Going On The Country

Saturday, April 12, was past, present, and future at the Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve.

“Ngatanwarr !”

“Welcome !  You are now standing on the Land of the Peek Whurrong, Tjap Whurrong, and the Kirrae Whurrong clans of the Gunditjmara Nation.”

The 150^th Anniversary Celebration, plus 50,000, of the Country.

The Framlingham Mission, the Mish, Fram, now Aboriginal Reserve, is a powerful place.  

A few more excerpts from the program….

“We have survived on our land. This short sentence carries a great burden and great expectations. Our people have lived here for many more than 1000 generations. The invasion of our Country by Europeans 7 generations ago robbed us of our land, our natural resources, our culture and way of life. Our people were murdered, killed by foreign disease, rounded up and put on reserves. Many European families became wealthy and powerful from stealing and exploiting our assets. If there is to be reconciliation the truth must be told and understood.”

“No longer do we live under the control of the Aboriginal Board of Protection Act. In 1967 we were granted the right to vote and be counted as Australian citizens. And in 1970-71 the Victorian Aboriginal Lands Act created Framlingham Aboriginal Trust and handed the Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve over to its traditional owners.”

It is a testament to the strength of telling the truth, and of the resilience of reconciliation, that this event was sponsored by the Framlingham Trust, in conjunction with the Australian Government and the State Government of Victoria. (and just like in Chico and many elsewheres, Rotary International helped with the parking.)

In Tasmania a month or so ago, I felt a great sadness in the land. It took me back to a dream and feeling from a long ago visit to Zacaleu, Mayan ruins outside of Huehuetenango in the northern mountains of Guatemala.  A massacre of Mayans on a massive scale took place there at the hands of Conquistadores. I fell asleep on a pyramid and heard the screams.

In Tasmania though it was sort of the reverse, but the causation much the same. It was the silence, the absence of any feeling of the first people, of things and spirits aboriginal.  The aboriginal custodians of the land in Tasmania were all, as in every last one, driven away or killed. A pained silence seemed all that was left behind.

Happily, in Framlingham the sounds, scents, and sentiments of the land are much more robust and complete. The Country and all it nurtures is just so alive and vital, that being stuck in the past is just not an option.

As now deceased local elder Banjo Clarke put it, “there is no past….everything is still happening.”

Or as the program put it…”We can’t change the past but we can shape the future.”

To enter on the land, to be in Country, was a real treat. A rare treat, as this event was thought to be the first time ever the non-aboriginal general public had been invited.

I had learned from previously reading Banjo Clarke’s transcribed oral history and autobiography Wisdom Man that being invited on to Country was of great importance to the social construct. Although there was a general invitation to the public, that invitation did not feel like a proper honoring of my understanding of going to one’s Country.

As luck or fate would have it, I had met and gotten to know one of Banjo’s adult daughters, Patricia Clarke, as she was an elder and representative in and for the local Koori Court. I arranged a meeting with her to ask permission to enter on her Country, which added a richness to the day, to the experience of being there.

Ever since we got to Warrnambool I had been attracted to the mouth of the Hopkins River, where it meets the sea. Estuaries have always been of great attraction and intrigue to me, where life begins and ecosystems meet.

Turns out that my elder friend Ms. Clarke wrote a book, The Rainbow Serpent of the Hopkins River. The Rainbow Serpent is a creation totem, one of the makers of Country. Life beginning and eco system creation. (Added bonus, Patricia is going to give me a copy!).

Hopkins Falls

Framlingham overlooks the Hopkins further up above the Falls. We got a tour to the river, to where the eel traps were. There was a sense of completion to my eel attraction.

From the river we went on to the cemetery. There was a burial section for the remains of unknown Aboriginals to be returned to the Country. Remains come from natural history museums in Europe, and from WWI AND II battle fields. Aboriginals volunteered and fought for Australia, but were not officially recognized. This resulted in burials overseas in unmarked graves.

One has to come home to Country, to continue the journey.

“See you in the Dreamtime” it said on the monument.

We toured the now closed school. The school where the uninvited black cars would come as public welfare officials stole a generation. 

We heard the music of Kutcha Edwards and Archie Roach, themselves both stolen children.

I got to talk with Kutcha, who I had met before at a Brophy House performance. Ann got to see her friend Tracy Roach making art with children. Our across-the-street neighbors Wayne and Deb were there. We met Deb’s parents.

We saw an eagle when we left.

There are so many pieces to an experience. Each one shapes and completes the whole.

In Journey To Ixlan by Carlos Casteneda, the “ending” is leaping off a cliff, continuing the journey in another dimension.

We are almost ready to jump, to come home to our Country to continue the journey.