Cultural Sustainability – it’s not just a thing, it is essential.
As part of my studies, my task is to analyise exisitng sustainable pactises, gather feedback, collaborate, innovate, promote, implement and assess a Sustainability project.
Easy right?
Wrong if your name is Huia.
I will now complicate my assessment and begin to ask the question of Cultural Sustainability and why it is so important for children to have access to Elders and traditional knowledge and here’s why.
Gurrigalin – the medicine woman
In 2010, I was fortunate to meet a very special aboriginal woman, Gurrigalin* of the Biripi Nation, in the small country town of Taree, NSW while we were studying the same course.
Gurrigalin is an aboriginal medicine women, story teller and beloved Aunty in her community.
Gurrigalin was there to learn business skills to be able to start bringing forward her knowledge of traditional medicine and healing to her people. Her knowledge extends from native plants and remedies, healing waters and plants to traditional ceremony and secret women’s healing business. She was also completing a law degree.
Her deep spirituality and connection to Earth “Mother” and “Father” (Sun) became apparent almost instantly to me, even as she drew in breath. She would talk openly with them, as a person might pray or have a discussion with a wise parent. This is fine by me but in a classroom of mainly non-indigenous folks
and accountant teacher, she was rather confronting, albeit in a non aggressive, peaceful way.
We immediately became friends. I was drawn in by this completely fascinating women who was showing me how her people lived and still live, deep spiritual lives and values and maintained tribal law and traditions. Gurrigalin actively seeks to protect and heal her people and our land.
She reminded me in ways of my own mother, wise, nurturing and so full of knowing. They would have so much to share in knowledge of plants, herbs and natural healing, even being polar opposites..
Gurrigalin told me a story one day of marriage ceremony that used to happen on the beach at a place, now called Diamond Head. This is my very rough recounting.
“The men and women had seperate camps. The ceremony lasted a number of days. The woman wore white flowers in her hair. Each day the couple would meet at the water. Each day they would move a little bit closer together in the ocean until eventually, they were standing in front of each other. They would take their hands and pour water over each other, the water symbolising purity, cleansing and new beginning. That night, they would return to the men’s camp alone and stay together, sealing the deal. If they returned back to the people together, they stayed together”
The women stayed nearby in their camp, just in case.
Another day, we shared a sandwich together sitting in a rolling green paddock overlooking lush meadows and hills of Taree.
It was there that Gurrigalin described the pain that still exists in the land and in her people for the wrongs that were done. Sitting in that actual place where “The Black Line” occurred, I felt her anguish for her people, a Mothers grief for such a terrible loss.
Gurrigalin told me how important it was for her peoples healing and for traditional healing to be acknowledged and accessible to all aboriginal people and all. She does healing and ceremony with other medicine women – they unite in ceremony to combine hearts and minds for the healing purposes of all their people across the land.
I learned so much from Gurrigalin about her people, culture and history. I believe that we must act to preserve the deep cultural, environmental and spiritual knowledge of our aboriginal people.
The Turrbal People and modern day Brisbane
Fast forward to 2018 and I now gaze upon the sandy salt flats of Sandgate, Queensland. Brisbane is where I was born and I remember my days of swimming, fishing and happiness spent with my family up and down this coast. The Turrbal people are the traditional owners here.
I picture how it once must have been, with little aboriginal children and babies exploring these parts, catching crabs and mimicking their parents in their busy work getting ready for feasts and ceremony..
The Turball people, once thrived upon these waters. They shared with the other tribes and in community activities such as fishing together and ceremony on these very shores. These people welcomed white people who accepted them, only becoming violent later, to protect their lands. In 2012 the Turrbal people were rejected native title claim, stating that no traditional law was sustained. I don’t understand how traditional law can be expected to be sustained when the aboriginal people were killed, stolen or forced to flee.I am sorry for Australia and want to make it right.
It seems to me that we cannot undo the past or heal it without understanding and helping to preserve and protect the aboriginal culture, histories and ways of knowing. Cultural sustainability has become more than an interest for me.
Failure to acknowledge thousands of years of knowledge, experience and histories resulted in failure to protect, preserve and thrive the indigenous people in this land. So much life, language, culture has been lost along with knowledge that sustained a strong, proud people.
Questions to ask:
WHAT KNOWLEDGE still exists that can be passed down to children of today?
What skills did the people have and wisdom to share with children today?
How can we ensure that knowledge and culture is preserved, shared or sustained?
How can I be a part of connecting a healing cycle and ensure that our children not only feel connection to our land but act to preserve it every day.
What work place practises support the authentic transfer of knowledge about our indigenous people?
To act on:
• Sustainability must be embedded into our culture and our way of understanding and doing.
• We must seek authentic connections, reciprocal relationships and shared understanding.
• Healing and sustainability could be offered through connecting children with land, ancient wisdom and sharing of knowledge.
• Children are innocent and are the way forward. It is our responsibility to teach them and guide them in becoming protectors of people, nature and resources, through our own actions.
• When adults respect ancient knowledge and wisdom shared through families and communities, they too are opening their minds and hearts to compassion, understanding and deeper knowledge of the earth
These questions will form the basis of my Sustainability project. I will add my project ideas as I go.