No connection to land
I AM writing in response to an email posted on Facebook by Professor Gracelyn Smallwood, who made the accusations I did not have the knowledge, expertise or respect to our genuine elders and community to resolve the crime issues her brother and cohorts are trying to resolve for the Townsville community.
Ms Smallwood’s response arose after I criticised her brother Alfred Smallwood following his recent claim he could curb indigenous juvenile crime in the community just by taking them bush and teaching them culture.
As I initially stated, even though some indigenous juveniles are respectful and culturally adept, they are still highly involved in crime.
To get an understanding of my view on the issue of indigenous culture, one needs to look back and examine the long history of Aboriginal life. At the time, when Aborigines were hunter and gatherers, each clan had their own territory in which they used to sustain a living.
The traditional lands on which they lived were formed by geographical landmarks such as rivers, mountains and seas which determined their boundaries.
The territory in which they lived also determined their identity, for instance their mob/ clan, their spirituality with the land, their culture, language and religious belief.
In this defined area in which they lived, the indigenous people possessed relevant areas where they held traditional ceremonies, corroboree, taught dreaming and rainbow serpent stories associated with certain sites, taught tribal lore and practised their religious beliefs in accordance with myths and rituals which were culturally and spiritually connected to the sacred sites and land on which they lived.
However, when the Europeans settled in Australia in 1788, they viewed indigenous people as an inferior race and regarded themselves a far more advanced and superior race.
From this ethnocentric attitude, the Europeans declared the land Terra Nullius allowing the British the legal right to take possession of Australia and the right to colonise.
The Europeans, with no regard for the indigenous people’s culture, expanded their societies at will, bulldozing the land and changing the natural landscape and environment.
Fertile land, once rife with valuable food sources for indigenous people to live off, began to slowly dwindle, sacred sites and burial grounds also began to disappear.
Eventually indigenous people lost their connection to land, language and culture, losing the vital knowledge to holistically or meaningfully practise their culture/ religion.
According to Aboriginal Elder Dr Ernie Grant, this holistic approach to land, language and culture was vital to their existence.
“The importance of the link between land, language and culture in indigenous societies is such that removal of just one element can destroy the whole,” ( Grant, 1998. P. 6).
In other words, what Professor Smallwood must now realise is that indigenous people can no longer fully connect spiritually or collectively with their religion/ culture in the same way as their ancestors and why culture no longer has the psychological impact on its people as it once did. NEIL PATTEL,
Heatley.