Tjapwurrong Country

ASSIGNMENT for INDIGENOUS STUDIES BA at Southern Cross University

Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders and Contemporary Legal Issues LAW00055 Topic 2: Land Rights

TJAPWURRUNG COUNTRY

(Neil Murray)

I’ve been around a lot of places
But now I’m back where I started from
Back to a lake in Tjapwurrung Country
Where the sunlight shines on fresh water
And green rollin’ plains meet the mountains
Make you catch your breath any time of year
But why does this place seem so empty?
Home of my spirit, but pain in my heart
Pain in my heart
I wanna tell ya one thing

(chorus)
I sing for my home in Tjapwurrung Country
(Sing for my home)
I sing for the people to come back there
(People gonna come back there)
I sing to be healed in Tjapwurrung Country
(Sing to be healed)
I’ll keep on singin’ till my people come

I see a lot of farms and houses
And I see a lot of damage on that land
And there’s not many know what I sing for
They must be livin’ some place else
Some place else
Somewhere different to me

(chorus)

The light still shines on that water
Movin’ through green country out there
And there in the west, those same old mountains
They keep on pullin’ me back here
Pullin’ me back here
To where I always wanna be

(chorus)

People gonna come back there

I sing to be healed, I sing to be made whole again
Keep on singin’ till my people come

In Tjapwurrung Country

----------------------------o0o-------------------------------

           The colonisation of Australia resulted in the majority of the Indigenous population being dispossessed of their tribal lands and stripped of their culture. This caused unthinkable grief and suffering for those who survived, a trans-generational trauma that is continuing to this day. The road back to their homelands has been long and hard, but with patience and steadfastness, the land’s rightful custodians have made much progress towards reconnecting with the country of their ancestors. Tjappurwong Country, written and performed by Neil Murray, encapsulates the spirit of the land and the ineffable emotional pull it has on its people to ‘come back home’.

        I chose this song, track 8 disc 2 on a Mabo Commemoration Double Album, Our Home Our Land[1], because it has particular relevance for me personally but mainly because the song has great power to ‘move’ people, to elicit a deep emotional response, and to confer profound insight into metaphysical concepts relating to land that are both distinctly Aboriginal and at the same time universal, resonating with all those who feel a strong connection to Mother Earth. I believe it has the power to inspire people and change their entire outlook – it transcends cultures, cuts through rigidly held perceptions and goes straight to the heart. Although not explicit, for me it raises issues of land justice, self-determination and governance and holistic ideas of identity, health and wellbeing.

         Although Neil Murray is not himself an Indigenous Australian, he has for most of his life had very close relationships with Aboriginal people, musicians in particular. His affinity with an Indigenous world view goes far beyond just empathy – he has far-reaching insight and understanding of the land and the enormous affection and attachment Indigenous people have to it, a quality he shares with few other non-Indigenous people. The song itself truly engages our emotions - it draws out feelings from deep within, inducing 'goose bumps' and even tears, the hallmarks of an exceptional synthesis of message and melody.  Like his friend Martin Flannagan,[2] I too can hear the rippling of the sparkling water through the music - it conjures up images of that breathtakingly beautiful and numinous landscape; I see the shimmering lake, the green rolling hills and the mountains in the distance; I can feel its tranquil, healing presence.

        “But why does this place seem so empty? I sing for the people to come back there…”  

The land is empty without people; they bring it to life, animate it, they pour their energy, love and respect into it.  They perform the sacred rites, the source and increase ceremonies and rainmaking rituals that invigorate the land’s ecology.  The land needs its people as much as people need their land – they are enmeshed in an intricate and complex reciprocity. It could be said that the homeland movement began when Vincent Lingiari and his fellow workers walked off the Wave Hill Station[3] and staked their claim on their own land, but it was the watershed victory of Mabo in the High Court[4], overturning the pernicious doctrine of terra nullius, that gave the momentum for people to begin to imagine and dream and believe that they would one day return to their homelands and live in freedom and dignity in the country of their ancestors. They have been further encouraged with successive legislations such as the Native Title Act and Indigenous Land Use Agreements that have given them access to country to revive traditional practices.

         “I see a lot of farms and houses, and I see a lot of damage on that land…”

It is an undeniable fact that all the recent species extinctions in Australia have been caused by habitat loss, i.e. land clearing, for cattle, monoculture crops or plantation timber and mega-dams, which has continued uncontrolled and unabated to the point where over 3,000 entire ecosystems in Australia are endangered.  Western farming practices were never appropriate for this continent’s soils, climate and ecology. Indigenous land practices on the other hand, acculturated over thousands of years, were adapted to changing climate and conditions and fine-tuned for maximum production by daily practice and keen observation of nature. Indigenous people managed, maintained and harvested an abundance of plant and animal species for food and medicine, knew the life cycles of each one intimately and understood the complex relationships between them. The European settlers remained entirely ignorant of this vast body of knowledge and the wealth of riches that the managed biodiversity provided; their farming methods, using the few European food plants and animals they brought with them, required the eradication of this ecological bounty. Consequently, their very presence on the land, their houses and farms, strikes a discordant note and usually equates with the land’s degradation.

       “Those old mountains keep pullin’ me back here to where I always wanna be…”

There is a whole world of meaning in the physical and metaphysical attraction the land has on people, the inexplicable way the land 'speaks' to them and draws them to it. Indigenous people have discerned, comprehended and developed the metaphysical or spiritual reality over eons but it is a realm of knowledge not explored by Western science. Hence discourse on the spiritual aspects of the land has been mostly missing in the public domain, other than in a few specialised arenas,[5] and are usually dismissed as "New Age" or as "mythology" with no basis in reality. This is an omission that needs to be addressed by Australian law as Indigenous cultures are fundamentally based on this spiritual relationship with the land;[6] sacred site legislation in particular is by necessity founded upon it. The intense shame and humiliation that Ngarrindjeri women felt when their spiritual beliefs were dismissed as a 'fabrication’ in the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Case[7] demonstrates the need for Indigenous people to educate the legal profession and the wider community in this aspect of their culture, which will mean translating it in ways understandable to a western mindset. Their spiritual connection with sacred places is so strong, it has survived through generations of dislocation, a fact which also needs legal recognition, especially when determining Native Title claims.[8]

          "I seem to be healed in Tjappurwong country ... made whole again"

Certain wild places, especially springs and waterholes, have been revered by humans as places of healing since our very beginnings. Maybe telluric emanations of magnetic energy realign and attune our bodies and minds in harmony with the earth when we are in direct contact.[9]  It is undeniable that connecting with ancestral country and revitalizing land management practices and cultural traditions restores physical and spiritual health and wellbeing. One such healing place has quantified the significant benefits of being on country and eating the bush tucker.[10]

          I would love to see Tjappwurrong County promoted more as it has largely been passed by; it would help people understand complex matters concerning Indigenous spiritual relationships with the land; it could perhaps be an anthem for a return to homelands just as Murray’s composition My Island Home was embraced by the Saltwater People.  In words echoing the song’s theme, Jill Tucker expresses her people’s sheer joy to be able to work on country again:

I get a wonderful feeling, I do, about bringing my people back to this land. We've been broken, but we're flying now, spreading our wings, and keeping the way we believe.[11]

          Tjuppurwong Country is essentially an ode to hope and renewal, a ‘hymn to the earth’[12] and a heart-felt prayer that people will return to the country where their belonging is. It expresses sadness for the degradation that the land has suffered, and the sheer happiness and joy that ‘coming home’ to it brings, communicated in a way that helps us understand, at a more intuitive and emotional level, how Indigenous people relate to their homelands. We cannot all write an anthem, but maybe, as Munduwuy Yunapingu hopes, we can all learn to “sing love songs to the land”[13] in our own way. 

 

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[3] An oral history from the Wave Hill strike  http://www.greenleft.org.au/1996/251/13239

[4] Mabo  (WEBSITE)

[5] Such as Geomantica online magazine -  http://www.geomantica.com

[6] The fundamental truth about the Aboriginals relationship to the land is that, whatever else it is, it is a religious relationship ...  It is not in dispute that each clan regards itself as a spiritual entity having a spiritual relationship to particular places or areas, and having a duty to care for and tend that land by means of ritual observances ....Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty (1971) 17 FLR 141

[7] A Royal Commission investigating allegations concerning the 'fabrications' of certain 'sacred/secret' gender-restricted traditions or beliefs (which came to be known as 'women's business') belonging to the Ngarrindjeri people of the lower Murray in South Australia, concluded that "the whole claim of 'women's business' from its very inception was a fabrication." This fuelled wide-spread suspicion that the commission had been set up and influenced by the objections of the developers.  (Information taken from Kartinyeri v The Commonwealth [1998] AILR 15, commonly known as the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Case

[8] “Since sacred sites represent the cultural core of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander countries, it is not surprising that knowledge about these places has survived across much of Australia, even in places where other cultural knowledge may have been lost.” Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, 1994, ‘In the beginning…’ Understanding Country:  The importance of Land and Sea in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Societies, AGPS, Canberra, in  CUL00401 Indigenous World Views

“There are differences between judges as to what the practical difference is between spiritual and ongoing physical connection to the land. The current position is that there may be a break in the physical occupation of the land, however it cannot be for many years. This issue is very relevant for those vast tracts of Australia where Aboriginal people have even excluded from their land for lengthy periods of time.” Topic 3: Native Title, LAW00055 If a spiritual relationship is articulated so that judges can understand - these places of critical importance must be recognized in law and the custodial caretakers given title to them, or at least rights of access.

[9] a)  "The Land is my backbone...My land is mine only because I came in spirit from that land, and so did my ancestors of the same land ...  My land is my foundation."   GaarrawuyYunupingu 1976 in McRae

"A different tradition leaves us tongueless and earless towards this other world of meaning and significance. When we took what we call 'land' we took what to them meant hearth, home, the source and focus of life and everlastingness of spirit. (Stanner 1979) In McRae

      b)  “We sit or recline on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power … it is good to touch earth, to walk with bare feet – the soil is soothing, strengthening, cleansing and healing. That is why Aborigines sit on the earth instead of propping themselves up and away from its life giving forces, enables us to think more deeply and to feel more keenly – we can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and closer in kinship to other lives.”  This quote was in Indigenous World Views Unit but unfortunately I have not been able to find it again to reference it.

      c)  Another reference from IWV Topic 3 is one I wish to follow up:  “Our land also has an important role to play in healing.  The land is a powerful healer, as is the sea. When your ancestors have walked these places for millennia, they hold an energy of timelessness that invokes serenity and the feeling that one is not alone, but in the presence of these ancestors, who are able to communicate via the senses and convey the feelings and thoughts that are most conducive to healing.  When we are able to sit on land in contemplation and hear, feel or see the spirits of our old people, then we have been to a place within ourselves of great depth an connectedness.  It is this place that we need to go to in order to truly heal ourselves; and once we have learnt how to do that, then we move forward." (Clarke & Fewquandie 1998, p3)

      d) The Aborigines conceived of forces emanating from the land that bore and produced life of all kinds. Such powers were concentrated at especially significant sites such as wells, rocks-holes, waterholes, creeks, and trees.  The spiritual knowledge surrounding these places, the ritual techniques, the legends, the songs and interpretations that accompany them, were the property of individual members of clans - (McRae et al, 2003: 202)  Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders and Contemporary Legal Issues LAW00055, Topic 2: Land Rights

       e)  “The core of Aboriginal philosophy is their spiritual and material relationship to land. Land was and is central to Aboriginal way of life, their culture and their resource base.” Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders and Contemporary Legal Issues LAW00055  Topic 2: Land Rights

[10] Places of Healing:  Raymattja Marika: Big problems with alcoholism and drug addiction, violence and psychosis generated by the hard core drugs, also from long uses of alcohol in some people here living in what they call the long grasses. And the women's movement here always work towards having something set up like this for those people to help revive their spirits and to help them with going back to the country so they can learn the survival skills that's lost here. (REFERENCE radio national)

[11] a)  From Australian Geographic, July 2007  CARING FOR COUNTRY -  a cross-cultural collaboration, where traditional cultural custodians are working alongside a government departments

         b)  Preliminary findings of the Northern Territory University’s Key Centre for Tropical Wildlife Management and Tropical Savannas, indicate that Indigenous participation in the customary economy is generating local, regional and national benefits in land management and maintenance of species biodiversity. Activities include burning of country, weed eradication, erosion control and preservation of scarce breeding habitats for wildlife species. The potentialities to convert sustainable harvesting from the customary to the commercial sector (examples range from harvesting of species like crocodile eggs and turtles to joint venture safari hunting and recreational catch and release fishing ventures) are being investigated and trialed in joint ventures (Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, 2000; Vardon, 2001) – in Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in the 21^st Century: Beyond the Limits of Universalism in Australian Social Policy? Jon Altman, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University, Canberra

           c)  ALP Indigenous Ranger Program would deliver benefits for all Australians - The package would provide 300 new jobs for Indigenous Rangers, support for Indigenous Protected Areas (conservation reserves on Indigenous lands) and further development of a ‘carbon economy’ in Northern Australia by reducing carbon pollution from wildfires.  Mr. Joe Morrison, Executive Officer NAILSMA, 0429695324, Joe.Morrison@cdu.edu.au; www.nailsma.org.au  Dr. Barry Traill, Director, Wild Australia Program, Pew Environment Group, 0427261885/ 0754296622, btraill@pewtrusts.org, www.pewtrusts.org North Australian Indigenous Land and sea management alliance  http://www.nailsma.org.au/news/ranger_package.html

[12] “…and then there was this other sound, coming out of the land. Like a giant heartbeat in the background, a murmuring, a whispering, a humming of insects and birds calling, wind sighing in old casuarinas, distant thunder, rain drumming on the plains, the wake and sleep of the seasons. In the end it was the land that shaped me more and I would seek to capture it in song.”   Neil Murray (quoted from his website -        )

[13] This is a quote from a speech Manduwuy made in the late 1990's, which I taped and transcribed from the radio - it was influential in my growing understanding of Aboriginal people and their issues. It is somewhere in my files but I have not managed to find it on the internet.