Cultural Aspects
Unit 2: Spirituality
Cultural Aspects Historical Issues Race Relations Contemporary Issues
Unit 1: The Dreaming Unit 2: Spirituality Unit 3: Protocols and Behaviours Unit 4: Country
Heysen, Nora, 1911-2003 Wahwee and Nerida [1930]
VALUE RESPONSIBILITY STORY POEM ART NATURE SONG FESTIVAL
August 15, 2006
Activity 2.1
Wahwee and Nerida: The Water Monstor and the Waterlily
What social values or restrictions, according to the Dreaming Law, are expressed in this account of the Ancestral Being Wahwee ansd the young girl Nerida?
This is a story about a young girl and boy in love, who disregard the warnings of their Elders and the Ancestral Beings. In doing this they put themselves, their community and themselves at risk. They persist in meeting at a forbidden waterhole, to be alone together and take mussels from the water to eat. Although warned of the dangers of going there, they continue. They do not listen to the 'roar of thunder' ; the anger of Wahwee the water spirit of the waterhole. So wrapped up are they in their own desies that they do not listen.
The values expressed here are respect for the knowlege of Elders, the need to put the well being of the community before individual appetites and desires, and to be individually accountable to the Ancestral Beings, the Elders and the community.
The values expressed here are respect for the knowlege of Elders, the need to put the well being of the community before individual appetites and desires, and to be individually accountable to the Ancestral Beings, the Elders and the community.
Activity 2.2
Tjibari: A Women's Healing song
Women of Balgo, in Wesern Australia, were worried about their children taking on the commercial values advertised on TV, and not being exposed to their own stories and knowledge:
In the middle of the desert they were demanding lycra pants, fluorescent bicycle helmets, pop music and consumer food.
Included in Charlesworth, M. (ed), 1998 p. 96
Tjibari (A women's healing song) by Bai Bai Napangarti, Jemma Napanangka, Millia Nampitjinpa, Kunintji Nampitjinpa, was the response to this situation. It's a story, a dance and a painting.
It is the responsibilty of the women in Aboriginal culture to raise and educate the children. The issue here was to teach The Dreaming, in the face of commercial culture taking over as 'knowledge' of identity.
The women wanted their children to know who they were, where they had come from, and to know this on many levels. The singing and painting of the story of the epic journey of their ancestors to this place is continued into the present through ritual. The ritual could be entered into with the children as a physical, intellectual and spiritual experience of sharing and keeping alive knowledge of themselves.
Activity 2.3
The Yuendumo Doors
I saw these doors in Hobart in 2000, at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. They were standing in a large room, hanging from frames, inviting viewers to imaginatively enter through them, and into their stories. It was a powerful experience. I became aware then of the layers of meaning in Aboriginal artworks that are visible and those that are not: the map of place, the story, and the symbols. At each of these levels there is public and secret knowledge, essential to the survival of Aboriginal culture.
I am making my own story, as a Healing Song for my mother and daughter, who had become distanced from me. A road map and a series of images that symbolise hidden meanings goes with the story. In 1999 my daughter lived in Adelaide. I had flown over from Tasmania to see her, and had arranged to meet my son at Melbourne airport on the return journey. He'd been to Thailand for a holiday, and brought me some gifts that quite startled me. Things happened, during the journey from Adelaide and Melbourne, that I did not fully understand at the time. They seemed to have some significance, so I wrote them all down. In 2004 I met Elaiine Russell at a writer's workshop. I was the only student who turned up, and she has been helping me continue my story. It feels like only one part of a longer story, the middle part perhaps. I need to write something before it and something after. Writing the story is a journey in itself of course.
Activity 2.4
Gooboora, the Silent Pool. Oodgeroo Noonuccal
What is this poem saying about the Noonuccal tribe and their culture?
This poem is a lamentaion on the diminishing of Aboriginal community and culture since colonisation, a lamentation of 'the Noonuccals once numerous here.' The silent pool remains, but the multitudes of peoples, and their connection with it do not. There's a meaning in the pool, but no one knows it now. Waterholes are sacred places containing sacred knowledge. The poem evokes, or brings back to life, something of that power, and so is part of the ritualistic storytelling that links past and present. Unlike a lot of Western art, it's not about a particular place at a particular time.
It is important to understand that these works (Aboriginal artworks) do no t have a starting and finishin point, as does most art shown in art glleries. They maintain a continuance with the Dreaming.
Sheridan, A. & Tranter, J. 2000, Unit 2 p. 36
Another story by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, told with her son Kabul, tells about their totem, The Rainbow Serpent, and reflects the three levels of responsibility that recur in The Dreaming: respect for Country, Self and Community:
First there is Dooruk, the emu, with the dust of the red Mother Earth still on his feet. He come to remind us to protect the land, to always put back as much as we take. Then there is Kopoo, the big red kangaroo, the very colour of the land. He come to remind us to always take time for ourselves. And Mungoongarlie, the goanna, last of all because his legs are short. He bring
Oodgeroo and Kabul Noonuccal, 1988
Activity 2.5
Aboriginal visual artists
I have seen, listened to and touched the Aboriginal totemic poles outside the Museum of Sydney. I have read the Eora words embossed along the walkways of the Domain.
In the Grampians in Victoria I've visited the Brambuk Abriginal cultural Centre, not far from Fryers Creek where my mother's grandmother was born.
I know some of the work of Sydney artist Elaine Russell, who paints what she knows of her country and her story. She was born in Tingha, near Inverell.
August 15, 2006
Activity 2.6
A sculpture made from natural forms
It felt good spending time looking at the natural forms of leaves and seeds that had fallen from the trees in our garden. Touching them, looking at them in different ways, and making patterns with them, I wondered at their natural shapes, and how I might reflect these shapes in an overall arrangement. Working with natural forms in nature is a connecting experience. Making art is a way of keeping connections with the natural world alive. Returning the material back into the garden felt like a part of me stayed with them.
August 15, 2006
'Song-cycles', 'songlines', 'song lines'.
Each song details the paths taken by the Spirit Ancestors across the landscape and and sanctifies the sites that were created. (Aspects of Cultural studies A, Leaner's Guide, Unit 2, p. 41)
Differing World Views:
The traditional world view is essentially a spiritual one. Aboriginal people have always preferred spiritual development as the way to satisfy the basic needs nd higher aspirations of their communities, rather than technology.
The European world view tends to separate or compartmentalise the spiritual, natural and human areas of life. Their characteristics and attributes are ever open to challenge, debate and reinterpretation. In contrast, the Aboriginal world view is essentially inclusive or holistic....Rituals, ceremonies, architecture, paintings and sculptures are only the outward expressions of an inner experience....Aboriginal people regard as unbreakable the spiritual relationship between people, animals, land sea and sky that was established through the Ancestral Spirits of the Dreamtime. They also believe that some aspects of Ancestral Spirits are conveyed through symbolic repreesentation or cultural practises in the form of sacred images, sacred song, dances and music and sacred objects.
Sheridan, A. & Tranter, J. 2000, Unit 2, p. 44-6
August 15, 2006
Activity 2.7
Indigenous song reflect Dreaming stories
We have a copy of Yothu Yindi's CD Homeland Movement. I listened to the song, Djiapano. Then I found the words on-line (MMMDI, http://www.musicmademe.com/show_sng.php?d=250001 Online accessed 18 August 2006.
This song, according to a review on Tribal Voice (new internationalist issue 234 - August 1992) "makes a simple plea for a more equitable future between blacks and non-blacks. Both are sung mainly in Gumatj, a language of north-eastern Arnhem Land - and they are the first hit songs to feature an indigenous Australian language."
Djapana wlutju
Dhurulama ngunhawarrtji djapana
Warwu galanggarri
Rripa ngunhawarrtji djapana
Warwu golungnha
Look at the sun
Falling from the sky
And the sunset
Takes my mind
Back to my homeland
Far away
It’s a story
Planted in my mind
It’s so clear
I remember
Oh my, oh my, sunset dreaming
Wo-o-o djapana
Wo-o-o warwu
Wo-o-o rramani
Wo-o-o galanggarri
Hey, you people
Out there
How come
You ain’t fair
To the people
Of the land
Try my, try my, sunset dreaming
Wo-o-o djapana
Wo-o-o warwu
Wo-o-o rramani
Wo-o-o galanggarri
Djappana warwu
Djekulu dhurulangala
Wlutju warwu
Rripa ngunhawarrtji
Dhurulama – dhurulama
Djäpana warwu golungnha
Wo-o-o djapana
Wo-o-o warwu
Wo-o-o rramani
Wo-o-o galanggarri
Hey, you children
Of the land
Don’t be fooled
By the Balanda ways
It will cause
Sorrow and woe
For our people
And our land
Wo djapana
Wo warwu
Wo rramani
Wo galanggarri
So live it up
Live it up
Live it up
Live it up
With sunset dreaming
'Balander' ways mean white ways. The word originated from 'Holland'.
Like the song the women of Balgo made through painting and story, this music is also a Healing Song.
The language of painting, music and dance pass on the stories of the Ancestral Spirits. Art making as ritual keeps the Aboriginal culture alive.
Indigenous musician Galarrwuy Yunupingu, artist of the CD Gobulu, explains that the stories he sings are shared by through people. He does not personally own copyright of the songs he sings.
The whole album is set out not as a composition of myself. It's a composition of a story that has been passed on and I am responsible of singing these songs for the benefit of telling the next generation to tell it through the song cycle, the same story.
The songs are all original. I am allowed to compose the song. Any person is allowed to compose a song to a different rhythm but all the wordings remain the same, it's based on the same land, it's based on the same cycle of songs. It cannot be established outside original composition whatever that might be; let it be a flag, let it be a mast, it's based on those same words. It can't be changed.
The copyright belongs to the land. My song cannot be mine because it belongs to everybody. I would like to own it myself because I composed it but I've still got to ask permission. Any royalties must go to the original people.
Manikay.com, http://www.manikay.com/albums/gobulu.shtml, Online accessed 18 August 2006
August 21, 2006
Activity 2.8
Ngara: Living in this place now
The Fourth Australian Poetry Festival, Sydney, 2004.
Taste the echo of my Rainbow
Feel his flesh fade into Nothing
like a Wafer on your tongue.
Come we feast silently together.
John Muk Muk Burke
from Us, in Night Song, And Other Poems
The word Ngara is from the Eora language, which was spoken for many thousands of years by Aboriginal people around Sydney before the British invasion just over 200 years ago. The word means "listening".
The questions raised at the Festival, and responded to in story, song, musica and dance, were:
How might the non-Indigenous Australian be at home here?
What might non-Indigenous cultures learn from Indigenous ones about ways of living in this place?
What, if anything, might Aborigines wish to take from the various migrant cultures?
What might they wish to keep and define as their own?
Bibliography
Sheridan, J. & Tranter, J. 2000, Aspects of Cultural Studies A Learner's Guide, Open Training and Education Network, Sydney.
Manikay.com, http://www.manikay.com/albums/gobulu.shtml [Online accessed 18 August 2006]
Isaacs, J. 1987 Australian Dreaming, 40,000 Years of Aboriginal History, Lansdowne Press, Sydney.
Japinka Gallery, http://www.japingka.com.au/artist-profiles.cfm?artistID=3 [Online accessed 18] August 2006]
Oodgeroo and Kabul Noonuccal, The Rainbow Serpent, 1988, http://www.ace.net.au/darkmoon/rainbow.htm [Online accessed 18]
Muk Muk Burke, Langford 2004 Ngara: Living in theis place now, five Islands Press, NSW.
