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"Those who lose dreaming are lost" Australian Aboriginal proverb
Australia...
by Maireid Sullivan, 2004
"We cultivated our land, but in a way different from the white man.
We endeavoured to live with the land; they seemed to live off it"
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Tom Dystra, Elder
A world map, drawn in Germany in 1545, names the southern continent “Australia”. In 1770 Captain James Cook discovered the east coast of Australia, which he charted and named New South Wales. Prior to Captain Cook’s voyage, both Antarctica and Australia were regarded as one combined land mass known as Terra Australis Incognita, Latin for “unknown southern continent”. In 1772, Cook was sent off to search for the legendary Terra Australis. Matthew Flinders was the first to circumnavigate the Australian continent, in 1802. He gave the continent the name “Australia”. Flinders’ map reads: “General chart of Terra Australis or Australia: shows the parts explored between 1798 and 1803 by M. Flinders Commander of H.M.S. Investigator”.
In 1788, there were approximately seven hundred languages spoken by a population estimated at 700,000 indigenous people in many tribal communities throughout the continent. The Aboriginal people were removed from their traditional lands and placed in reservations, knows as stations.
From 1787 to 1865, England transported “English convicts” to Australia. Just a little over a decade after the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, "transportation" to Australia from the British Isles and Ireland began when England lost landing rights and control over plantations in North America. The majority of those people transported as convicts were disinherited, impoverished people of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England - by whose “hard labour” colonial infrastructure was laid down in preparation for “free settlers”.
Aboriginal people are renowned for their kindness to ex-convicts and early settlers alike, when they were approached in peace.
Generations of Australia’s indigenous artists painted “Dreaming” images, encoding their “entitlements” to tribal lands under indigenous law. On June 2, 1992 the High Court of Australia handed down the Mabo Ruling, stating that native title rights over unclaimed Crown land had survived 200 years of European colonization because there are no treaties sighing the land over to the English. “Australia’s indigenous people are legally entitled to the use and enjoyment of such traditional lands ’as against the entire world.’” So ended “terra nullius”: the illusion that when the English colonized Australia in 1788 the land was uninhabited, therefore theirs for the taking. Since the Mabo High Court Ruling, native title rights over unclaimed Crown land have been returned to indigenous Australians, along with copyright to their sacred traditions, images and landscapes.
While the majority of Australian Aboriginal people now live in multi-cultural city centres, many Aboriginal communities have chosen to remain on their traditional lands, living simply, and in harmony with nature. Today’s indigenous population is just over 400,000 people, 2% of the entire Australian population.
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"The land is my mother. Like a human mother, the land gives us protection, enjoyment and provides our needs – economic, social and religious. We have a human relationship with the land: Mother, daughter, son. When the land is taken from us or destroyed, we feel hurt because we belong to the land and we are part of it." - Djinyini Gondarra
"Racism is a disease in society. We’re all equal. I don’t care what their color is, or religion. Just as long as they’re human beings they’re my buddies." - Mandawuy Yunupingu
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