(This is the paint that we recived before our walk around the rocks. It was to welcome us to the land and show our respect to the ancestors who live in the landscape around us)1/12/09 18:42
Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun
Well shit. Sometimes the more you know, the more experience you get, the more consciousness that you gain about the world around you, the more humanity seems to be just plain fucked up. I have had my head jammed with more information and experience since 9 this morning until just now (6:42) then I received in most of my classes from last semester combined (one of which, I should mention had a total of over 3,600 pages of reading. Not saying that I did all of it, but it was a hell of a lot of information).
The quick, dirty, bare bones run down of the day
1.) 2 joint lectures from two aboriginal women/academics about the social structure, life experiences, history, world view, religion, morality, art, teachings and everything else you can imagine about aboriginal experience (when I say lecture it does not give the appropriate image. We pushed all the tables and chairs back and sat in a circle and talked about our own life experiences and shared our culture with them, and they unloaded a can of cultural whoop-ass on our brains)
2.) A walking museum tour around the rocks (Sydney harbor) where the first fleet met and interacted with the indigenous peoples of Australia. I won’t go into how this changed my life or world view because I couldn’t possibly capture it in words. At least not in English. There are so many subtle cultural aspects that I am constantly picking up on and having to process, if I wrote everything down it could fill multiple volumes. I will boil it down to this:
We are not getting the white persons introduction to Australia. We are getting the history and cultural experience of the indigenous people of the land, and with that comes gallons worth of shit that I have never had to deal with before in my life. I feel more and more like an alien in this country the more and more time I spend here. I have started to connect strongly with the aboriginal view of life and Australia, and the more I do that, the further and further away I am pushed from what I would experience normally as a westerner. I can’t describe some of the atrocities that I heard about today. RECENT atrocities. Atrocities that are currently and continually unfolding. And if the white populous knows about these atrocities, which is unlikely, they are even more unlikely to care. The tour guide came out with an intensity and passion that was nearly abrasive at first, she constantly drilled into our heads the message that there was a functioning well organized society here before western contact and I was like “Yes, yes! I know this! I get it! I agree with you!” I soon realized that that is an attitude that is not shared by nearly any part of Australia.
It’s a head trip too because I realized today that I have little to no knowledge of the indigenous peoples of my own state. I remember leaning about them in middle school, and in high school with pacific northwest history, but I certainly felt guilty for judging Australia society for ignoring the history and existence of aboriginal peoples when I realize that our country is guilty of the same crime. However, that being said: one of the tamer stories that we heard was when our guide talked about her 10th grade history teacher (who, like the rest of Australia, only taught history starting after 1788) calling the indigenous people of Australia apes. This was under ten years ago. The statement was challenged by our guide when she was in high school. I do not believe that often happens.
3.) Went to go get a haircut today with Aukeem, and ended up instead talking to an Aboriginal Elder for over an hour and a half. She and her partner asked us what we are studying, we told her that it was aboriginal cultural studies, and they went off. Just going and going talking about everything under the sun, asking us what we had learned, commenting on it, expanding on it, giving us their life knowledge and wisdom. They blew my MIND. I am going to try and have them over for an informal dinner to meet some of the other students. (Aukeem went out with them for a ferry ride, but I am exhausted after so much learning and moving around today and I just need time to process some of it before I went and got more). I think that they could give us so much wisdom and perspective and could make a great number of our projects quite amazing.
4.) things for everyone to look up if they have time, and get an idea of what we are learning:
i.) The stolen generation
ii.) The intervention in the Northern Territory (happened in the last year so read current stuff)
iii.) http://inquirybites.com/
Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun
Well shit. Sometimes the more you know, the more experience you get, the more consciousness that you gain about the world around you, the more humanity seems to be just plain fucked up. I have had my head jammed with more information and experience since 9 this morning until just now (6:42) then I received in most of my classes from last semester combined (one of which, I should mention had a total of over 3,600 pages of reading. Not saying that I did all of it, but it was a hell of a lot of information).
The quick, dirty, bare bones run down of the day
1.) 2 joint lectures from two aboriginal women/academics about the social structure, life experiences, history, world view, religion, morality, art, teachings and everything else you can imagine about aboriginal experience (when I say lecture it does not give the appropriate image. We pushed all the tables and chairs back and sat in a circle and talked about our own life experiences and shared our culture with them, and they unloaded a can of cultural whoop-ass on our brains)
2.) A walking museum tour around the rocks (Sydney harbor) where the first fleet met and interacted with the indigenous peoples of Australia. I won’t go into how this changed my life or world view because I couldn’t possibly capture it in words. At least not in English. There are so many subtle cultural aspects that I am constantly picking up on and having to process, if I wrote everything down it could fill multiple volumes. I will boil it down to this:
We are not getting the white persons introduction to Australia. We are getting the history and cultural experience of the indigenous people of the land, and with that comes gallons worth of shit that I have never had to deal with before in my life. I feel more and more like an alien in this country the more and more time I spend here. I have started to connect strongly with the aboriginal view of life and Australia, and the more I do that, the further and further away I am pushed from what I would experience normally as a westerner. I can’t describe some of the atrocities that I heard about today. RECENT atrocities. Atrocities that are currently and continually unfolding. And if the white populous knows about these atrocities, which is unlikely, they are even more unlikely to care. The tour guide came out with an intensity and passion that was nearly abrasive at first, she constantly drilled into our heads the message that there was a functioning well organized society here before western contact and I was like “Yes, yes! I know this! I get it! I agree with you!” I soon realized that that is an attitude that is not shared by nearly any part of Australia.
It’s a head trip too because I realized today that I have little to no knowledge of the indigenous peoples of my own state. I remember leaning about them in middle school, and in high school with pacific northwest history, but I certainly felt guilty for judging Australia society for ignoring the history and existence of aboriginal peoples when I realize that our country is guilty of the same crime. However, that being said: one of the tamer stories that we heard was when our guide talked about her 10th grade history teacher (who, like the rest of Australia, only taught history starting after 1788) calling the indigenous people of Australia apes. This was under ten years ago. The statement was challenged by our guide when she was in high school. I do not believe that often happens.
3.) Went to go get a haircut today with Aukeem, and ended up instead talking to an Aboriginal Elder for over an hour and a half. She and her partner asked us what we are studying, we told her that it was aboriginal cultural studies, and they went off. Just going and going talking about everything under the sun, asking us what we had learned, commenting on it, expanding on it, giving us their life knowledge and wisdom. They blew my MIND. I am going to try and have them over for an informal dinner to meet some of the other students. (Aukeem went out with them for a ferry ride, but I am exhausted after so much learning and moving around today and I just need time to process some of it before I went and got more). I think that they could give us so much wisdom and perspective and could make a great number of our projects quite amazing.
4.) things for everyone to look up if they have time, and get an idea of what we are learning:
i.) The stolen generation
ii.) The intervention in the Northern Territory (happened in the last year so read current stuff)
iii.) http://inquirybites.com/
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