".
Dead River
When I recently had to move down inland near the same place from Cape York, looking for work, my nephew's Mum gave the spear back to me (before he poked somebody's eye out with it). I took it for a tryout. I followed along a place called Double Creeks that lead through to the local freshwater river just before sunset, knowing that fat catfish might be there at that season and that time of day, if the river was healthy. But the river was not well. European privet choked the banks, and the water trickled by, sterile. The photo captures my disappointment, and my grief for the place. (Paradoxically, I think I might have been having a bit of a pose at the same time. Perhaps I'm a hypocrit who deep down likes this photo because it makes me look "authentic". Aaaah! Shoot me now!)
Local Protocols
But of course I couldn't just charge into the place and start spearing fish. Before that I had to go to the local Aboriginal Land Council and pay my respects to the Elders. I had to ask permission to stay a while on their country, and to do a bit of hunting and fishing. I also had to ask permission to do carving, play music, and all those sorts of things I might need to do now and then. It's always important to ask Traditional Owners before you go into their places - apart from just being good manners, it's also pretty standard protocol. They can also tell you the places and things you should avoid.
"White" Membership
Anyway, I never got to use that spear, because I accidentally burnt down my wife's parents' shed where I was keeping it (shoot me again!). When workmen came to take away the wreckage, one of them told my wife a little joke about a man who left his house in the care of an Aborigine. The story was something about all the chickens being dead. Why? From the dead cow they were eating. How did the cow die? When the shed burnt down. How did the shed burn down? Prob'ly a spark from the house... and so on. The man assumed that my wife's British nationality and "whiteness" would mean that she would be "in" on the joke, which would otherwise be unutterable in front of an Indigenous person or "Abo sympathiser". Such are the assumptions and secret shared understandings of "racial" privelege everywhere you travel on this continent.
The underlying message of these little racist anecdotes is "Aborigines are irresponsible and destructive, so therefore Anglo people are responsible and creative". But I don't see any evidence of that when I drive around this place. All I see is wholesale and senseless destruction of the land on what is called "improved" pasture.
Place Of Life
But there is one place down the road where there is a bit of rational stewardship going on. Huge, mature eucalypts have been cultivated, creating a sheltered forest area. "But what about pasture for the cows?" I hear western farmers cry. Well, it's under the trees. It is an abundant meadow of lush, green, tender native grass that looks nutritious enough for me to eat. The ecosystem based around the trees sustains it and creates the most rich pasture imaginable. This area stands in shocking contrast to the land on the other side of the road.
Place Of Death
The "owner" of that other place has removed every tree and bush as far as the eye can see. As a result, his "improved" pasture of foreign grasses is a sad, thinning epidermis of grey death. On the ridge, swathes of erosion slump down the slopes, and what is left of the topsoil blows away on the wind, to further silt up and destroy the local rivers. It is amazing to stand on the road and turn from one property to another - you can't believe it's the same location. It's a hard choice - face the devastation and be angry, or face the abundance and appreciate all that is good.
Animal Guides
Animals might influence your choice - they've got the best attitude. The Currawongs are good to watch for clues. They gather where the ridge I'm staying on gives way to the river at the bottom of the valley. They gather there in their hundreds this time of year, at mid-morning every day, flying from tree to tree and squarking a cacophany that is deafening. Sometimes all the other bird species join them in that place at that time, so you have a vast wheeling circle of black cockatoos (where they are, there's always an echdna nearby in this place, I've found), crows, magpies, and many more, with a pair of huge wedge-tailed eagles soaring above. Where they circle at the river dwells the biggest platypus I have ever seen - he's as long as my arm. When I go near there I feel a "push/pull" like it is a special place, and I feel that the birds are singing and dancing in the way that's right for that place. That makes me feel like everything might be alright one day if I can just hang on for a bit.
That's when I choose to turn to the green side of the road. I can still feel the grey murder at my back, but at least I know I'm facing the right way now.
Click here for Shifting Viewpoints Part One.
