Keepers of the River

Screenshot, "The Burden of Dreams" (1982) a feature-length documentary and making-of directed by Les Blank, shot during and about the chaotic production of Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, filmed in the jungles of South America.

"The question of hearsay had a deeper dimension and required research of an entirely different kind. [Arguing for their title to the land] the Indians could only claim that they’d always been there; this they had learned from their grandparents. When, finally, the case appeared hopeless, I managed to get an audience with the President, [Fernando] Belaúnde. The Machiguengas of Shivankoreni elected two representatives to accompany me. [In the President’s office in Lima] when our conversation threatened to come to a standstill, I presented Belaúnde with the following argument: in Anglo-Saxon law, although hearsay is generally inadmissible as evidence, it is not absolutely inadmissible. As early as 1916, in the case of Angu vs. Atta, a colonial court in the Gold Coast (today Ghana) ruled that hearsay could serve as a valid form of evidence.

That case was completely different. It had to do with the use of a local governor’s palace; then, too, there were no documents, nothing official that would have been relevant. But, the court ruled, the overwhelming consensus in hearsay that countless tribesmen had repeated and repeated, had come to constitute so manifest a truth that the court could accept it without further restrictions. At this, Belaunde, who had lived for many years in the jungle, fell quiet. He asked for a glass of orange juice, then said only Good god, and I knew that we had won him over. Today the Machiguengas have a title to their land; even the consortium of oil firms that discovered one of the largest sources of natural gas [in the world] directly in their vicinity respects it." Werner Herzog, On the Absolute, the Sublime and Ecstatic Truth

A tribe Called Red: Free Album of Conscious Raising Tunes

I am very busy at the moment, racing to have thesis finished by the first snow fall. But here is some excellent tunes for the chilly months ahead. A Tribe Called Red describe themselves as:

We're an all Native American DJ crew from Ottawa Canada. We remix traditional Pow Wow music with contemporary club sounds.

Ottawa-based Aboriginal DJ crew a Tribe Called Red have had a banner year, from the Polaris Music Prize long list recognition of their self-titled album to the ongoing success of their Electric Pow Wow parties in the nation's capitol. From side stage at the Mad Decent Block Party, DJ's NDN, Frame and Bear Witness explore the importance of the Pow Wow and the fun of a big outdoor show.

Redfern the Didjeridu and Me

Download: Vision Mission
Didjeridu solo by James Barrett


In 1995 I was living in Sydney, Australia in a suburb which was home to many Aborigines, the indigenous people of Australia. Called Redfern, it was centered on an area known as “The Block”, a crowded jumble of houses and old factories where around 1000 Aboriginal people lived on land that was returned to them by the Australian Government in 1973. Despite having grown up in Australia this was, at the age of 26, my first exposure to large-scale Aboriginal culture.

All up I lived in Redfern about 3 years between 1995-99. The atmosphere changed a lot in that time. This is a short account of a cultural sanctuary that existed along side and because of the independant nature of The Block (long may it live...) [Names changed to protect the innocent.]

The Fern (1995-96).
Our house looked like a wooden ship long run aground. The lower decks silted up and stuck fast in the earth. A crew of tattooed white nomads of soul had moved in. Hair every color of the rainbow, fleshy bits pierced, and always curious to pick through any unattended pile; rubbish or recycle, silo or asylum. We would occasionally awake to find strangers sleeping in the basement cellar spaces. These homeless or traveling folk would usually be given tea and porridge before they jumped back over the fence into the world beyond. Once a wine merchants premises, three huge brick barrels like rooms made up the ground floor, and each opened out onto the tiny backyard which was being composted from day one; vegetables drawn from cement. The middle and main story was four large rooms with a verandah running along three. Sculptures of twisted metal, bone, plastic, feathers, artificial limbs, manikin torsos, crazy flags, and banners hung from the railing and tumbled down into the garden where a two meter dragon with leather wings and a rotating blades for a head presided over a collection of urban jungle and classical forms. In the rooms above lived a various individuals over time, but that was usually the first thing they forgot.

I came to live in Redfern, inner city Sydney, one day, some day; I can't remember the first day. I remember I was frightened by it long before I ever saw it. That same thing (brainwashing?) you laugh at today when you tell people your suburb, and they go quiet and then ask "Is it dangerous"?
Answer: "I like it because the hype keeps the tourists, fashion clowns, and yuppies away". The thing I really liked about it the most was the feel of community, the spirit of the suburb, which spread an almost equally in distance from the railway station for all directions but west. Opposite the station beat the real heart of Redfern; The Block, for this was Aboriginal land. Australia has existed for only a short time. Before white people named and claimed, tied her up and robbed her, she was a living, breathing entity. The spirit of the Aboriginal people is not dead and life in Redfern was evident of this. This was one step out of Babylon, community where people don't pretend to be nice, either they are or you know about it fast. Sure, there was a lot of drugs, and a bit of violence, but we lived in a state of psychological siege with the TV. telling you what you've got to believe. As always the thing that everybody wants is plastic and covered in fingers, and the only way you can be a man is if you buy a house and have a retirement plan. Fuck the Brady Bunch family values.

So let me tell you some things of The Fern. Our house was found by Burn whilst looking at a possible squat site across the road. It was a tumbled down triple story plaster and timber terrace with a secret garden in the middle of the city for rent. It was taken immediately as the deficit was growing for low cost accommodation and production space for artists in inner city Sydney. A month before ten years of tradition had ended with the eviction and demolition of 134 Campbell Street, Darlinghurst. This had been a madhouse of creativity and alternative culture with strong links to the National Art School just across Taylor Square. The so-called gentrification of Darlinghurst was ploughing ahead. The way The Glebe and Balmain had gone in the 1970's and early 1980's was happening to Darlinghurst, Newtown, and Chippendale in the 1990's. At this same time Cyberspace Studios in Glebe, home at one stage to 80 artists was going through the eviction process. For a while in 1994 it seemed that everyone who was not prepared to prescribe to the normality of experts in Central Sydney was retreating to Redfern.

In Regent Street was to be found The Golden Ox, once a restaurant, now a venue for everything from Koori bands to trance traveler's techno parties. It was also home to many, some long, some short term. In the next block Renwick Street provided the public with Airspace Studios, Sylvester Studios, and The Punos Warehouse. A combined living space for as many as 50 artists this was also perhaps the busiest street in Redfern. Airspace contained a large warehouse style gallery with different exhibitions and performances every month. It was managed by one who went by the name of P.C.D-23, a long time resident of Cyberspace Studios in Glebe. Both Airspace and Sylvester Studios were situated in a former meat works factory providing vast combined living and studio space for artists, and both were always full to capacity during their relatively long history. The Punos Warehouse was home to the Punos design team who constructed environments for techno parties, and the interior of their warehouse was testament to their abilities. A huge dragon and a fly at the entrance leading to a space filled with all manner of objects floating and flying. Punos worked a lot with the famous Vibe Tribe sound system in 1993-95, which ended a glorious career in a police provoked riot with a party at the Sydney Park brick kilns on 8th April 1995.

Vibe Tribe party, Sydney Park Brick Kilns 1995.

At the city end of Renwick Street on the intersection of Regent and Cleveland Streets was the Artspace Gallery and performance space. Not to be confused with the recently government conspired Artspace in Wooloomaloo, which was created from the building occupied by The Gunnery, Sydney's most famous artist run space. Around the corner was 2 George Street, a 6-floor terrace house occupied by many of the Vibe Tribe organizers (situated next door to the Independent Commission Against Corruption and as a result under 24 hour video surveillance). It was at one time the home of 30 adults, several dogs and a few children. Across the park from George Street, following the eviction of Glebe's Cyberspace, was the 5 floors of The Sydney Sculpture Studios. About 40 people lived in the warehouse building, engaging in activities ranging from music to sculpture, dealing and party planning. Next door to the sculpture studios was one of the few squats in Redfern, occupied by about 10 punks they made use of the facilities at the Studios for water, eating, and toilets. At the other end of the street at 186 George Street were a crowded terrace house and the city base for many techno style travelers, with around 40 of them crowded into the three floors for weeks at a time. Around the corner on Redfern Street could be found 140a Redfern Street, a large warehouse space and home to many over almost 15 years. Heading east down Redfern Street brings one to 120a Redfern Street, my address and a somewhat typical home for about 30 travelers and wise fools from 1994-98. Some of us worked a little bit. In fact at most times the house (3-8 occupants at any one time) was funded by Roy Morgan Market Research (to this day I hate telephones), and the Department of Social Security (bless the memory). Everyone wanted to spend as much time dreaming as possible, and did not worry too much about money. We were living on the almost dead, kissing the carcass, and taking from the old what we needed to build our own fragile reality. Somehow it suited the time and the place. This rekindled philosophy of the hippy aesthetic given a punk attitude. Often labeled as Ferals it was more than just a fashion for many who embraced this understanding. Lacking the nihilism of the European so called New Age Travelers ("Not in this age, not in any age", said John Major), much angrier than the hippies ever were, and determined to breed and build a micro-society, unlike the short lived, do or die punk movement. Excess was the enemy and transcendence was the goal of many. However, as always with humans the ideal often falls short in practice, and the pressures against any self-directed autonomous zone are many.

The top level of our house was a single grand bedroom with cracked plaster ceiling, two arched windows in each opposite facing walls, a fireplace at one end. It was like living in a tower. When I came to the house the tower was occupied by Sev, who began his day much later than most usually in the area of high noon or sunset. Sev's public life consisted of, among other things, the Erotometre. A device comprising voltammeter and frequency generator, with a needle through the penis of each male (Sev and friend), they became a naked switch in a high pitch electrical storm of tongues and fingers, touching and rubbing. Sev also performed telephone research at The Morgue (Roy Morgan Research) but said it was far below his intelligence (this was true of everyone working there except perhaps administration). Below Sev's chamber was the velvet cave of Burn, a witch and sorceress of the highest spirit. It was she, Burn-Ya-Debts who found the house along with Kira, and the famous Lebanese/Australian wild poet of the Snowy Mountains, Riesh. When this story began Burn made statues and told stories. She was drawing and painting, a poet and student at the National Art School.

The kitchen was the heart of the house. A large round table, dozens of flowers in dried arrangements hung from the ceiling. Stove was quick to cook with cupboards full of spice and fruit, vegetables, and soy products (god bless the bean). Many chairs, a stereophonic cassette-playing machine, and chai made to order. Famous for it's wall of obituaries including Andy Warhol, Vincent Price, Sterling Morrison, Brett Whitley, Tracy Pew, Kurt Cobain, Nico, Frank Zappa, Salvador Dali, River Phoenix, Kurt Wolf, and more always to come. From the kitchen a long hall went passed a bathroom with some tales to tell, and many seashells scattered. Then a small painting studio occupied by the occupier of the room at the end of the hall. Kira was in love at this time and shared her room of ancient objects and beautiful cloth with an intense young artist by the name of Dun. Together they danced love for a time, made art in every movement, took to walking in parks, making forward in each other's eyes. This was that moment you find your whole life out in front of you.

In 1995 the National Art School was in threat of "rationalization" by faceless bureaucrats unless the staff, students, and friends of the school could influence the decision makers. We in our corner of the urban sprawl decided to assist and at a rally in Martin Place we performed on the back of a Dodge flatbed truck. So was born Senselesss, a floating collection of performers, artists, musicians, poets, and attention seekers. Fueled by belief in existential coincidence, redundant technology, and cannabis, Senselesss would undertake a variety of acts and demonstrations in numerous settings over an eventful twelve months.

Sound sculpture and the collective subconscious were the seeds of the group consisting of a core of three people and involving many. The large steel sculptures included a 50 strings box harp suspended from the ceiling, the size of a coffee table and weighing about 120 kg. Also three round steel bells a meter in diameter and weighing 100kg each, and a single string upright base that sounded like a compressor pedal from hell. Combined with films, tape loops, poetry, lighting effects, fire, costumes, dance, and a sense of ritual. A variety of reactions were received when we committed an act. Performances were made at the Sydney College of Fine Arts, Sydney College of Art, The Metro Theatre, Airspace Gallery, King George's Hall in Newtown, and for the art terrorist organization Brainwash. Throughout 1995 there were 12 public performances made and in 1996 the group began to engage in a more private exploration of sound. Following the suicide of one of the major contributors in early 1997 the original group disbanded.

By 1997 things in Redfern were beginning to noticeable change as well. A deal had been done between a few powerful government appointed individuals in the Aboriginal community and the South Sydney City Council. The aim seemed to disband and scatter the residents of The Block (Divide and conquer served the British invaders well and is still employed in black-white relations in Australia), and then reclaim the real estate. The heavy police presence in Redfern was also beginning to give the area a feeling of siege or open warfare. The harassment and strong-arm tactics from law enforcement included ten police marching up and down Everleigh Street (the main street of The Block) in full riot gear and then getting back in the van and driving away, daily for about two weeks. Street strip searches were almost a daily occurrence, and despite a police station being set up in the train station, heroin was still being sold openly only meters away. One night in 1997 some person or persons unknown emptied a machine gun into the doorway of a female aboriginal elder's house (the council of elders opposed the relocation of the residents of The Block). The newspapers (which were already publishing shock stories about the drugs in Redfern) the next day ran a story about right wing extremists terrorizing the Aboriginal population, although nobody was detained over the attack and nobody saw who the attackers actually were.

The atmosphere in the area was degenerating into violence and resentment. Nothing was being done to improve the living conditions of Block residents and no policy of prevention or harm minimization was attempted in regards to the flow of heroin into the suburb. A needle exchange program consisted of simple handing out hundreds of syringes each day without any support, counseling or care offered or available. The local exchange program was halted after public outcry over a newspaper photograph of a 15-year-old white boy injection himself with heroin in an alleyway in Redfern. After this action a Commonwealth Health Department car would simply leave 1000 syringes in the middle of Everleigh Street every morning, not even bothering to pick up the used syringes. The pressures upon the community seemed to be coming from the very top levels of Australian society and Government. It was the final stage in the "gentrification" of the inner city area of Sydney.

Most of the artist run spaces in Redfern had been evicted and demolished by the end of 1997, and the process of "gentrification" was well and truly underway. Throughout 1997-98 Redfern was the subject of several shame articles in the tabloid press, and real life "shock TV" programs. The traders of the Redfern Street clothing factory seconds shops began to notice a drop in trade at this time and many were forced to close by early 1999. Appeals by the local small business organization to begin a plan to revitalize the area, using the vehicle of Aboriginal culture as a means of achieving this were met with brush-offs and silence from local and state politicians. Real estate speculation was not suffering however, and the first million-dollar terrace house in Redfern (Pitt Street) sold at auction in mid-1997. The cafe culture also began to establish itself in Redfern and Regent Street, although they did not yet open at night when the windows were covered with very heavy security grates. I left Redfern on 21st February 1996 to help nurse my grandmother through the last weeks of her life. Although I would live in Redfern again the necessary lessons had already been learned.

I was fascinated by the stories and struggles of the Aboriginal people and after a short time of living in Redfern I wanted to learn to play their long flute-like instrument from the far north of Australia. Most people call it a Didjeridu, but that is a European interpretation of the name based on the sound the instrument makes. The Aboriginal people call it by several names, some being Yiraka or Yidaki ( trachea), Artawirr (hollow log), and Ngaribi (bamboo).

My first Didjeridu was a copper pipe, played a bit like a trumpet, but with a small enough aperture to make it easier to circular breath, as is needed to play Didjeridu. Shortly after this a friend of mine who lived in an isolated Aboriginal community in the far north of Australia sent me a Didjeridu. This instrument I played for a year, until I had the opportunity to leave Australia and travel as a near destitute backpacker. When I arrived in England in 1997 an English friend gave me his Didjeridu as he was about to go to Australia and could not carry the heavy instrument with him. So I was now broke and in Europe with a Didjeridu. I began playing on the streets as a busker, earning enough money to survive and stayed in Europe for 18 months, meeting up again (we first met in India in 1996) with the girl who I would eventually marry and set up a home with.

I lived as a street musician in Amsterdam for most of 1998, and have played at cafes and festivals in Spain, Holland, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. In Amsterdam I spent 3 days in the company of Alan Dargin who was one of the two best Didge player I have ever seen (the other is Charlie McMahon). My most recent achievement was playing at the 397th and 399th Saami Winter Market in Jokkmokk in the far North of Sweden, in February 2002 and 2004 where I was part of a group of Saami, Inuit, Swedish, American, Japanese and British musicians whose first performance (2002) was recorded by Finnish radio. The second perfromance was the highlight of a multimedia web project  undertaken by Umeå University.

Playing the Didjeridu has given me many opportunities to meet people. There is much interest in the instrument and the ancient culture it represents. The Didjeridu is more than just an instrument for me, as it has a presence that is difficult to describe without using spiritual terminology. The breathing technique and the hypnotic tones it produces have a highly meditative effect on myself and often on those who listen.

The Didjeridu has become identified with what is labelled The New Age. I think of myself as coming from a culture which is described in the book “The Didjeridu: From Arnhem Land to Internet” , as alternative lifestylers’ whose “model society is based on four essential elements; firstly holism of experience, secondly community with it’s qualities of interrelatedness and co-operation, thirdly ecology, with its sustainable ethos and fourthly, a creative spiritual milieu.” (Neuenfeldt et.al. p140). It goes on to say that it is the rejection of materialism by alternative lifestylers’ which separates us from the New Age movement, which “has become in many cases a highly commercialised and profit making industry” (ibid.).


Bibliography:
Neuenfeldt Karl (Ed.) The Didjeridu: From Arnhem Land to Internet John Libbey Publishers. Sydney. 1997

By james barrett

William Barak: A great man

William Barak (or Beruk) (c. 1824 - 15 August 1903), (Centre) was the last traditional ngurungaeta (elder) of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, based around the area of present-day Melbourne, Australia. He became an influential spokesman for Aboriginal social justice and an important informant on Wurundjeri cultural lore.

BARAK, WILLIAM (1824-1903), Aboriginal spokesman, variously called 'King William, last chief of the Yarra Yarra tribe' or 'Beruk (white grub in gum tree) belonging to the Wurundjeri Willum horde whose country lay along the Yarra and Plenty Rivers', was the son of Bebejern and great-nephew of prominent Victorian tribal leaders Billi belleri, Captain Turnbull and Jakki Jakki. He was regarded with more romance than reason by contemporaries as an innocent witness to the first European intruders, William Buckley and John Batman. He spent his childhood in traditional Aboriginal fashion but with tribal dislocation; after Melbourne's settlement he was not properly initiated. Relations invested him with the possum shawl, necklet, waist string and nose peg of manhood in a brief ceremony, but much of tribal lore was left to be picked up informally. He received a brief taste of education at Rev. G. Langhorne's [my great great grandfather] mission school in 1837-39, and was possibly one of the more sober members of Captain Henry Dana's Native Police Force.

With his Gippsland-born first wife Lizzie, he was among the first group of Goulburn Aboriginals who settled at Acheron in 1859, hoping to have the area reserved. After much official indecision Coranderrk, near Healesville, was gazetted and he settled there permanently in 1863, in a 'neat little cottage and garden, most tidy and comfortable'. Barak worked for a small wage on the station farm and acquired a few horses. Further schooling and religious instruction were undertaken; he could read but not write. He was baptized, confirmed, and took a second wife Annie 'of the Lower Murray' (Lizzie died before 1863) in a publicized Presbyterian ceremony in 1865. The fate of his family was typical of the time; two infants died of gastro-enteritis, David and Annie of consumption. When he married Sarah (Kurnai) on 7 June 1890 he was the oldest man at Coranderrk and only full-blood survivor of his tribe.

In the late 1870s when management of Aboriginal affairs came under vigorous public criticism Barak emerged as a respected spokesman. Until his death he was the acknowledged leader at Coranderrk and a liaison between officialdom and the native population. His contact with such people as Graham Berry, Alfred Howitt, Mrs Ann Bon and Alfred Deakin, his petitions and public appearances were important spurs to action, especially the government inquiry of 1881. He outlined a plan for autonomous communities under Coranderrk's first manager, John Green: 'give us this ground and let us manage here ourselves … and no one over us … we will show the country we can work it and make it pay and I know it will'. His white champions did not share this faith and the scheme was never fostered, although Coranderrk was retained.

While adapting his own life to the changing conditions Barak maintained a remarkably balanced tie with his own culture. He was an accomplished painter in ochre and charcoal, 'a baritone of average compass', and a source on Aboriginal ways for both tourists and serious anthropologists. Lorimer Fison drew on his knowledge extensively. He was Howitt's chief informant for central and south-west Victoria and elsewhere. Large parts of Howitt's Native Tribes of South East Australia (London, 1904) rest heavily on his knowledge and opinion. Howitt invited him to Bairnsdale in 1882 and his notes of these interviews cover a wide range of customs, beliefs and kinship patterns, discussed with respect and deep feeling by Barak yet evaluated maturely against his Christian faith.

He died on 15 August 1903. In 1934 the local Australian Natives' Association erected a marble monument donated by Mrs Bon in Healesville's main street. This was later defaced by vandals, stored in the municipal offices, and finally placed above the heap of stones which marks his grave at Coranderrk.

Those who knew Barak described him unanimously as wise and dignified, with penetrating eyes and firm principles. The Board for the Protection of Aborigines noted him 'the most intelligent … remarkable black'. However, to the ordinary people he remained a romantic curiosity on picture postcards; erect and bearded, wearing sandshoes and a long coat, a Bible in one gloved hand and a boomerang in the other.

Virtual Worlds and Indigenous Knowledge: learning to tell stories and make positive change across cultures

Presenting tomorrow morning at the Association of Internet Researcher 11th annual conference in Gothenberg, Sweden.

There Goes the Neighbourhood

As I have written here before, between 1995 and 1999 Redfern in Sydney was my home in the world. An amazing neighborhood that centered around The Block, the property of the Redfern Aboriginal Housing Company. In Redfern a lot of artists, musicians and activists made their lives in a fashion that was more often than not cooperative and autonomous. I have written down some of my recollections of the period 1995-97 in Redfern here, when the threat of gentrification, the heavy police presence and the social problems (including uncontrolled hard drug use) where eating away at the sense of community that I found when I first came to The Fern in 1994.

"The Block, Redfern, has been described as the "Black Heart" of Australia and occupies a unique place within Sydney's urban landscape as a centre for the Indigenous community. It was the site for the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, and has been the gathering point for many protests and community events. Just minutes from the second busiest train station in Sydney are the open camp fires and communal use of public space of the community on The Block." Critical Spatial Practice

Today the exemplary blog, Critical Spatial Practice has published an account of the art exhibition There Goes The Neighbourhood along with a short essay on The Politics of Urban Space:

There Goes the Neighbourhood is an exhibition, residency, discussion and publishing project for May 2009. The central element of this project will be an exploration of the politics of urban space, with a focus on Redfern, Sydney. The project will examine the complex life of cities and how the phenomenon of gentrification is altering the relationship between democracy and demography around the world. While urban change itself is not always a bad thing, gentrification often happens at an accelerated rate, out pricing the lower income and marginalized communities from the neighbourhood and dislocating them from their existing connections to urban space. The project brings together artists from Australia and around the world whose work addresses these issues.

There Goes the Neighbourhood is also a 132 page book, that can be downloaded as a PDF from the website.

First Australians

First Australians chronicles the birth of contemporary Australia as never told before, from the perspective of its first people. First Australians explores what unfolds when the oldest living culture in the world is overrun by the world's greatest empire.

Over seven episodes, First Australians depicts the true stories of individuals - both black and white - caught in an epic drama of friendship, revenge, loss and victory in Australia's most transformative period of history.

The story begins in 1788 in Sydney, with the friendship between an Englishmen (Governor Phillip) and a warrior (Bennelong) and ends in 1993 with Koiki Mabo's legal challenge to the foundation of Australia. First Australians chronicles the collision of two worlds and the genesis of a new nation.

In the above video Aidan Wilson speaks about the use of mobile technology in the teaching and preservation of Aboriginal languages in Australia. PARADISEC (Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures) offers a facility for digital conservation and access for endangered materials from the Pacific region, defined broadly to include Oceania and East and Southeast Asia. The research group has developed models to ensure that the archive can provide access to interested communities, and conforms with emerging international standards for digital archiving. The research group is composed of investigators from the four participating institutions.

On the SBS First Australians website there is more than six hours of video available that is not part of the broadcast series. A slideshow presentation of the series narrated by its creators is available on the Sydney Morning Herald site.

International Day for the World's Indigenous Peoples

By resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994, the General Assembly decided to celebrate the International Day of the World's Indigenous People on 9 August every year during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People. In 2004 the Assembly proclaimed a Second International Decade by resolution 59/174. The goal of this Decade is to further strengthen international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as culture, education, health, human rights, the environment, and social and economic development.

So if you are in Stockholm tomorrow go to Skansen to see my friend Billy Marius from Congo speak about yeyi and the pygmie people. From midday at Samevistet. The whole programe is (in Swedish):

kl 12:00 och 14:00
Etnologen Marius Billy, bördig från Kongo framför ”yeyi” och berättar om pygmeerna i centrala Afrika.

kl 12:30, 14:30 och 16:00
Den lulesamiska etnologen Lis-Marie Hjortfors berättar om den samiska traditionella kunskapen om djuren och naturen.

kl 13:00 och 15:00
Jojk och jojkverkstad med de samiska systrarna Elina och Susanna Israelsson från Gällivare.

kl 13:30 & 15:30
Djurvårdaren Kerstin Johansson berättar om renen.

Under hela dagen kan du också prova-på att kasta lasso!

Wildman säljer souvas, renklämmor och andra samiska läckerheter på Bollnästorget under hela dagen.


Babongo Pygmies of Southern Congo Imitating Forest Animals


Wujal Wujal Aboriginal dancers at Laura Festival, Australia


Mornington Island dances with didgeridoo


On Jan. 26, 2008, the Eiteljorg Museum hosted a symposium to discuss the 1973 standoff at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The symposium featured William Means (Oglala Lakota), AIM leader and participant in the standoff, and other activists including Johnny Flynn (Potawatomi), who participated in the Wounded Knee 1973, Sally Tuttle (Choctaw), who participated in the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island, and Lann Thompson (Cherokee), who was working in South Dakota during Wounded Knee 1973 where he observed the immediate impact of the event. Charlie Abourezk, one of the writers and directors of Tattoo on My Heart, was also be a part of the panel.

Words from the Communities

In light of what I wrote on this blog recently regarding the very suspect documentary Historiens Fångar featuring the ideas and philosophies of Keith Windschuttle, there is an interesting article online from Mute magazine, titled Doing it for the Kids by Elizabeth Povinelli. I recomend it and quote from it here;

Here, we must remember that Failure, Normality, and Success are not Kantian ideas floating in space but ways of measuring the social world, norms for what is fair or not. Because they are making buckets loads of money, Native Americans able to exploit their sovereignty to establish casinos are considered not to be playing fair. Neoliberal discourse has transformed the organisation of responsibility and accountability. Anything larger than the individual is seen as an impediment to the enterprise subject. Social groups and collectivities as well as long standing federal and state commitments to indigenous social welfare are said to be the cause of poverty. When indigenous people cease to see their social worlds from the perspective of local cultural sense or as related to state-backed social welfare then they will, it is said, emerge from poverty and with this emergence gain the health that all other Australians have.

Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University where she is also Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Law and Culture. She is the author of numerous books and essays including The Cunning of Recognition (Duke, 2002) and The Empire of Love (Duke, 2006). She has served as a consultant for several indigenous land and native title claims in Australia

Joined to See Change

I must say. I am impressed.

Australia Says Sorry...........

The Australian Government officially apologized today for the horrors inflicted on generations of Aboriginals through organized programs of physical and sexual abuse, forced integration and cultural indoctrination that were most often perpetrated upon children. Firstly, looking at the concept of an apology, the power relations of an apology are not always as straight forward as one would expect. A colleague and former teacher of mine published a thesis looking at the use of apologizing in British English, finding that:

SORRY is the subtlest word, especially for the middle classes. That is one finding of research into how the British apologise, which reveals that the middle classes say sorry twice as often as the working classes — but with different implications.
They may be “afraid” to admit it, they may “regret” being so, or they may simply “beg your pardon”; but the middle classes are clearly a very sorry lot when it comes to etiquette. They are more likely than anyone to apologise for lack of consideration and similar offences.
But at the same time, they are also the most adept at using apologies to minimise their responsibility for the offence, thus craftily re-asserting their superiority.
“The use or avoidance of apologies appears to be an important way of signalling class identity,” said Mats Deutschmann, who led the study. “Acts of politeness have traditionally been ways for social inferiors to show deference towards social superiors,” he said. “But now we are getting ‘downward politeness’.”
As class distinctions have blurred, social superiors are using apologies to give an illusion of humility when confronted by people they regard as inferior. The Times

In many ways sorry seems so small. The apology from the Australian Government, "For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations", has been an issue for such a long it seems a bit ridiculous that it did not happened at least a decade ago:

More than 10 years since the story of the stolen generations was told in the Bringing Them Home report, the declaration of the apology will usher in a new era of recognition and reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia. SMH

While the emphasis was clearly on the past wrongs, there is a today a desperate need for action.

Meanwhile:

72% of Australia's Aborigines are living in poverty. Remote Indigenous communities face particular economic disadvantage, despite so-called benefits.
From the Australian Bureau of Statistics:

* In Australia the average income is $585 per week.
* The average for Aboriginal people is $364 per week.
* Aboriginal income in cities is $435 per week.
* Aboriginal income in remote communities is $267 per week.

and the killing continues;

Over the period 1997–99, the life expectancy at birth for an Indigenous male was 56 years, and for an Indigenous female, 63 years. Comparable life expectancies were experienced by males in the total population in 1901–10, and females in 1920–22. Today, males in the total Australian population have a life expectancy of 76 years and females 82 years.....In the age group 35–54 years, the Indigenous death rate was 5–6 times higher than expected. The Health and Welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (2001)

If something is not achieved in regards to the situations experienced daily by many indigenous Australians it seems likely the apologizing could go on for some time yet.......

The Prisoners

Keith Windschuttle introduces Swedes to Aboriginal his-story

Between 22:00-23:00 on Monday 4th February 2008 the program 'Historiens Fångar' (History's Prisoners) (streamed online now) by Danish film maker Poul-Erik Heilbuth was shown on Swedish Television Channel 1 with a repeat planned for next Sunday 10th February 2008 at 14:25 on the same channel.

I have registered a complaint with the Swedish Broadcasting Authority about the way the program 'Historiens Fångar' was presented without any discussion or dissenting opinion to those expressed by the main figure interviewed in the film. This man is well known in his homeland, Australia as holding extreme and controversial opinions when it comes to the exact subject matter the film dealt with, indigenous peoples. While many of the opinions expressed in the program do have basis in the situation experienced by many indigenous Australians (the area I am most familiar with, although the program dealt with indigenous North Americans, Sami and Inuit peoples) they were presented to viewers without any counter arguments or alternate opinion.

The most notable voice in the program was from Keith Windschuttle, a controversial figure to say the least in the debate around the history of white colonization in Australia and the Aboriginal people. Windschuttle is widely recognized as being a revisionist historian with a political agenda that is inevitably fulfilled by his research. To quote the respected Australian journalist and critic Gerard Henderson:

The problem with Windschuttle's work is that, at times, you get the impression that he is a former Marxist - turned political conservative - who is waging a personal war on the very left-wing interpretation of Australian history that he once both embraced and proclaimed. His revisionism is essential reading for anyone who wants to join the debate on Australian history. Yet, because his history contains a substantial degree of personal polemic, it sometimes lacks empathy.
The Trouble with Windschuttle, The Age Dec 7 2004.

Due to the one-sided nature of Mr. Windschuttle's account of Black-White relations in Australia and the way this was presented as a general reference point in the program for indigenes of the USA, Greenland and even Scandinavia, there should have been some counter balance provided in the documentary 'Historiens Fångar'. There was not. I suggest that the Australian current affairs program Four Corner's edition The Cape Experiment is one example that could lend an element of balance to some of the more ideologically motivated claims made by Windschuttle in 'Historians Fånger'. Windschuttle's books are self-published through his Macleay Press. By a even a quick review of the total published titles from MacLeay one can easily detect the ideologically narrow approach taken by the company:

The Invention of Terra Nullius: Historical and Legal Fictions on the Foundation of Australia by Michael Connor

The White Australia Policy: Race and shame in the Australian history wars by Keith Windschuttle

Washout: The academic response to the fabrication of Aboriginal history by John Dawson

The Killing of History: How a discipline is being murdered by literary critics and social theorists by Keith Windschuttle

Corrupting the Youth: A history of philosophy in Australia by James Franklin

The Multicultural Experiment edited by Leonie Kramer

"Fire and the Story"

The documentary "Fire and the Story" developed by Cape York Elders and Clan Groups regarding traditional fire knowledge and the problems with it's absence in the environment and urban areas in Australia today. The film is a product of the grass roots Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways (TKRP) project and is a bid to educate the broader public, nationally and internationally, in the benefits of reapplying Indigenous burning techniques. The range of chapters and stories that make up the film are based on real experience with Elders on country assessing the issue first hand.
Preview (Film)
Read More (PDF)

Some Indigeneous Culture

I just opened my email and go two images of Australian Aboriginal culture sent to me:


Group of Dancers in Darwin. These men are in jail but have formed a dance troop in the prison and get work outside at cultural events and conferences.


Zorba the Greek Yolngu style. Amazing video from Arnhem Land

Remains of Aboriginal Australians to Return

The Swedish Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm has been given permission from the Swedish Government to return the remains of ten Aboriginal Australians to their country. On the 22 October 2007 a delegation of representatives from various Australian Aboriginal groups will visit the museum and take possession of the remains.
The remains come from the Kimberley region of North Western Australia where in 1910-11 a Swedish expedition plundered graves. The expedition was led by Eric Georg Mjöberg (1882 - 1938), who’s relative Lotte Mjöberg followed in Eric’s footsteps in 2004 and met the people of Kimberleys in an attempt to right the wrongs of the past, as documented in this radio broadcast.
In 2004 the remains of 15 Aboriginal individuals were returned to Australia by the Ethnographic Museum with an emotional ceremony performed when they reached their home country.
Aboriginal remains from British museums are also being returned.

Digital Land Management

Bryan at Infocult made reference to a demographic study of labor by the International Labor Organization (ILO) Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM) which pointed out that presently the majority of human beings are not working in agriculture, something that has not been the case for a long time (10 000 years?). Bryan then proposed the question "How much of the history of information has been shaped by the divide between urban and rural ways of life?"
This could be a great thesis topic. I thought about the way land is an information system in traditional Aboriginal cultures. The urban/rural divide does not apply to Aboriginal socities that are still inhabiting traditional lands and following culture. The concept of agriculture does not apply either as they do not cultivate but follow seasonal patterns of food production. However, information is stored and distributed, created and altered on a vast scale in Aboriginal narrative systems. Three projects that are dealing with the storehouse of knowledge that resides with Aboriginal cultures are:

Digital Songlines
The Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) is host to an innovative and exciting project aimed at conserving Indigenous heritage using virtual reality technologies. Digital Songlines is an ACID project that is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. The project explores the effective recording, content management and virtual reality delivery of indigenous cultural knowledge in way that are culturally sensitive and involve the indigenous custodians, leaders and communities.

Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways
Welcome to the Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways (TKRP) website. The Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways was developed from the aspirations of Indigenous Elders, to preserve and recognise Traditional Indigenous Knowledge. With the guidance and instruction of our Aboriginal Elders, we are supporting them to collect information that will be beneficial for County and Community, both in the present and the future.

Warumungu Community Digital Archive Project
Since December we have made great progress on the archive. Based in community feedback we simplified and streamlined the upload process, we revamped the user interface, and we have made changes to the user profiles and restrictions sections of the archive. We also got a new name for the archive: Mukurtu Wumpurrani-kari Archive. Mukurtu is a Warumungu term meaning “dilly bag.” Dilly bags were used as “safe keeping places” for Warumungu sacred materials in the past. The archive’s name reflects the fact that this is a new type of “safe keeping place” mirroring the cultural protocols for the proper circulation, distribution, and viewing of cultural materials

Clifford Possum is Now Investable

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri Warlugulong 1977 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 385x220cm

I met Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri once. In the street in Redfern in 1999 where he was buying clothes before catching a plane to New York (or some such 'overseas' place). I was living in a warehouse space in the inner city suburb when one day the lady who worked downstairs in the clothes shop raced into our studio space yelling "Clifford Possum is downstairs right now!!". We feld down the long staircase and waited outside the shop until he had made his purchase. We approached him like one would a rock star. He was cheerful while his minder looked on as I presented The Art of Clifford Possum Tjapltjarri for him to sign. He said he didnt know writing so good. I said anything he wanted to mark the page with was alright with me so he scrawled his name , missing out the O in both Clifford and Possum. He did not use his tribal name. I thanked him for the mark and for his art, which when one spends some time with is really stunning. He mummbled that he did not need thanks and climed into the Volvo sedan that waited for him on the curb. And that was it. He left us in 2002 after a life of what we call art but he called stories. And now, five years later the cash registers are ringing.

Last week Warugulong (above) sold in Melbourne for 2.1 million US dollars to the National Gallery of Australia (nice that it stays in the country). Clifford Possum sold it for $1000 in 1977. While it is wonderful that Australian Aboriginal art has hit this level of monetary investment it makes me a bit sad whe I think about the communities that this art emerges from. Although there are many sorry stories to be told from indigenous communities in Australia when I was there recently there was a story about artists in the Kimberley using their work to fund a renal dialysis machine. Such a DIY approach is one example of what can be done.
The social and cultural benefits of Indigenous visual arts as per section (b) of the Inquiry into Australia’s Indigenous visual arts sector’s terms of reference is a paper from 2006 produced from a Senate inquiry into Indigenous visual arts and their role in communities. The spirit of Clifford Possum should be remember for the power of his art and the role it played in the collective knowledge of his people, rather than for the money that his work now fetches.

Aboriginal Affairs

There will be a federal election in Australia around September this year. The media climate in Australia is very political as a result. On Friday the Prime Minister announced a radical plan to combat child abuse on Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. The plan includes taking control of 60 Aboriginal communities, banning alcohol and pornography and compulsory medical examinations for all children under 16 years of age. The plan has ignited quite a debate and it is sure to continue if it come to be implemented. The report that is described as inspiring the Federal action is called Little Children are Precious and is available online HERE.
I feel the problems that will arise from such an approach will outweigh the present horrors. It would be better if those child protection services that are already in place should receive proper funding to deal with their backlog of cases. The community of Katherine in central Australia currently has one child protection Officer who is trained working with four Aboriginal assistants. How they are supposed to deal with the enormous range of problems is unknown. More background HERE.

The Referendum for Constitutional Change 40 years

The 27th May 2007 marks 40 years since the people of Australia voted yes to changing the constitution regarding Aboriginal people. The referendum concerned the removal of sections from two clauses of the constitution that disqualified Aboriginal people from the right to vote and be included as citizens:

51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:-

(xxvi) The people of any race, other than the aboriginal people in any State, for whom it is necessary to make special laws.

127. In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives should not be counted.

The removal of the words ‘… other than the aboriginal people in any State…' in section 51(xxvi) and the whole of section 127 were considered by many to be representative of the prevailing movement for political change within Indigenous affairs. As a result of the political climate, this referendum saw the highest YES vote ever recorded in a Federal referendum, with 90.77 per cent voting for change.

Although I was born two years after the referendum I feel that this was a high point in what has been general a very sorry story. I was among the first generation of Australians to grow up with Aboriginal people who were not classified as part of the flora and fauna of Australia. Rather, the indigenous people from 1967 were legally (if not practically as racism is rife in Australia) considered members of the community at large. That it only happened 40 years ago is an irony of bitter consequence.

Today things are not good but perhaps they are better than they were on 26th May 1967. Aboriginal disadvantage is common knowledge in Australia. New South Wales Minister for Fair Trading, Linda Burney (a member of the Wiradjuri nation) spoke at Wagga Wagga recently on what is happening at the moment regarding Aboriginal Australia:

"The truth is this we are not all equal. And we are not all mates … It is almost impossible to put into words the distress being felt at the roll-back in Aboriginal affairs. Not least because you think of all those people who gave so much."

The Prime Minister spoke today at Parliament house and was heckled; "We have been genocided by your government and your court," the unidentified woman yelled to loud applause from the gathered crowd.

Prime Minister Howard's ideas for overcoming Aboriginal disadvantage seem to be steeped in a paternalistic vision of assimilation:

"The right of an Aboriginal Australian to live on remote communal land and to speak an Indigenous language is no right at all if it is accompanied by grinding poverty, overcrowding, poor health, community violence and isolation from mainstream Australian society."

These remote, communally owned traditional lands are the only ones still controlled by Aboriginal groups. That they are isolated and not supported with infrastructure is a shame for the Government not the people that live there. Consider that a uranium mine built on land taken from "remote communal land" can be equipped with all the facilities found in a major city (sewage, electricity, access to education and so on) and it is not done for Aboriginal groups. One wonders about the rational behind such facts.

I found the text to former Prime Minister Paul Keating's speech given in Redfern Park in 1993;

More I think than most Australians recognise, the plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us all. In Redfern it might be tempting to think that the reality Aboriginal Australians face is somehow contained here, and that the rest of us are insulated from it. But of course, while all the dilemmas may exist here, they are far from contained. We know the same dilemmas and more are faced all over Australia.

This is why the status of Aboriginal Australians is important. Not until the crimes of the past and the present are dealt with mutually (and not by just avoiding the issue) through dialogue then the whole concept of Australian identity, for all Australians, is compromised.

Indigenous Peoples and New Media

Last year I spent a considerable amount of time advising a Masters student working in HUMlab. Billy Marius is from Congo-Brazzaville (Republic of Congo) and he spent several years working and living with some groups from the Pygmy peoples. Last year we spent time working together on his D Paper An Experimental Dialogue Between the Sami and The Pygmy Peoples. It is online now on the HUMlab papers website. I am proud to have been involved with this project as it compliments other work I have done, with the Sami in the Jokkmokk 2004 project and my support and some work with the Traditional Knowledge Recording Project in Aurukun, Australia with the Wik Aboriginal People.