BENCHWARMER

The Aboriginal view
Ramon Dacawi

“Whatsoever then he moves out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in he has mixed his labor with and thereby makes it his property.”

Anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose noted how the early European colonizers of Australia applied this idea of terra nullius in claiming lands they settled in.

“The (terra nullius) idea that the land was untransformed led directly to the idea that land was unowned,” she said. “Locke’s famous statement on property could have been written precisely to justify the dispossession of indigenous peoples in the European settlement of Australia.”

Rose said that contrary to the view that the Aborigines were simply hunter-gatherers or parasites who depended on food naturally produced by the land, Rose showed they did have land management systems.

The use of fire as a tool for land management was evident among the Aborigines. This was overlooked by invasive settlers who viewed what they saw as nothing but wilderness. “The evidence is quite clear that Aboriginal people managed resources in definable and observable ways in order to produce long-term productivity in their environments,” Rose said. I

n 1992, the High Court of Australia overturned the official view that the indigenous people did not own the land that European settlers allocated to themselves under the terra nullius concept. The court’s Mabo decision “gave formal recognition to the fact that at the time of conquest Indigenous People did own the land”.

It meant that Indigenous People continue to exercise rights of ownership, except inareas where conquest and appropriation have formally extinguished the title. Consequently, the Native Title Act was passed which provided that land can not be alienated from Indigenous peoples and managed without negotiation with the Indigenous title holders.

The Aboriginal concept of “Country” is that of one that nourishes life and that everything in it, from humans to plants, animals and inanimate things are interconnected, rose stressed. In the Aboriginal view, all things in the natural world was created during the “dreamtime” by the ancestors who also laid down the Law.

“Countries” are connected to and do have responsibilities for each other. Totemism among the Aborigines “posits connectedness, mutual interdependence, and the non-negotiable significance of the lives of non-human species.

It organizes responsibilities for species along tracts that intersect, and , and thus builds a structure of regional systems of relationship and responsibility. “People who are countrymen share their being with their country, and when the country suffers, so do people. Likewise, when people die, their country suffers.

People identify marks such as dead trees, scarred trees, r0o scarred hills, or example, as having coming into being because of the death of a person who is associated with that country.” Rose pointed to anthropological studies proving the Aborigines’ knowledge of, respect and reverence for ecology. This is evident in the numerous sacred sites within their respective countries. She cited the work of A. Newsome in 1980 in Central Australia where deserts are found and where “the sacred sites coincide with the most favoured areas for kangaroos”.

“The red kangaroo relies on fresh green herbage; after rains the animals foraged widely, but in drought they must rely on restricted areas. As the sites are protected so are the kangaroos at these sites. These are places to which living things retreat during periods of stress, and from which they expand outward again during periods of plenty.”

Rose adds that “across the whole continent, there are similar structures of restraint, management for long-term productivity, control of sanctuaries, protection of permanent waters, refugia, breeding sites, and selective burning for the preservation of certain plant communities and other refuge areas.’

The Aborigines share a common cultural fabric with other indigenous peoples in the world, one that is anchored on respect for the environment. Indigenous culture evolved and developed out of this reverence for the environment and ecology. This belief gave rise to sacred rituals and the assignment of sacred sites.

Many of the water resources in semi-arid Australia have always been deemed sacred by the Aborigines. To indigenous peoples, water, being the lifeblood of existence, should be a common property. Among the Aborigines, the rule with regards to water is: Always ask, always share. Another quote that emerged during class discussions with Rose was about “tradition of changing tradition the traditional way”.

The experience of the Aborigines and other colonized indigenous peoples had not been that way in the hands of European settlers. As Rose said, “most of our societies work on overcoming patterns instead of working with them”. Rose’s studies on Aboriginal culture are substantive and extensive.

Still, she refers and defers to her Aboriginal informants whom she calls her teachers. Such humility and sensitivity is sometimes overlooked by other researchers. They write and report about indigenous knowledge and wisdom without mention of their sources or informants, as if they are the sole authors, or even sources of indigenous knowledge.(Next week: A call for healing together. E-mail:rdacawi@yahoo.com for comments).