New Ways, Old Ways: Aboriginal Education and Belonging

Sarah Jane Moore and Dr Carol Birrell

‘New Ways, Old Ways’ explores Aboriginal Education and Belonging through the eyes of an Indigenous Education researcher, Jane Moore, and non-Indigenous researcher and educator Dr Carol Birrell. These two women met before the birth of Jane’s second child. With his birth and the long hot summer that followed came walks, swims, laughter and conversations about the ways in which all of us seek belonging. As their friendship has developed, so too have the ways in which these conversations have been articulated. At first glance, Carol and Jane’s stories pursue different perspectives. On deeper reflection, their writings explore similar issues. Stories spring from common ground. Both authors explore kinship relations and the role of family in Aboriginal education. Both authors are also committed to working together in order to extend understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. In another sense, there is a shared commitment to valuing the old stories and old ways of belonging to our country and a new story or a new way of envisioning the future.

Jane’s work locates itself firmly within the Western education system and in this way challenges her own acquisition of Indigenous knowledge through conversations with country, clan and other Aboriginal people. Her emphasis is on schools and the way notions of Aboriginal education can be incorporated into formal education systems. This is particularly vital in the role of family and kinship networks, as traditional and contemporary systems of knowledge transmission value the old ways. Aboriginal educators are faced with the ongoing task of accommodating Indigenous ways of knowing to a system vastly different from, and in many ways incompatible with, these ways. In the new way the idea of accommodating Indigenous understandings is replaced with a different model, which is not based on an urban Western model but embraces its own Indigeneity and tells its own story, sings its own song.

Carol tells a story that involves education being enacted today as it always was: on the land and conducted by Elders through family kinship structures. Yet the old story has a new twist: whitefellas are part of the knowledge transmission. This new story of belonging takes place through sharing a Whale Dreaming Ceremony on the far south coast of NSW, in Yuin country. Rather than Indigenous cultural notions being adapted into the mainstream Western education system, this is ‘whitefella’ being incorporated into the Indigenous education system.

Both stories reveal that education is a space where a new way of belonging is possible.

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Aboriginal Education and Belonging- Jane Moore

This article explores Aboriginal Education and belonging through a series of interviews. The writing uses first hand experience from two Palawa, one Jawoyn and one Murray educator in early child hood, family and primary school settings. The chapter represents a series of conversations with Aboriginal educators and in this way aims to begin a dialogue about how Aboriginal people link education and belonging. It is a series of personal reflections and observations that links kinship and family relationships to the education of Aboriginal children and the development of their sense of identity. The voices of the representatives from three different Aboriginal countries are heard through direct quotations as Palawa, Murri and Jawoyn educators reflect on their experiences of Aboriginal education and belonging.

It is a widely held belief that Aboriginal children learn differently. (Hughes, More, Williams 19997) It has been proposed that Aboriginal children learn best within extended family structures. Their learning is enhanced through belonging to their unique kinship networks. To explore this aspect of learning and belonging in an early child hood setting, the researcher interviewed Dane Cooley * a dedicated early child hood worker from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Children’s Centre in Hobart. Dane is a Palawa woman from Tasmania and her tribal name is ‘tungerooernar’. She is descendent from Fanny Cochrane Smith of Oyster Cove, Flinders Island. Di reflects that education is a much more fluid process in Aboriginal communities, and there is much to be learnt from yarning around a kitchen table with family members. She says that telling stories is an important way to pass information down through the generations. She affirms the importance in kinship in the education of Aboriginal children and Di reflects that kinship is a vital part of the education of Aboriginal children. She told the interviewer (in an interview) that ‘aunties and uncles care for each other’s children in an extended family situation.’ She affirmed that belonging to a family where aunties and uncle and cousins take an active role in the education of children is a unique part of the development of Aboriginal identity. She said of her own experience of this that ‘my mum raised me, along with aunties, uncles, sisters and older cousins.’ She spoke of living and learning with different members of the family and ‘the feeling of being welcome in many homes’. Belonging in many homes may be seen as an unsettling experience within other communities, but for Aboriginal children, the value of a shared experience of education is affirmed.

Lillian Archer, the Indigenous Education Assistant at Macfarlane Primary School in Katherine, in the Northern Territory affirms the importance of family education in providing Aboriginal children with a sense of belonging. In an interview with the researcher she explained ‘As you know in the Aboriginal culture their family is extended, so it’s just not the immediate family – you know, mum, dad and the kids –its mum, dad, the kids, uncle and aunty and grand pa and all that. I find that there is a lot of caring and sharing with the mothers, like Mum will look after her sister’s kids, her auntie’s kids, her cousin’s kids, so if their you know, if they have to go away wherever it might be –

All names have been changed to protect those involved in the research

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there will always be someone and they know there will always be someone to look after their kids – like their sister or their grand mother or their cousins.’ She emphasises the relevance of Elders in schools in helping children develop a sense of identity and confidence in themselves. She said ‘What you know you learn off your mother. And they learnt off their grand mother. So it’s like a, little generation thing. It’s passed on. Grand mothers are very important - they are the ones that are bringing the knowledge to the kids and for them to carry on.’

By contrast, Dane Cooley and Lillian Archer underline the importance of how family, kinship and belonging is vital for the education of confident, Aboriginal children, Murray educator Archer tells of the importance of encouraging Aboriginal children and establishing trusting relationships in a primary school setting. Arnold is the Aboriginal Education Assistant at Mane Public School in Katherine in the Northern Territory and asserts that teaching Indigenous students is different to teaching children from other cultural backgrounds. In an interview he commented ‘It’s a lot of encouragement. It takes time. Like it doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen within a week. You gotta spend a lot of time with them kids to get used to you and I say I’m there for you as back up. And over the years – I’m talking over fifty, seventy years just on the Aboriginal side the Aboriginal people have been put down for so long and what we are trying to do now is completely the opposite. We’ve gotta try to empower them kids.’ Like Dane Cooley, Archer believes that Aboriginal children need extra support from trusted adults in order to learn best. He believes that through belonging to a supportive network of adults, students can be empowered to get up and say …‘hey I’m Aboriginal and I’m proud of it. And I want to do this! Hey, I’m Aboriginal and I’m proud! I can do this!’

In an interview with Palawa artist and educator Simon Walker, Simon suggests that for Aboriginal children to succeed in schools, the rest of the community need to be educated about Aboriginal history, culture and issues. He believes that the community as a whole need to learn about where they belong within an Aboriginal perspective. Through encouraging Aboriginal people to be involved in writing programs and curriculum, this sense of belonging in a wider capacity could be generated. He suggests that ‘It would roll out this way. That the government make amends for the horrible things that they have done and in that not band-aid, false, pseudo efforts way. Skip land rights – we want sovereignty. We want to exist. Well, we did have a treaty but they still won’t recognise that. They still won’t recognise it. It’s a slap in the face; you know what I’m saying? It’s a real slap in the face when we have these issues that are there. They are stark, they are in people’s faces yet they’re saying that by sharing people’s culture we can fix a few things. That’s not gonna work. It will bring about a bit of an understanding so that some of the people can at least understand. According to Simon ‘Australia is a very ethnocentric, racist country where they teach their children to not think in the Aboriginal perspective. They need us to come in to schools to teach Aboriginal perspectives. That should be taught in schools. It’s more than remiss that its not.’

Simon points out that whilst non-Aboriginal people have embraced an apology, most of them are unaware for what they are apologising and are ignorant as to the history and

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culture of Aboriginal people in Australia. He claims that most people are unaware of the diversity of Indigenous cultures within Australia and blames the school system for this ignorance. He believes Aboriginal history, culture and issues should be taught in schools to help remedy this situation of community ignorance. Simon suggests that ‘ You could have more Aboriginal teachers but then it comes that happy medium of assimilation where ok, we’ll let you be a teacher but you have to teach the syllabus – what we want you to teach. There are certain things we don’t want you to talk about. There are certain things that we don’t want you to say. That’s not going to work. Its just simply not going to work because there is two different cultures and they’ve got their cultural perspective and we’ve got ours and if they just let us do it we’d probably do a better job.’

Simon discussed Aboriginal people not only being involved in writing curricula, but coming into schools on specialised programs and he agreed that this ‘was a good thing because it breeds more of a cultural understanding.’ He commented on elders being involved in delivering programs, such as at West Sunnyside School, where Simon Walker and Auntie Olive Ralph were invited in to the school to help celebrate NATIONAL ABORIGINAL ISLANDER DAY OF CELEBRATION (NAIDOC) Week with a series of art and shell stringing workshops. Throughout these workshops, the children talked with and listened to Simon and Auntie Olive’s stories. Through Aboriginal people being involved in school programming, Aboriginal students can feel a sense of inclusion within the school system and the kinship described by Dane Cooley that is so important to Aboriginal people can be modeled. Through Elders being involved with schools, Aboriginal children can enjoy a sense of belonging and acceptance.

Simon commented after the workshops that ‘It’s very good having the elders come in. It’s huge because of the stories that they bring. A kid sitting there looking at an old person. That is just instant respect and that story comes through. A lot of the old stories that come through. Same as Auntie Olive’s story compared to mine – you know what happened to her in the thirties and forties – you know, what happened to us later in the seventies and eighties is so different. So different. And I mean a lot of elders who probably aren’t encouraged to do this because they are told they don’t have enough education or something like that, I mean basically you don’t need to know how to read and write to do this, you’ve just got to basically know how to love and share and just talk about what you got. He calls for more elders programs in schools where stories can be shared and respect and understanding modeled. Through these programs, young people can learn that Aboriginal culture is diverse and an Aboriginal world view is a view very different from their own. He believes that Aboriginal teachers who should have the permission to teach the syllabus from their own perspectives should teach the history of Aboriginal people in schools.

Through partnerships with Aboriginal people, Aboriginal students can develop a sense of belonging to culture. Their knowledge can be included in programs and educational settings to enhance learning and ground understandings in traditional ways. Old ways can be shared to create new stories, new songs which celebrate the beauty and the joy possible in the singing of a new song.

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In the Belly of a Whale- Dr Carol Birrell

Prologue

I was brought up by the ocean on the Central Coast of NSW. It was an idyllic sort of childhood- me and my pony and the beach. Home and bliss. I knew this area off by heart, criss-crossed with my horse trails. What I had no idea of, was the criss-crossing of earlier trails. There was not a word, not a sign, not a mention in primary school, in any of my life, of these earlier inhabitants or even the possibility that some might still be around. The black presence in my little town of Terrigal had been obliterated.

Twelve years ago I met the Yuin Elder Uncle Max Dulumunmun Harrison. He took me to his country, took me into his family and took me into his life. And my life would never be quite the same. We have had much collaboration over the years: in research, in teaching and now in co-writing his book. First and foremost, he is my teacher and friend and over the years I have become more and more involved with his extended family. His life-long commitment to teach non-Indigenous people about Indigenous culture continues today, even in his seventies. He has always taught about how whitefellas and blackfellas both need to be reconciled back with the Mother, Mother Earth. This is his task.

And surely this is the task of all of us. In the face of global warming, economic collapse and human species extinction, there can be nothing more pressing than our relationship with Mother Earth, with the planet as a whole. This is belonging.

When one culture takes another by the hand and invites them to enter into their world, into their ways of knowing, and into a radically different relationship with the earth, is it possible a new sense of belonging can take place?

The Gathering

They gather on the Friday evening, a motley crew of arrival times. I see the kids first and Max 111, who I haven’t seen for a year or so, comes straight up and hugs me, loosely and ungainly, in the language of his adolescent body. It is the uninhibited child I still see in him even though the stubble on his chin and his whole being have now taken on that of the young man. The last I heard he was in a bit of strife, wagging school, hanging around with the wrong crowd, never at home. His dad, Max 11, told me a few months ago that young Max wouldn’t even talk to anyone at home- just breezed in and out. I found that hard to believe when I had known him to be such a talkative young fella, always with a joke and a grin, always jostling his younger brother, always itching for a fight. He loved to touch you, lean up against you, hold your hand in that totally unselfconscious way of gawky boys who don’t know who they are yet. Now he has the seriousness of someone who is beginning to know what that world is and how he fits in. It’s like that over the whole week-end: one minute he is the crazy kid, galloping and giggling with his brother, next he is the responsible young Aboriginal man in training, with all that this entails. The latter is a new experience for me.

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When I last asked Uncle Max about young Max, he said little but his eyes spoke much. They held the fear that I guess all Aboriginal people have had to learn to live with amongst many more, of the surrender of loved ones into the cycle of no return. Begins with truanting, getting into strife with school, local authority. The formation of gangs of young black kids hanging around looking and trying to feel tough, when what they really feel is the exclusion of a small racist white town, the pain and anger of that. Alcohol and drugs to fuel more toughness, fights that now take on more of a serious intent than the wrestle in the back yard. Then the odd break-in that turns into a habit, until they get caught. Still they laugh it off, take it as a badge of manhood, in the absence of the real coming of age. This is what you do. Until you get caught again. Jail is next. Confirmed criminality. Education out the door, another black life wasted. All this I see in Uncle Max’s eyes, the whole future of fear in one moment.

I never know who are the types of people drawn to come on a weekend of teachings with an Aboriginal Elder. But they are all like me- hungry for a deeper connection to this land and having the sense that Indigenous people are the only ones who know how. You know they wouldn’t be here unless they respected the culture, even if they have little knowledge of it. There’s an eagerness and a little unease, as if none of us is on safe ground. It was me 12 years ago. Then I was invited to take part in something similar and I am still here, learning.

We herd the ‘mob’ as Uncle Max will often refer to us all over the weekend, into a room for the intro gathering. There are 49 of us, which translates as a big circle of nervous energy. There is the family of Uncle Max the Elder and Senior Lawman, Max 1, his son Max 11, his grandkids of Max 111, Kai and Najarra. Then there is Uncle Max’s niece Aunty Margaret and her husband Uncle Dallas, still with an arm in plaster after at least four operations from a fall. And two kooris I have never met before from the Blue Mountains- Uncle Wayne who will be the songman in ceremony, we are told, and his wife Aunty Jodie. If the group was nervous before, they are more so when confronted by an unknown and confusing array of kinship relations that is not spelled out, but just is, and even more so when the talk by Uncle Max focuses on the next morning’s ceremony, the Whale Dreaming Ceremony. There is something afoot that we all know very little about but can sense its import.

Having known and been taught by Uncle Max for many years now, I know when he lights up, it is time to pay attention- something big is happening. We are given instructions that are vague but no one is game to ask a question. We sit pretending to know what is expected of us as if our life depended on it, and maybe it does, right here and now. There is a drawing of a whale shown to the group that must also represent the local country too and where we will all need to stand and the three lines that will go right through the body of the whale. Nothing is clear but we accept it all somehow and quiver in the anticipation. There is an edge to Uncle Max’s voice as he repeats to us several times, that he is expecting us not to fail him, to remember exactly what he has told us, to enact this perfectly.

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Max 111 is right in there. He is the only person to share the same tribal name with his grandfather, Dulumunmun, Max 1. I can tell he has changed, not just physically. Before, in years gone past, he would muck around, get bored and drift off in a world of his own during the teachings. Now he seems interested, involved and somehow committed. How and when did this happen? I am sitting next to him in the circle and his body is at attention. His younger brother Kai was always the one that had a lot resting on him when Max 111 was in default mode. Kai never took his eyes off his grandfather when he was teaching and regardless of how foul the weather, he would remain alert to what he had to do and what was being said. I think Uncle Max presumed that in the absence of his namesake, it would be up to this one, this Kai, to carry on the teaching line. No small responsibility. No small thing to decide whom to pass on the teachings to, either. Uncle Max often says that he himself has to teach, no question about it. To pass on those teachings as they were passed on to him by his Elders. If you don’t, then you become a ‘keeper’, rather than a ‘holder’ of knowledge. As a keeper, the teachings die when you do. But what happens to the holder if there are no receptive students? What if the lure of grog, the stupefying drugs, the aimlessness, homelessness, apathy and despair gain a foothold?

The Ceremony at Dawn

So the mob leaves knowing that we need to all be up at dawn, woken by Kai doing the clap sticks by each door. I am so wired up about what we are in for the next day, I scarcely have more than three hours sleep and am bleary eyed when we all rock up to the deserted cold beach that looks right out to the island son of Gulaga, sacred mountain of the Yuin people that we are climbing that same day. What I sight is like something out of a movie and for a few moments I cannot fathom it. Two naked persons appearing like American Indians with loads of feathers and paint and smoke, peer towards us. I shake myself, disbelieving, and realize in an instant that this is not American Indian regalia but Australian Aboriginal ceremonial. The aunty and uncle are fair skinned but the power of their presence is unmistakable. There behind them is a huge outline of a whale drawn on the sand. It is a humpback with extended pectorals. A shiver runs through me. It is just a few months ago that I was on a whale research boat, so the humpbacks have special significance for me anyway, but this sand drawing taps into another level within me.

The feathered songman begins singing as we are being sorted into three age lines. It is an eerie sound in this grey light which rises and falls like the gulls above. All the family are in their pre-ordained positions and Uncle Max whips off his shirt and jacket and strides to his place in the centre of the whale’s tail down near the sea and with his back to the rest of us. His powerful rootedness in this spot is as if nothing could move him. He is the old tree, the ancient whale, the grey haired dingo. I cannot take my eyes off him. But he has turned his back on the proceedings now, trusting and assuming that all will be done according to how it must be done. Kai and Max 111 place bands of white ochre on our legs. They do this with such respect for each individual leg, that it is a moment of great beauty and gratitude. This is the way the young ones have always been taught, for thousands and thousands of years. It is serious business and demands the utmost attention to following the prescriptions of the Elders, some of whom are there to oversee the task. I

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am sure in the past, if they stepped out of line, made a mistake or lacked commitment to the task, a punishing ‘bundi’ or wooden stick, would be thumped on unsuspecting bodies. Nowadays, one withering look form Uncle Max suffices.

Najarra, the young sister, in her role is to lead each line through the middle of the whale’s belly. She begins with the oldest. We have all taken our shoes off. There is total silence other than the haunting song. A small girl leading the Elders first in their most respected place as the head of the group, of the society. My line moves next, through the two fires of smoke and into the head of the whale. I am conscious of its belly, of the stories of being in the belly of a whale. I sense its huge rib bones, feel its breath ready to push through the spout above, feel its soft flesh. Then we are in line, we are there, now facing Uncle Max front on, behind the Elders and witnessing the last line of the youngest move towards us. I can now see the three separate tracks of lines in the sand, so palpable in contrast to last night’s imagined rows. It is all so tight, so regulated, so elegantly articulated.

Tears come from nowhere. The thick clouds have lowered themselves to just above our heads. The waves crash close. All is a blur yet so clear and clean at the same time. I am back in another time, with all my mob, partaking of a rite between this earth and humans that is as old as both. It is in our bones.

The family now joins us alongside Uncle Max and once again it is back to the reality of this modern time- blackfellas on one side facing whitefellas on the other. But this time all is different. We are not divided but enjoined through the ceremony, enjoined through the whale. Uncle Max exclaims in a voice that resonates through aeons, ‘Welcome to my country, welcome to Yuin country!’ Then, in a barely audible whisper, he says, ’today you have made history- this is the first time this ceremony has been done on this land in over a hundred years and it is the first time it has been done with whitefellas!’

Re-vitalisation of Culture

Just like that! The significance of this ceremony crashes in on my psyche like nothing else. But there is more than this. I look into the eyes of Max 111 and see the whale eye then the eyes of all his people who have come before, the lineage of the ones who stood proud like us all here, proud in the knowledge of culture, proud in the knowledge of their place in it, of their place in the natural world. I see that not only is young Max is in his place, but all of the family is in their place. The teachings are being passed on in their rightful way, by the holder, by the Elder and his predecessors, through his family in a line that is as old as the island in front of us and the mountain behind us. And the teachings are being passed on with a twist- whitefellas are in place too, invited to form a position that has been rarely enacted on this land in over 200 years. Here is a new sense of ‘right relations’.

Much later, Uncle Max speaks to the group about ‘conciliation’, not the oft-used notion of ‘reconciliation’. He refuses to accept the notion of reconciliation when there never was a coming together in the first place between whitefellas and blackfellas. ‘So how can

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there be a ‘re’ conciliation? But there can be a conciliation. We’ve all just done this today.’ I take this in as I look around the wide circle again. It has been a huge day what with the ceremony on the beach and the extraordinary day on the mountain. The Whale Dreaming has been re-vitalized on the east coast of Australia and something has been re-vitalized in all of us here. That’s unmistakable.

Young Max grins from ear to ear. He has been noticed today, performed his duties well. His grandfather doesn’t show it overtly, but Max 111 knows it nonetheless. The young kid is back as he dobs and harasses his young brother, boasts of all the girls that fancy him, pokes and teases his sister and gulps down a plate of 6 weetbix, 2 eggs, tomatoes, bacon and toast. Gone is any hint of the holder in him, the future teacher and Elder, Gone in this moment, but in no way permanently absent. The whale and I know it, from right down there in our bellies.

Afterword

I suspect there are a lot of whitefellas like me that have always had a yearning for a deeper connectedness to the earth. As I think back on that weekend, I am aware of how ceremony conducted on the land has a transformative power. It not only provides a space and a place for reconciliation with the earth, with people across cultural differences, but it also uproots the contested white/black relationship in Australia and plants something new in its place- that of respect and a deep engagement with the sacred. When I am invited to participate in a ceremony such as the Whale Dreaming ceremony, something in me shifts. I feel a strong kinship relationship with each and every whale, and each and every living being. I have a greater sense of who I am as a white woman birthed on this land and a greater sense of where I belong. And I have a greater understanding of those ‘black trails’, the Indigenous imprint on this land that I have been privileged to study firsthand through the generosity of Elders of the oldest continuing culture in the world.

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Conclusion

There is an ongoing debate in Australian political and educational circles concerning the relationship between Aboriginal cultural knowledge and the Western system of education. In the face of public outcry over ‘the gap’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous literacy and numeracy levels, many bi-lingual programs have been dismantled, funding removed for schools on remote outstations amidst calls for the emphasis to be shifted back towards Western standards of education. Where does this leave the transmission of Aboriginal cultural knowledge?

Both essays argue that education and Aboriginal cultural education must go hand in hand. Whether it takes place on the land or in the classroom, emphasis needs to be reflecting the involvement of family and wider kinship networks in the education process and following more traditional dictates of knowledge transmission by Elders. In this manner, education can be seen to be modeling an alternative path forward through a new, more inclusive narrative. There are hints emerging of a new sense of belonging through this process that proposes ‘both ways’ education, not one at the expense of the other.

The Guidelines for Ethical Conduct in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research developed by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 2003, established six principles for studies involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These include repriprocity, respect, equality, responsibility, survival and protection, spirit and integrity. At all times in this investigation, the researchers have applied these guidelines. This research conforms to the requirements of the University’s Ethics Committee and gained approval from both the Tasmanian Education Department Ethics Committee and the Northern territory Department of Education Ethics Committee.

Through this work, we acknowledge the wisdom, knowledge and creativity of the participants and in particular the Indigenous people from the Palawa, Murri, Koorie and Jawoyn nations. Their ideas drive this work and hold a privileged place within its stories. We pay respect to the traditional landowners and the Indigenous countries on which this research has taken place. We acknowledge their collective stories, the interrelated, communal experiences and teachings that we explored through unearthing these new and old ways.

The Stolen Generations

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The forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families was official government policy from 1909 to 1969. However the practice took place both before and after this period. Governments, churches and welfare bodies all took part.

The removal policy was managed by the Aborigines Protection Board (APB). The APB was a government board established in 1909 with the power to remove children without parental consent and without a court order.

Under the White Australia and assimilation policies Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were ‘not of full blood’ were encouraged to become assimilated into the broader society so that eventually there would be no more Indigenous people left. At the time Indigenous people were seen as an inferior race.

The Aboriginal children who were taken away from their families at this time have become known as the ‘stolen generations.’ (www.reconciliationasutralia.com.au)

List of Terms

Aboriginal

The word Aboriginal is used here to respectfully describe the first peoples, or Indigenous peoples of Australia.

Indigenous

The word Indigenous is used here to respectfully describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Jawoyn

The Indigenous people local to the Katherine area.

Land/Country

‘To that domain or ‘mother’ from which Indigenous Australians believe they originate and which they believe has a deep spiritual dimension.’ (Habel, Reconciliation Searching for Australia’s soul)

Koori

The term refers to the Aboriginal people of NSW.

Koorie

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The term refers to the Aboriginal people of Victoria.

Murri

Murri is used to identify Aboriginal people from Queensland.

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee’ this committee was once responsible for organizing national activities during NAIDOC Week and its acronym has now become the name for the week itself. NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in July each year and celebrate the culture, history and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. http://. naidoc .org.au/ retrieved July 22 2009.

Palawa

The Tasmanian Aboriginal People. The present day Palawa population is largely descended from a small number of women who were stolen by, or traded to, white sealers in the early 1800s. Apart from this official population, there are believed to be some other families who have descended from unions between Aboriginal women and non-Aboriginal men who lived in isolated rural districts of Tasmania. Official records establish that there are three distinct groups, which form large families and constitute the contemporary Palawa community:

original families born in the Bass Strait islands;

families of Dalrymple Johnson who was born in the islands and later lived on the North West coast; and

The families of Fanny Cocheran-Smith who lived in the Channel district, south of Hobart.

Palawa Kani

The language of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

Harmony Day

Harmony Day is celebrated on or around the twenty first of March each year in primary and high schools around the nation. It is an activity endorsed by education departments

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across the nation. Harmony Day celebrates Australia’s community harmony, participation and cultural diversity.

Indigenous

The word Indigenous is used here to respectfully describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Jawoyn

The Indigenous people local to the Katherine area.

Land/Country

‘To that domain or ‘mother’ from which Indigenous Australians believe they originate and which they believe has a deep spiritual dimension.’ (Habel, Reconciliation Searching for Australia’s soul)

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee’ this committee was once responsible for organizing national activities during NAIDOC Week and its acronym has now become the name for the week itself. NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in July each year and celebrate the culture, history and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. http://. naidoc .org.au/ retrieved July 22 2009.

Lia Pootah

The Lia Pootah Community are descendants of Tasmanian Aboriginal women from a variety of kinship groups and European men both free, military and convict who arrived in Tasmania from 1803.  Two main groups the people of the Waddamanna or big rivers, commonly called “the Big River Tribe and those of the Huon”, significantly represent the community.  The cultural heritage defines these ancestral kinship groups as Teen Toomele Menennye (Big River) and Tahune Linah (Huon). 

Murri

Murri is used to identify Aboriginal people from Queensland.

Palawa

The Tasmanian Aboriginal People. The present day Palawa population is largely descended from a small number of women who were stolen by, or traded to, white sealers

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in the early 1800s. Apart from this official population, there are believed to be some other families who have descended from unions between Aboriginal women and non-Aboriginal men who lived in isolated rural districts of Tasmania. Official records establish that there are three distinct groups, which form large families and constitute the contemporary Palawa community:

original families born in the Bass Strait islands;

families of Dalrymple Johnson who was born in the islands and later lived on the North West coast; and

The families of Fanny Cocheran-Smith who lived in the Channel district, south of Hobart.

Palawa Kani

The language of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

Reconciliation

The dictionary definition of reconciliation is listed as: to make friendly after estrangement, to purify after desecration, to heal, to harmonise, and to make compatible, but also to make acquiescent or contentedly submissive. For the purposes of this research, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation definition is preferred. Indeed, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation defines reconciliation as: to achieve recognition and respect for the unique position of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Indigenous peoples (the first peoples) of Australia through a national document of reconciliation and by acknowledgment within the Constitution of this country.

T0’s

Traditional owners or first peoples.

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