CULTURE IN AN ORGANIZATION

QUESTION

CUL00412
Indigenous Ways of
Cultural Expression
Written by: Marcelle Townsend-Cross
Graphics: Jolanda Nayutah
Cover Painting: Irene Daley
Study Guide
Second edition
© 2008 Southern Cross University
Southern Cross University
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East Lismore NSW 2480
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First edition undated
Second edition
Contents
Welcome to students ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 1
About the writer ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1
Using the study guide ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 1
Topic 1  Overview …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Realistic expectations ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Definitions ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8
Topic 2  Indigenous Australia and the media …………………………………………………….. 9
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9
History of representation …………………………………………………………………………………… 9
Indigenous media …………………………………………………………………………………………… 13
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17
Topic 3  Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights ……………………….. 19
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19
Appropriation of Indigenous heritage rights ………………………………………………………. 22
Recommended reforms …………………………………………………………………………………… 26
Recent reforms ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 27
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 29
Topic 4  Orality: Oral literature ……………………………………………………………………………… 31
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 31
Classical orality ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 31
Neo-classical orality ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 36
Neo-classical story (written literature) ………………………………………………………………. 38
Neo-classical song (popular music) ………………………………………………………………….. 41
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 43
Topic 5  Iconography: visual literature ………………………………………………………………. 45
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 45
Classical iconography  ……………………………………………………………………………………. 46
Neo-classical iconography ………………………………………………………………………………. 49
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 51
Topic 6  Ritual: dramatic literature ……………………………………………………………………… 53
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 53
Classical ritual ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 53
Neo-classical ritual …………………………………………………………………………………………. 54
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 61
End note ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 62
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Welcome to students
Welcome to the unit CUL00412 Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression. I hope
you find this unit challenging, informative and interesting. I am looking forward
to working with you throughout this semester, and encourage you to contact me
regularly, via phone, email or the Internet, to discuss anything at all.
About the writer
My name is Marcelle Townsend-Cross and I am a Biripi (Manning River, midcoast,
NSW), Worimi
(Karuah River,
Hunter region, NSW) and Irish woman. I was
born
in Eora Country (Sydney area), grew up on beautiful Awabakal
Country (Lake
Macquarie
area, Hunter region, NSW) and these days, I’m privileged to reside, with
my
husband and kids, on Bundjalung Country (Northern NSW), in Lismore.
I am a graduate of the Bachelor Arts Degree (Contemporary Music), Southern Cross
University and have been lecturing in Indigenous Studies since 1999. My research
and professional activity focuses on defining and engaging Indigenous Australian
philosophies in relation to teaching, learning and practice in past, present and future
contexts. I am particularly dedicated to engaging Indigenous Australian values in
mainstream Australian social and education policy and practice.
Using the study guide
Included in your package of materials are the unit information, and the numbered
topics collectively referred to as the study guide. The unit information provides
assignment details, textbook details, contact details etc. while the study guide (topics)
contains the content and teaching aspects of the unit. It is important that you read both
of these documents carefully.
The study guide is designed to be fully self-instructional; that is, it takes the place of
traditional face-to-face lectures and tutorials. In most units the study guide is written
around one or more textbooks – the textbooks contain the content and the study guide
does the teaching. Occasionally there is no textbook, so the study guide presents all
the content as well. Either way, the study guide ‘guides’ you through the subject matter
of the unit in a systematic and structured way, using features such as hierarchical
headings and bold font to highlight key concepts and terms. It directs you when to
read your textbook or other supplied readings, and when to undertake self-assessment
activities to help you to see if you’re handling the content that has been presented.
So each topic is made up of three types of material: teaching (the lecturer/writer
‘talking’ to you), directions to read something, and directions to do something. Active
learning is really important, especially when you’re studying independently, and the
activities and review activities in each topic give you the opportunity to do something
with what you’ve just read or what you are about to read. Activities within the topic
are designed to help to check your understanding of individual concepts while review
activities at the end of topics are designed to draw together related concepts. All
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
activities and review activities should be attempted as you come across them, and
you should always try to answer the questions asked before looking at the feedback
provided!
In most units you will find a list of learning objectives at the beginning of each topic.
These are expressed in terms of what you should be able to do once you’ve studied the
material. The objectives cover a wide range of skills:
• knowledge: recalling information (e.g. define, name, label)
• comprehension: interpreting information in your own words (e.g. classify,
describe, discuss, explain, identify)
• application: applying knowledge to a new situation (e.g. apply, illustrate,
interpret, solve)
• analysis: breaking down knowledge into parts and showing the relationship
among the parts (e.g. analyse, calculate, compare, contrast, criticise, differentiate,
examine)
• synthesis: bringing together parts of knowledge to form a whole and building
relationships for new situations (e.g. construct, create, design, prepare)
• evaluation: making judgments on the basis of certain criteria (e.g. appraise,
argue, attack, defend, evaluate, predict).
It is important to realise that recalling knowledge is a very small part of what you
are required to do in your learning for this course. Rote learning is not appropriate
at this level of study. You must acquire skills of analysis, interpretation etc. and by
undertaking the activities and review activities you will gradually acquire these
important skills. The content of each topic and the activities set should all relate to
the objectives, so you should check off your achievement of each objective as you
complete each topic.
The study guide is also designed with lots of white space (wide margins as well
as space for you to attempt activities), to encourage you to make your own notes
throughout the materials. The materials belong to you, and you should learn to use
them effectively and efficiently to help you to learn.
Introduction
Topic 1
Overview
Indigenous peoples, their nations, languages, world-views and cultural expressions are
as diverse as the Australian environment; a multi-cultural collective of autonomous
nations/cultures sharing core values and philosophies. This is a simple to understand,
yet grossly misunderstood, crucial point. There has been an historical practice to
presume that Indigenous peoples are culturally homogenous, or the same.
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies,
http://
www.aiatsis.gov.au, has published a map that colourfully illustrates the diversity of
Indigenous nations in Australia today.
This unit will concentrate on the ‘shared core values and philosophies’ of Indigenous
world-views and cultural expressions, with examples from specific language and
cultural groups and communities, to illustrate the complexity, diversity, resonance
and resilience of Indigenous peoples and their cultural practices in the 21st century.
It is hoped that this unit might make a small, yet positive contribution to creating
an Australian environment of inter-cultural mutual understanding, relatedness and
Respect.
Realistic expectations
Definitions
After successfully completing this unit, we will not be ‘experts’ in Indigenous
expressions or issues, rather we will have developed an awareness of the differing
world-views and cultural heritage of Indigenous Australians, through Indigenous
interpretations of identity, culture and life experience in Australia.
Huge barriers of miscommunication and misinterpretation have been created between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians since colonialism began in Australia. Early
European perceptions of racial superiority saw the dispossession of Indigenous people,
their cultural, economic and social systems over-layed, ignored and/or appropriated by
European systems.
In attempting to broadly discuss and explore Indigenous cultural expressions,
problems arise in finding terminology that accurately reflects Indigenous cultural
complexity and diversity. Discussions about any culture in a foreign language are
fraught with difficulties; language is culture and when translating, much meaning is
at risk of being misinterpreted or lost. Therefore, as this unit is written in English and
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
explores the cultural expressions of several hundred language groups, it is important
that the terminology and concepts are carefully defined to assure that the terms used
substantively reflect and respect the peoples and cultures discussed.
Culture
Defining the term ‘culture’ will be useful when reflecting on issues in this unit.
Anthropologists discuss universal aspects of all cultures. These universal aspects are
usually described as ‘systems’ or ‘structures’ that fulfil requirements common to all
people’s survival such as food, shelter, companionship, language and so on. Culture
can be seen as the system of meanings that individuals use to make sense of their
world:
1. culture is universal in human experience, yet each culture is unique
2. cultures are stable, yet each contains an inner dynamic manifested in constant
change
3. culture fills and largely determines the course of individual lives, yet rarely
intrudes into conscious thought. (Harker & McConnochie, 1985, p. 25)
Cultural expressions are curious humanistic behaviours that a particular group of
people, who are either genetically, socially, politically or economically bound together,
undertake as public (and personal) statements of self, place, importance, relativity, as
reinforcing and continuum definitions of discrete identities and social interrelatedness.
These definitions shift with time and experience and, as a result the public display of
cultural expressions also shift accordingly (West, 1997).
The very idea of culture, therefore, is a complex concept. Often, in this day and age,
when we think of culture, we tend to think of something in the past or something that
other people have. We rarely think of culture in relation to ourselves in the ‘here and
now’.
Every culture is underpinned by a ‘world view’ that prescribes the underlying basis
of principles, values and beliefs for an individual to interpret and interact with their
world. The following quotes and reading might assist in the appreciation of some
general aspects of how Indigenous world views might differ from other world views:
Indigenous philosophies and worldviews take exploration of ‘self ’ or identity and
our relationship with everything within and around us along a deeper pathway,
that moves well beyond the intellectual or the physical. The individual identity
that is ‘your world’ is distinct and unique and encompasses what is within the
person aligned with what is around the person. However, that individual identity
is always unequivocally located in an ‘Our’ or ‘We’ that Indigenous worldviews
recognise as a collective identity…Indigenous philosophies and worldviews
will talk about, what could be described as an alignment or partnership between
the individual and collective identity that is experienced simultaneously. I am a
human being with my own unique attributes that make me who I am, however
my relationship with my mob(s), cultural landscape and all that live and breathe
within this landscape are also in my ‘world’ and therefore, an integral part of
my identity or ‘self ’; there is no real separation – everyone and everything is
relational…
(Atkinson, Blomeley & Lynwood, 2007, p. 19).
The view from the inside of Yarralin people’s world views is one of a multicentred
world in which each centre is structurally equivalent, and linked, to
every
other centre – each part or centre has its own world-view.
To
be wise, as I
understand
it, is to know that there is only viewpoint.
(Debra Bird Rose, 2000, p. 222).
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CUL00412 Topic 1 – Overview
Pattern thinking is Aboriginal thinking. There is no big boss. Patterns are about
belonging. Nothing is separate from anything else. The land is not separate from
nature, people, the heavens, ancient stories. Everything belongs in the pattern.
There is no ownership in pattern thinking. Only Belonging. Money cannot buy
bits of a pattern. Power runs all through a pattern. It cannot be sold. It is not
separate from the pattern.
Reading 1
Billy Neidjie’s ‘Story About Feeling’, 1989.
Invasion
(David Mowaljarli, cited in Stockton, 1995, pp. 42–43).
While there have been criticisms and opposition to Indigenous accounts of their
experiences throughout colonial Australian history (try a Google search on Keith
Windshuttle for example), it is the thesis of this unit that from 1788 Indigenous
Australian lands were invaded and Indigenous sovereignty (rights to land ownership)
usurped by British law, based on the legal fiction terra nullius, meaning unoccupied
land belonging to no-one. This basis rested on the concepts of racial superiority as
well as a failure to recognise complex Indigenous cultural practices of kinship and
social structures, environmental management (agriculture), communication, literature
and education. Further, through progressive colonial government legislations of
protection, assimilation, the White Australia policy and the subsequent legacy of
racism, Indigenous Australians have been subjected to oppression and discrimination,
the effects of which are still strongly felt today.
If this is the first Indigenous unit you have engaged then you are required to read the
following readings. If you have previously studied Indigenous studies units you are
encouraged to review the issues presented in the readings.
Reading 2
Excerpts from Hollingsworth, (1998), pp. 77–88, 109–116, 120–125, cover in detail:
• invasion
• Indigenous women and colonisation
• enduring theories of Indigenous inferiority
• protection
• imperial humanitarianism
• racism through education
• segregation and institutionalisation
• the ‘problem’ of children of mixed Indigenous and non-Indigenous descent
– issues of ‘caste’.
Reading 3
Excerpts from McConnochie, Hollinsworth & Pettman, (1988), Race & Racism in
Australia, pp. 109–121, 125–127, which cover in detail:
• assimilation policies in various states
• strategies for assimilation
• amendments to assimilation legislation
• the Referendum.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Classical and neo-classical
When discussing Indigenous peoples and their cultures there has been a tendency
to ‘culturally fossilise’, or separate the ‘traditional’ from the ‘contemporary’
without recognition of the fluidity and adaptability of people and culture. Culture is
fluid, innovative and constantly modifying to adapt to the ever-changing physical,
spiritual, social and political environment. Binary uses of the terms ‘traditional’ and
‘contemporary’ tend to imply that Indigenous Australians’ discrete cultural practices
ceased, or became hopelessly contaminated once in contact with western cultures.
In his book Milli Milli Wangka The Indigenous Literature of Australia, Mudrooroo
clarifies this issue by discussing ‘hybridity’ or cultural fossilisation:
Hybridity in regard to culture is a term coined by post-colonial academics
to understand or rather talk about such things as contemporary Indigenous
Culture[s]. It rests on the belief that there can be such a thing as a pure culture
uncontaminated by outside sources … I might argue that there is an Indigenous
impulse which gives rise to ‘culture’ based on the environment but this is
process and keeps changing according to the environment and by environment I
include influences from other peoples as may be found in Indigenous culture[s],
especially Arnhem Land, these influences arriving by sea before the invasion.
Defining ‘culture’ as pure or hybrid seems to be a trap into which postcolonialists
have fallen. It postulates a prehistoric time for those once-colonised
peoples
when there existed ‘pure culture[s]’, then along came imperialism
and
contaminated these cultures. This
belief excludes the subjectivity of such
peoples,
both individual and collective, rendering them into objects to be acted
upon
by a superior conscious force, rather than conscious subjects reacting to
actions,
modifying and adjusting their communities and cultures (as they had
always
done) to new influences.
(Mudrooroo, 1997, p. 108).
Therefore the terms ‘classical’ and ‘neo-classical’ are used in this unit as alternatives
to the terms ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’. The term ‘Classical’, first applied to
refer to the art, literature and architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, is used today
to describe any literary traditions that are considered to be the epitome, or essence,
of a particular culture’s ancient practices (Delbridge & Bernard, 1982, p. 203), ‘of or
characteristic of a form or system felt to be of first significance before modern times
… of recognized authority or excellence …’ (
http://www.infoplease.com/thesaurus/
classical).
The term ‘neo-classical’ was first applied to art forms inspired or influenced by the
traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. Similarly today, the term is used to describe
literary traditions that have been inspired by any classical literary tradition,
‘… belonging or pertaining to a revival of classic styles or something that is held to
resemble classic styles …’ (
http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0550980.html).
Indigenous literature
Outside observers recognise the strong oral traditions in Indigenous cultures, but
have largely failed to recognise the formal literary traditions inherent in those
cultures. These ‘complex codes of script’ have commonly been ‘misinterpreted as art’
(Japanangka Errol West, 2000).
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CUL00412 Topic 1 – Overview
This unit employs the term ‘literature’ to describe Indigenous literary traditions
that find permanency in cultural practice beyond the confines of the written word.
Indigenous literature can be described as having three interconnected components:
•     Orality – language – song lyrics, narrative (story telling, oral history)
•     Iconography or Symbolism – visual symbols
•     Drama/Ritual – ceremony, dance, dramatic enactments and re-enactments of
history.
The language, symbols, sounds and movement of literature relate to patterns, sounds
and movement manifest in nature. The natural environment is ‘a vast sign system’
(Sutton, 1998, p. 19); Classical Indigenous literature is based on that system.
‘Maban reality’
Indigenous world-views hold that spiritual motivation comes from the Dreaming and
the Dreaming is a continuing process and ever present. This ‘metaphysical’ or spiritual
‘reality’ is considered as real and equal to ‘natural’ or material reality. Mudrooroo has
coined the phrase ‘maban reality’ to describe this concept, also known in European
literature as ‘magic realism’.
Maban reality might be characterised by a firm grounding in the reality of the earth
or country, together with an acceptance of the supernatural as part of everyday reality
(Mudrooroo, 1997, p. 97).
Reading 4
Mudrooroo, Milli Milli Wangka, pp. 90–94, 98–102, 103–104, where Mudrooroo
compares maban reality with ‘natural scientic reality’ and analyses several Indigenous
works which employ maban reality.
Indigenous & Aborigine/al
The terms ‘Aborigine’ and ‘Indigenous’ have been applied, since invasion, to the
original inhabitants of Australia, by outside observers in an attempt to define the
original inhabitants into one generic category.
Indigenous Australians define themselves by their own discrete, regional and culturally
appropriate, terms such as Bundjalung, Eora, Biripi, Yolngu, Arrente, Warlpiri, Koori,
Goori Murri, Nyungar, and so on.
For the purposes of writing in this unit, the terms Aborigine/al and/or Indigenous, are
acceptable, however please note the following:
Indigenous with a capital, refers to Australian Indigenous peoples
indigenous without a capital, refers globally to indigenous peoples
Aborigine is a noun that, with a capital, refers to Australian Indigenous
peoples
aborigine is a noun that, without a capital, refers globally to indigenous
peoples
Aboriginal is an adjective. This term has been used like a noun for a long time
– ‘I am an Aboriginal’. This is acceptable in some groups but for
the purposes of this unit, this term will be used as an adjective, i.e.
Aboriginal person or thing
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Activity
Think about the place where you live. What terms of reference are used in your local
Summary
area when referring to Indigenous Australians?
Do you think they are accurate terms defined by the people themselves, or are they
general terms applied by non-Indigenous Australians?
If you don’t already know, find out the terms that the Indigenous Australians in your
area use to define themselves.
This topic has defined terms of reference and definitions related to:
• cultural diversity – there are many Indigenous Australian nations and cultures
• culture – is universal though often not reflected upon
• invasion – of Indigenous Australian lands – 1788
• classical and neo-classical – alternative terms for ‘traditional’ and
‘contemporary’
• Indigenous literature – orality, symbolism and ritual
• Indigenous and Aborigine/al – with capitals refers to Australian peoples, with
lower case refers globally.
These issues are important as they form the basis for further discussion in the unit. You
are strongly encouraged to critically consider these issues when reading and writing as
you work through the rest of the topics.
Introduction
Topic 2
Indigenous Australia
and the media
Australian media, since earliest colonial times, has been produced and controlled
by Europeans, promoting the development of European ideas, concepts, strategies,
policies and popular beliefs. Representations of Indigenous Australians in the media
have therefore been designed, produced and controlled by Europeans, based on those
popular beliefs, with no or minimal communication with Indigenous Australians.
Indigenous Australians are still combating stereotypical images promoted in the media
today.
Australian media communication networks, including recent media technologies, have
historically focused on the needs of the more affluent non-Indigenous communities.
Until the emergence of community radio in Australia, Indigenous Australians
had extremely limited opportunities for input and control of media production.
Furthermore, technology has been implemented by successive governments with no
social or cultural considerations or consultations with Indigenous communities.
While there are at least 150 Indigenous media organisations today, the most powerful
media organisations in Australia are still owned and controlled by very wealthy, nonIndigenous
people, therefore, representations of Indigenous Australians
are largely

produced
and controlled from non-Indigenous perspectives.
History of representation
Early colonial media performed the task of promoting the developing European racist
theories of non-Europeans as ‘primitive’, ‘savage’, ‘uncivilised’ and even ‘subhuman’.
Indigenous Australians
were invariably described as ‘barbaric’, ‘angry’,
‘murderous’,
‘dark’, ‘mysterious’
and destined to ‘die out’
in the face of European
civilisation.
Early accounts have been published in Henry Reynold’s
work Frontier:
… wild and gothic minded savages cradled in wilderness, amidst the horrors of
houseless and garnerless vagrancy
(Letter to the Editor, Hobart Town Gazette, 1825, cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 108).
… they [Indigenous Australians] will and must become extinct….[savage nations]
must be exterminated
(Editorial, Sydney Herald, 1835, cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 54).
Colonial media advocated the ‘rights’ of the British to occupy the land, defending and
justifying dispossession and extermination by referring to Indigenous resistance as
‘murderous treachery’.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
… a war of extermination is the only policy to pursue, the alternative being an
abandonment of the country which no sane man will advocate for an instant
(Editorial, Peak Downs Telegram, Clermont, 1867, cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 56).
Indians Africans and Maoris were never guilty of such acts of black ingratitude
and hellish treachery…not a particle of manhood or even brute bravery about the
Aboriginal, his weapons being treachery patiently nursed’
(Editorial, Cooktown Independent, QLD, 1899, cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 43).
Representations made in defence of Indigenous Australians were patronising and
paternal, like the next few examples. The first is advice from the South Australian
Chief Protector of Aborigines in 1839 for the removal of Indigenous children from
their families in order to expedite the ‘civilisation’ process. Next is an editorial calling
for the end of cruelty toward Aborigines, followed by advice on how Indigenous
Australians might be ‘tamed’ rather than exterminated!
Our chief hope is now decidedly in the children; and the complete success as far
as regards their education and civilisation would be before us, if it were possible
to remove them from the influence of their parents
(cited in Hollingsworth, 1998, p. 80).
Whilst we regard the disappearance of the black race before the face of the
white man is an inevitable fact … as one of the conditions of successful
colonization, we must protest … against seeking to attain this end by a ruthless
and indiscriminate extermination of the doomed race. Their extinction is only a
question of time, and no unnecessary cruelty should be used to affect a result that
the operation of natural causes will certainly accomplish.
(Editorial, Rockhampton Bulletin, 1865, cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 55)
Like animals, the blacks were in many respects tameable, but as with animals a
taint of savagery remained even when the taming was complete
(Letter to the Editor, Melbourne Review, 1878, cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 71–72)
The endurance of these theories and misguided attitudes is well illustrated in early
20th century media.
… [Aborigines] having a much less highly developed nervous system, feel pain to
a much less extent than we do …
(H. Pitts, The Australian Aborigines and the Christian Church, 1914,
cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 121)
Historians too, continued to promote these kinds of theories. The 1959 publication of
the official centenary history of Queensland is a shocking reminder of the endurance
of racist theories:
… it is usual to assess the Aboriginals … by comparison with mature or, indeed
primitive civilizations … [but] … they must be considered as nomads of the
jungle or savannah or desert, comparable with the animal groups that inhabited
those areas, for which they felt … an affinity. If their reactions are estimated
along those lines, they become logical and understandable. Like other nomadic
food gathers … the Aboriginal ignored what he did not comprehend or showed
indifference, rather than astonishment, when faced by something he failed to
classify among his schedules of experience. Like his own half-wild dogs, he
could be frozen into shivering immobility or put to frenzied flight by people
or things that provided impressions of terror … Like his dogs, too, he could be
cowed by direct and confident stare into a wary armed truce, but would probably
attack with fury if an opponent showed signs of fear … These are primitive
reactions common to many feral jungle creatures, and not uncommon to higher
races.
Cilento and Lack, 1959, Triumph in the Tropics, official centenary history of Queensland,
(cited in Reynolds, 1987, p. 128).
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CUL00412 Topic 2 – Indigenous Australians and the media
Indigenous women and colonisation
Representations of Indigenous women were particularly cruel. Hollingsworth has
noted that British men in Sydney Cove in 1788:
recorded their impressions of Aboriginal women as either ‘wanton strumpets’ or
‘shy maids’
(Hollingsworth, 1998, p. 79).
Most Europeans wrongly perceived Indigenous women as being completely
subservient to Indigenous men so justified their abduction by European men as sexual
partners. These women were often kept like slaves:
If half the young lubras now being detained (I won’t call it kept, for I know most
of them would clear away if they could) were approached on the subject, they
would say that they were run down by station blackguards on horseback, and
taken to the stations for licentious purposes, and kept there more like slaves than
anything else. I have heard it said that these same lubras have been locked up for
weeks at a time … whilst their heartless persecutors have been mustering cattle
… Some I have heard, take their lubras with them, but take precaution to tie them
up securely for the night to prevent them escaping
(Testimony of Constable Thorpe to the 1899 South Australian Select Committee on Aborigines,
cited in Hollingsworth, 1998, p. 83).
In defence of the abduction of Aboriginal women, the ‘ … 1884 Queensland Colonial
Secretary, AH Palmer, asserted that it was impossible to rape an Aboriginal woman
because “Anyone who knew anything about the blacks knew that they had no idea of
chastity – that a fig of tobacco would purchase any woman’’’ (cited in Hollingsworth,
1998, p. 83).
In a publication by historian SH Roberts in 1964, The Sqatting Age in Australia, it was
declared ‘that innocent shepherds were corrupted’ and ‘given’ sexually transmitted
diseases by Indigenous women! (Hollingsworth, 1998, p. 83).
Humanitarians and the media
Humanitarians gained some success through the media at raising public awareness
of the mistreatment of Indigenous Australians. The coverage of a massacre in the
Kimberleys in 1926 and the consequent public outrage forced a Royal Commission
investigation. Despite this, coverage of Indigenous issues remained rare and sporadic
without any real follow-up stories, therefore easily forgotten by the public. Media
coverage portrayed Indigenous Australians as helpless, pitiful, and incapable of
independence. The use of language has often been a tool to ‘soften’ the truth.
Massacres of Indigenous Australians during the Queensland invasion were described
as ‘frontier expansion’ where Indigenous people were ‘dispersed’ and dispossession
described as ‘resettlement’. White ‘experts’ were interviewed, Indigenous Australians
opinions or perspectives were rarely sought. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
Indigenous Australians actively struggled for their rights to represent and report on
themselves in Australian mainstream media.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Contemporary media
Indigenous political issues since the 1980s, particularly leading up to the Bicentenary
celebrations in 1988, have been given increasing media coverage: land rights, housing,
education, health and racism. Editorial coverage became more sympathetic toward
Indigenous issues and more critical of government and its representatives, although
Indigenous Australians have continued to be portrayed through stereotypes constructed
through non-Indigenous perspectives. As Mick Dodson points out Europeans have
‘left a legacy of definition’, where:
[i]n the construction of ‘Aboriginality’, we have been objects to be manipulated
and used to further the aspirations of other peoples.
(Dodson, The Wentworth Lecture, 1994).
Improved coverage of Indigenous issues has not meant that the media has served to
factually represent Indigenous Australian interests. According to Molnar & Meadows,
research over the past 20 years shows that Australian journalists access Indigenous
sources between 1/5 to 1/3 of the rate of non-Indigenous sources when presenting
stories about Indigenous issues. As they point out, ‘This omission of alternative
voices is a continuing practice, which enables perpetuation of dominant ideas and
assumptions about Indigenous People’ (2001, p. xx.)
Reading 5
Mick Dodson, 1994, ‘The end in the beginning: re(de)finding Aboriginality’, in
Australian Aboriginal Studies, 1994/number 1, pp. 9–20.
News
In modern times, Indigenous Australians are largely represented in two mainstream
media genres: news and advertising. In the news, Indigenous Australians are
consistently shown as sources of crime, disorder, protest and conflict. When
Indigenous groups do not present unity of opinion, it is described as ‘factionalism’ and
‘in-group fighting’. Non-Indigenous disagreement is described as vital and intelligent
debate, part of all Australians right to free speech.
Bennett describes the way ‘news’ is presented as:
the ‘photo-opportunity’– the press conference, the ‘media launch’, the rally, the
march, the use of prominent individuals. ‘News’ is therefore a story which is
graphic or which involves conflict, rather than … ‘human interest’.
(Bennett, Aborigines and the Media in White Politics and Black Australians, 1993, p. 185).
Therefore news does not necessarily convey what is important, it conveys only what
is of interest to its readers/viewers. Unfortunately, the public are often more interested
in the ‘strange and sensational’ or stories that complement or justify their own attitude,
rather than alternative perspectives.
Advertising
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CUL00412 Topic 2 – Indigenous Australians and the media
Government and media attempts to construct and promote Australian national identity
concepts have led to the portrayal of Indigenous Australians as ‘symbols of white
Australia’. This has occurred mainly in the advertising genre. When Indigenous people
or motifs are presented, they are usually presented in pre-invasion ‘fossilised’ ways
– the harsh desert environment, didgeridoo in the background and the near naked,
bearded, spear toting man. Many non-Indigenous groups have reaped enormous
economic benefits from appropriating Indigenous images, products and languages.
Activity
Media Watch – Pay special attention to the media over the next two weeks. Note the
inclusion or absence of representations of Indigenous people and the nature of the
representations. Access a wide variety of media including mainstream and Indigenous
produced material.
Indigenous media
Broad complex communication networks have existed in Australia since ancient
times – songlines, trade routes and ceremonial gatherings provided the basis for these
networks, which were ignored and over-layed by European systems. Even so, less
than 50 years after Invasion, Indigenous groups were accessing European media and
western-style politics as a form of resistance and to demand social justice and human
rights. While Indigenous Australians have been misrepresented and stereotyped
through the media since Invasion, they have not been passive when it comes to the
media. Indigenous groups are actively utilising the media as a tool of resistance, or a
form of ‘cultural control’.
Smaller Indigenous groups related by specific language, culture and country have
more commonly initiated this resistance. These groups generally work to empower the
local group and culture through adoption of media and communication technologies
that are considered appropriate to the group’s classical forms of communication.
This technology does not ‘replace’ classical communication forms; rather it provides
another vehicle for communication, creating a new ‘cultural product’ borne of the
classical form or ‘essence’.
As well as the publications explored below, there have been many community-based
publications, like newsletters, which often use local language and are largely unknown
to the wider public.
Print media
The Flinders Island Chronicle was the first handwritten manuscript Indigenous
newspaper, published in 1836 where Indigenous Tasmanians began a process of
protest that culminated in 1846 with a petition to Queen Victoria reporting on the
colonial Government’s broken agreements with local Tasmanian groups.
Reading 6
Reading 6 is a transcript of the petition to Queen Victoria cited in Attwood and Markus,
1999, pp. 38–39.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
In 1938, The ‘Aborigines Progressive Association’ (APA) published Abo Call: The
Voice of Aborigines. This paper was a vehicle for the APA to project an Indigenous
political voice in a broader context. The Abo Call masthead stated that the newspaper
represented ‘over 80,000 Australian Aborigines’ and called for ‘Education,
Opportunity, and Full Citizen Rights’ for Indigenous Australians.
Indigenous media publications increased dramatically from the 1960s and 1970s,
particularly those concerned with land rights issues and with responding to racist
media representations. Indigenous media groups demanded control of Indigenous
representations.
In 1991 the Koori Mail emerged as a national Indigenous newspaper, and today is one
of the few Indigenous newspapers that is completely independent after repaying an
initial start-up loan from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission.
Activity
Pick up a copy of the Koori Mail from your local newsagent, or go to the Koori Mail
website http://www.koorimail.com and have a look at ‘Australia’s premier Indigenous
newspaper’.
Read through some articles and include the Koori Mail in your Media Watch Activity.
This will be a good place to start in comparing representations in Indigenous and nonIndigenous
media.
Reading 7
Reading 7 is a chronology of Indigenous newspapers in Australia, which gives
an overview of the more prominent Indigenous publications (Molnar & Meadows,
Songlines to Satellites, 2001, p. 214).
Despite the growing number of Indigenous publications, very few Indigenous people
work in print media, largely due to a lack of culturally appropriate training programs.
Also, to access and utilise media technology, some type of economic base is necessary.
Indigenous media has had to rely on government funding. The funding bodies
servicing Indigenous media are numerous, creating a situation where submissions for
funding are time-consuming and onerous. Typically these government departments are
often driven by their own agendas, restricting real Indigenous input.
Radio
The first Indigenous radio program went to air in South Australia in 1972, closely
followed by the emergence of Community Radio in Australia in 1974, which has
become the most accessed media by Indigenous Australians. Since then Indigenous
produced programs have increased to the point where at the end of the 1990s, there
were 95 licensed Indigenous radio stations.
Radio works for Indigenous Australians because it is cheaper than other technologies
and it is a very ‘oral’ form of communication, much less dependent on the written
word than print media. Radio provides an opportunity for Indigenous communities
to use local language as a vehicle for maintenance and promotion of local cultural
identity.
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CUL00412 Topic 2 – Indigenous Australians and the media
Activity
Go to http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nl/9306/0068.html where the Chairperson of

the National Indigenous Media Association of Australia in 1993, Tiga Bayles, discusses
some of the barriers to developing Indigenous radio in Australia.
As well as community radio, there are two Indigenous Radio Networks, National
Indigenous Radio Service (NIRS) launched in 1996 and The Aboriginal Program
Exchange (TAPE), launched in 1985. The NIRS has the capacity for 200 community
radio stations to broadcast locally and link with national programming. NIRS aims to
link all Indigenous community radio as a long-term goal. TAPE distributes programs
weekly on audio-cassette, to all Indigenous Media Associations broadcasting on nonIndigenous
Community Radio.
Indigenous media associations
CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association) was the first Indigenous
media association in Australia, set up in the early 1980s. CAAMA continues
successful operation and these days produces radio, music, video and other media
productions.
Activity
Go to http://www.caama.com.au for background information on CAAMA and their

current activities.
Today, there are approximately 150 Indigenous media associations, of which at least
twelve are major regional associations with radio licences and a range of productions
including video and TV. The National Indigenous Media Association of Australia
(NIMAA), established in 1992, is the peak national body that represents Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people, communities and organisations that work in
the media and communications industry. NIMAA aims to culturally, socially and
economically empower Indigenous people through the provision of accessible and
cost effective media and communications services and to inform the wider community
about the rich cultures, heritage and goals of the Indigenous people of Australia.
Activity
Go to http://www.nirs.org.au/, http://www.gadigal.org.au and http://www.gme.com.au
for information on Indigenous media associations.
TV, film and video
In the mid-1980s, the government decided to adopt a policy of satellite broadcasting
technology. Mass media and satellite technologies initially threatened Indigenous
language and culture groups. These groups were concerned about the ‘saturation’ level
of western culture and language that satellite would bring to their communities.
The Aboriginal child … listens all day and night to only English. The child is
bound to feel that their parents and their language are not important. It’s our duty
to make sure this does not happen. It’s our duty to point out that we will always
be Aboriginal and what makes us Aboriginal is our language, our customs and
our community
(CAAMA Report, July 1987 cited in Molnar & Meadows, 2001, p. 3).
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
The government’s Broadcasting for Remote Communities Scheme (BRACS) began
in 1987, providing satellite access to remote Australians. Unfortunately, like many
government initiatives, BRACS was introduced without consultation with Indigenous
communities. Indigenous communities and government representatives met to discuss
these fears and four Remote Commercial TV Services were licensed as a result.
Licences were to enable specific need media services to local Indigenous groups. Two
‘pirate’ Indigenous TV stations at Yuendumu by the Walpiri Media Association, and
at Ernabella, the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Media Association were established.
These groups were concerned with making local TV in local languages to fight the
introduction of mass non-Indigenous programming.
After initial fears of European language and cultural invasion in their communities,
Indigenous Australians are now using TV and video to strengthen, maintain and
promote language and culture.
Reading 8
Eric Michaels, For a Cultural Future: Francis Jupurrurla Makes TV at Yuendumu (Bad
Aboriginal Art, 1987, pp. 99–125) which is an analysis of the complexities of sharing
information in a Walpiri Community through film.
Communities such as Yuendumu, since TV emerged, have recorded 100s of hours of
video in their own languages, recording their cultures to maintain and promote culture
in their own communities. Unfortunately, this is the case for only a few Indigenous
communities.
Reading 9
This is a chronology of Indigenous Broadcasting in Australia (Molnar & Meadows,
Songlines to Satellites, 2001, p. 215.)
Internet
Indigenous Australians are embracing, accessing and producing Internet opportunities
to promote culture, enhance economic opportunities and to define and control
representations of themselves.
Activity
Go to http://usmob.com.au/ to visit and interact central desert community.
New media
New Media describes a range of innovative and cross-disciplinary art products
involving the Internet, film and video, multi-media installations, digital and computergenerated
art with traditional art forms.  Terri
Janke describes New Media as:
… generally a collaborative practice where artists engage with performance,
digital technologies and cross-disciplinary art forms to produce a range of
performance, installation and screen-based artworks.  It can also explore
the creative synthesis of art and emerging science and technology fields …
sometimes referred to as cross-disciplinary art, hybrid art or as fusion.
(Janke, New Media Cultures, 2002, p. 3)
Conclusion
17
CUL00412 Topic 2 – Indigenous Australians and the media
Current Indigenous New Media artists include Brook Andrew, Tina Baum, Brenda L
Croft, Destiny Deacon, Jenny Fraser, Jason Hampton, Dianne Jones, Jonathon Jones,
Rea, Michael Riley and Christian Thompson (Janke, New Media Cultures, 2002, p. 5).
Indigenous Australians have taken positive opportunities through media to produce
forms of media that communicate and archive contemporary Indigenous ways
of cultural expression. These new cultural ‘products’ are continuums of ancient
traditions, forming a communication network that is compatible with modern media
technologies. These new cultural forms enhance the continued development of
Indigenous ways of cultural expression and act as mechanisms of ‘cultural control’ for
the maintenance of identity, culture and language in Indigenous communities.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Introduction
Topic 3
Indigenous intellectual
and cultural property
rights
Since Invasion, Indigenous knowledges, images and cultural expressions have been
used by non-Indigenous people for purposes other than those prescribed by Indigenous
Laws. Indigenous Australians object to the use of their knowledge and cultures that do
not follow Law, particularly uses that further non-Indigenous economics and culture,
without recognition of Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights. Much of
the information for this topic has been drawn from the law report, Our Culture, Our
Future, written by Indigenous solicitor, Terri Janke in 1997.
Indigenous intellectual and cultural property
Indigenous world-views hold that everything is connected and related. Indigenous
knowledges, literatures, technologies, social practices, languages and other forms
of cultural expression were prescribed by the Spirit Ancestors in the Dreamtime and
have been faithfully handed down through the generations for millennia. These forms
of expression are important aspects of Indigenous cultural knowledge, power and
identity.
Indigenous societies have complex intellectual and cultural property laws that protect
the intellectual property of groups and individuals within society. Any theft of another
person’s song or design, for example, attracts severe penalty. The Laws prescribe an
individual’s role in practicing culture, based on that individual’s relationships within
the community, within the Law (spiritually) and within country. For instance, rights to
perform a songline or depict a design are custodial; Laws do not allow ownership to be
sold or transferred in any way. Custodianship involves responsibility to sing or depict
(or not) in appropriate ways, in accordance with the Law. Any inappropriate change or
transferral (even theft) of the design reflects on the custodian.
Reading 10
Reproduction of Jimmy Pike’s design. This design by artist Jimmy Pike shows how his
design is like his ‘trademark’.
Given that Indigenous knowledge is collectively owned, only the group as
a whole may consent to the sharing of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual
Property … consent is given through specific decision-making procedures which
differ depending on the nature of the particular cultural item … [and] may differ
from group to group.
(Janke, 1997, p. 25).
19
20
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Reading 11
This is well illustrated in this excerpt where the Warramirri people illustrate in their
book, The Universe of the Warrimirri, the extensive consultative measures undertaken
prior to publication.
In a report to the United Nations in 1993, Ms Erica-Irene Daes both defines
Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights (Heritage Rights) and describes
the nature of ownership of indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights. The
report refers to the ‘integrated’ and ‘interrelated’ nature of Indigenous Heritage and
the inappropriateness of attempts to ‘subdivide’ elements of Heritage into separate
categories for the purposes of exercising non-Indigenous Australian intellectual
property laws:
[A]ll elements of heritage should be managed and protected as a single,
interrelated and integrated whole … heritage includes all expressions of the
relationship between the people, their land and the other living beings and
spirits which share the land, and is the basis for maintaining social, economic
and diplomatic relationships – through sharing – with other peoples. All of the
aspects of heritage are interrelated and cannot be separated from the traditional
Territory of the people concerned. What tangible and intangible items constitute
the heritage of a particular indigenous people must be decided by the people
themselves
(cited in Janke, 1997, p. 24).
Heritage can never be alienated, surrendered or sold, except for conditional
use. Sharing therefore creates a relationship between the givers and receivers
of knowledge. The givers retain the authority to ensure that knowledge is used
properly and the receivers continue to recognise and repay the gift
(cited in Janke, 1997, p. 25).
European intellectual property notions and laws
The concept of property rights applying to knowledge and ideas was developed
in England and Europe in the latter part of the 15th Century. The invention of the
printing press enabled works to be copied in an unprecedented manner. Statutes
were introduced to protect individual creations and inventions to encourage
trade and to censor the wide circulation of undesirable ideas. Today’s intellectual
property laws originate from this era. (Janke, 1997, p. 24).
In 1967 the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organisation
defined ‘Intellectual Property’ as a generic term describing the different kinds of
property rights given to individual ideas and production of those ideas. Knowledge,
while intangible, is ‘property’ which is able to be ‘owned’ just as any tangible item
is able to be owned. Ownership prevents others from using or copying the idea
or creation without permission. These rights are based on individual notions of
ownership.
Australian intellectual property laws are based on economic considerations for
individuals, lasting for a limited time period, conflicting with Indigenous notions of
cultural integrity and communal ownership in perpetuity. The Australian Copyright
Act of 1968, for example, recognises and defines the intellectual property rights that
exist in an artistic work and allows the author to own and control the reproduction of
their work, but only for a lifetime plus 50 years.
21
CUL00412 Topic 3 – Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights
In some respects, the Australian copyright laws and Indigenous cultural and
intellectual property laws closely parallel one another in their requirements, although
in other respects are in complete conflict. I believe this is best understood from the
perspective of Indigenous artist Banduk Marika when she was interviewed in Sydney
in 1986:
The European art world don’t recognise the automatic copyright in the
Aboriginal art world. The European art world has copyright – to each individual
artist. Unless you get permission from the artists to use his work, you don’t use
it – every European person knows that. But every Aboriginal person knows the
traditional way too – like when you see some design from the Centre, you don’t
touch it because it’s not yours – that’s theirs. And I wouldn’t even go and ask the
Centre person to use their work anyway, because there’s no need to, you’ve got
your own designs.
But they also don’t understand the individual: I’ve got to make my work look
as my own, I’ve got to have my own idea, I’ve gotta have my own originality.
I can’t make it look exactly like everybody else’s in my family. There might be
similarity, you can relate your work to your father’s or mother’s – but it’s still
yours, it’s still your own design. Same as this Pitjantjatjara woman here. It might
be similar sort of work to Papunya artists up there, but it’s her own – she just
thought about her grandmothers, which land is her grandmother’s or aunty’s
– and then she sat down and just did it.
Indigenous people have never asked that non-Indigenous people adhere to their
complex and often private Laws. They do expect that Australian laws recognise that
Indigenous Laws exist, are as important to Indigenous people as European law is
to Europeans and that current Australian laws are inadequate in the protection of
Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights.
Non-Indigenous notions of intellectual property v.
Indigenous notions of Indigenous intellectual and
cultural property
The following table sets out the main differences between Indigenous and nonIndigenous
notions of intellectual property.
Non-Indigenous Indigenous
Emphasis on material form Generally orally transmitted
Emphasis on economic rights Emphasis on preservation and
maintenance of culture
Individually based – created by individuals Socially based – created through the
generations via the transmission process
Intellectual property rights are owned by
individual creators or their employers and
research companies
Intellectual property can be freely transmitted
and assigned – usually for economic returns
– for a set time, in any medium and in any
territory
Intellectual property rights holders can decide
how or by whom the information can be
transmitted, transferred or assigned
Intellectual property rights are generally
compartmentalised into categories such
as tangible, intangible, arts and cultural
expression
Communally owned but often custodians are
authorised to use and disseminate
Generally not transferable but transmission,
if allowed, is based on a series of cultural
qualifications
There are often restrictions on how
transmission can occur, particularly in relation
to sacred or secret material
An holistic approach, by which all aspects of
cultural heritage are inter-related
(Janke, Our Culture, Our Future, Executive Summary, 1999, p. 47).
22
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Reading 12
Excerpts from Janke, T., Indigenous Intellectual and Cultural Property, Our Culture,
Our Future, Executive Summary, 1999, pp. 17,19, 20 and 21.
This reading is a series of diagrams that detail:
• Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights
• current Australian laws that relate to each specific area (‘Current Legal
Framework’)
• recommended reforms.
Refer back to this reading as you work through the rest of this topic.
Appropriation of Indigenous heritage rights
While Australian colonists maintained social Darwinist attitudes throughout Invasion
history, the wider Australian community have appropriated Indigenous knowledges
and images and other forms of cultural expression for commercial reasons, as well
as to promote these knowledges and images as symbols of a single (white) national
Australian identity. The appropriation of Indigenous cultural and intellectual
knowledge includes all forms of cultural expression, knowledge, technology and
human remains. The use of this knowledge is usually without the prior informed
consent of Indigenous custodians or communities. Many reports show how knowledge
is used out of context and in false, inappropriate or offensive ways.
Documentation of Indigenous peoples’ cultures
Since Invasion, most of the documentation of Indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage
has been, and to a degree, still is compiled by non-Indigenous researchers including
anthropologists, historians and government departments. Various publications present
this information – books, academic and media publications, films, sound recordings,
photographs, government and legal reports. Often, documentation of Indigenous
cultural heritage has been used without the informant’s prior knowledge of the way
that documentation is to be presented. Most of the documentation in collections today
about Indigenous people is stored in archives, museums and other academic or cultural
institutions, owned by those institutions. Indigenous people have few rights to access,
and no say in how the information is used.
Databases
Government departments, universities and other institutions are compiling online
and CD-ROM databases for public distribution, often without consultation or prior
informed consent. Indigenous custodians are concerned that information from
databases can be further exploited through appropriation by businesses for commercial
purposes.
Indigenous cultural objects
An enormous amount of Indigenous ‘moveable cultural objects’ such as art, craft-work
and artefacts have been collected and are held by non-Indigenous institutions. Much of
this material was stolen during the Invasion, Protection and Assimilation eras without
free and informed consent and were collected for their academic and ‘curiosity value’;
failing to recognise that Indigenous cultures are alive and dynamic, that the items are
23
CUL00412 Topic 3 – Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights
an integral part of living cultures. Indigenous people see the holding of Indigenous
cultural items by the dominant culture as inappropriate and the handing back of these
items crucial to Indigenous people’s present cultural and social identity and power.
Indigenous ancestral remains
From the beginning of Invasion, Indigenous remains have been collected and are still
stored in museums, universities and other collecting institutions worldwide. Many
Indigenous warriors from the ‘frontier’ have had their body parts pickled and exported
to England for ‘scientific study’. Many of these remains are yet to be returned. Often
institutions have not only collected these items with no respect for the deceased or
their family, but many institutions have refused to make available information relating
to Indigenous communities’ ancestral remains. Indigenous communities are forced to
research, locate and pay for information about their own ancestors, and when located,
institutions regularly refuse to return ancestral remains to Indigenous communities.
Reading 13
Pemulwuy, the Rainbow Warrior, E. Willmot, pp. 13–19, 299.
Histories of resistance like the story of Pemulwuy have been hidden in Australian
general history, referred to as the ‘great Australian silence’. As Eric Willmot points out,
this is an important part of Australia’s history. Pemulwuy’s descendants continue to
unsuccessfully argue for the rightful return of their ancestors’ remains.
Human genetic material
Indigenous people throughout the world are concerned about genetic research and the
collection of Indigenous genetic materials. The Human Genome Diversity Project is
one such screening project.
The Human Genome Diversity Project
The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) is an international scientific
project which aims to map and sequence the composition of the human genome.
The HGDP, dubbed the ‘Vampire Project’ involves the collection, preservation
and analysis of blood, skin and hair samples from different ethnic groups around
the world and the accumulation and storage of genetic information from such
material in databases. The Project which started in 1990 and is due to complete
in 2005, will enable scientists from the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO)
to study the samples in the future, when they consider that many of the ethnic
groups will have interbred with other groups and ceased to be sufficiently distinct
to be deemed of scientific interest… Various community groups… have protested
against the project. Critics argue that the main unit of investigation is human
populations which are assumed to be discrete in terms of genetic, linguistic
and cultural characteristics and to have been so since prehistoric times. Critics
argue that this is a false assumption given that there has been many thousands of
years of intermingling between human populations… In the international arena,
the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) notes that ‘exclusive
monopolies over human genetic material are becoming commonplace in the
industrialised world but the profound social, ethical and political issues arising
out of private ownership of human biological resources are not discussed…
Research companies are patenting Indigenous genetic material for commercial
exploitation throughout the world as new medicines and vaccines. Already, RAFI
reports three patent claims by the US government on cell lines from Indigenous
people in Panama, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands
(Janke, 1997, p. 30).
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Under existing Australian laws that are related to individual rights, Indigenous groups
are unable to control the collection or consequent use of the genetic material. Patent
holders receive all economic benefits of the use of genetic material.
Indigenous medicinal knowledge
Indigenous people have had extensive knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants
in their local environment since ancient times. This knowledge is not public and only
revealed to individuals who have undertaken the necessary prior learning, and whose
position and behaviour in the community meet with the standards and criteria of local
Law.
Indigenous medicinal knowledge has long been appropriated and abused by scientists,
medical researchers, nutritionists and pharmaceutical companies for economic gain.
Smokebush (Genus Conospermum)
The Smokebush grows in the coastal areas between Geraldton and Esperance in
Western Australia. Indigenous people from this region have traditionally used
Smokebush for healing … In the 1960’s, the Western Australian Government
gave the US National Cancer Institute a licence to collect plants for scientific
purposes and the WA Herbarium assisted in processing a range of plants, one
of which was the Smokebush. In the late 1980’s, Smokebush was found to
contain the active property, Conocurovone, a substance which is reported to
destroy the HIV virus in low concentrations … In the early 1990’s, the Western
Australian Government has licensed Amrad, a Victorian Pharmaceutical
Company to develop an anti-AIDS drug. Amrad has been given an exclusive
worldwide    licence to develop the patent by the US National Cancer Institute
towards this project. According to some reports, Amrad paid the Western
Australian Government $1.5 million to secure access to Smokebush and related
species. Armstrong and Hooper estimate that if Conocurovone is successfully
commercialised, the WA Government will receive royalties in excess of $100
million by 2002. Indigenous people have not received any returns for their role in
having first discovered the healing properties of Smokebush.
(Source: Professor Michael Blakeney, Bioprospecting and the Protection of
Tradition Medical Knowledge, in Janke, 1997, p. 28, my emphasis).
Other medicines, such as Tea Tree from the Bundjalung region, have similarly been
‘ripped-off ’. Many local non-Indigenous companies are blatantly reaping economic
benefits from Tea Tree plantations, even though Bundjalung custodians of this
knowledge have clearly expressed their disapproval. Bundjalung communities have
not received any economic benefits for their Traditional Knowledge.
Sacred sites in the advertising and tourism
industries
The advertising industry, particularly the Australian Tourism Industry, as we saw in
Topic 2, draw heavily on Indigenous images, music and other forms of expression to
sell their products. This has resulted in many Indigenous sites of significance being
accessed, filmed and photographed without permission.
25
CUL00412 Topic 3 – Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights
Indigenous contribution to Australian industry
Australian industry has made millions and millions of dollars through the
appropriation of Indigenous Intellectual and cultural property. In the arts and craft
industry alone in 1997, ATSIC estimated the Indigenous arts and craft markets as
worth $200 million per year to the Australian economy. Indigenous returns were
reported as ‘marginal’.
Indigenous language groups are offended by appropriation of words by nonIndigenous
businesses as company titles and logos. This
leads to clients and
purchasers
believing that the service or product is Indigenous produced and that
economic
benefits reach Indigenous people.
Authenticity
Compounding this, non-Indigenous artists and graphic designers are appropriating
Indigenous designs and images, then selling their work as authentic Indigenous
products. As reported in Our Culture, Our Future:
The case of the X-ray Koala is a perfect example of ‘Indigenous inspired’ work
being marketed as authentic. The misappropriators in this case were easily found
out as the X-ray or ‘Raak’ style comes from Arnhemland, where there are no
Koala’s.
In some cases, products that are manufactured offshore, in countries with no copyright
laws, appropriate Indigenous cultural property and are sold in Australia as authentic
items. These mass-produced goods are cheaper to make and can be sold at a drastically
reduced price compared to authentic items, limiting real economic opportunities for
Indigenous communities.
Copyright infringements
The issue of copyright infringements on Indigenous works first came to the attention
of the media on 5th February 1966, nine days before the introduction of the decimal
currency in Australia. An article in a South Australian newspaper carried the story of
the use of designs from a bark painting by Indigenous artist David Malangi, on the
back of the new $1 note. In response, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia
explained that the bank had assumed the design was the work of some ‘anonymous
and probably long dead’ artist. The Bank arranged for Malangi to receive a $1,000
fee, a fishing kit and a silver medallion.
Wanjuk Marika was one of the first Indigenous artists to become aware of the
extensive practice of appropriating Indigenous designs, as he was one of the first
artists from a remote area to travel widely and have access to mass-produced products.
While travelling, Wanjuk saw his people’s most sacred designs reprinted onto tea
towels and tablecloths in a souvenir shop at an airport.
Since the 1980s there have been a series of well-publicised court cases brought by
Indigenous artists over the appropriation of their designs with mixed outcomes for
design custodians.
(Janke, 1997, p. 33).
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Recommended reforms
The current Australian legal framework offers extremely limited protection for
Indigenous Australian intellectual and cultural property. Recommended reforms
include Amendments to all specific legislation dealing with Intellectual and Cultural
Property, the introduction of specific legislation to address Indigenous intellectual
and cultural property, administrative responses such as Keeping Places and the
development of policies and protocols including codes of ethics. Some of these
recommendations have been enacted, like the formation of an Indigenous Arts
Advocacy Association and the establishment of Indigenous Certification Marks, the
Label of Authenticity and the Collaborative Mark.
International laws and declarations
Globally, indigenous peoples have developed declarations and statements that call for
Indigenous heritage rights protection at national and international levels.
For example the Mataatua Declaration on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual
Property Rights was developed at the First International Conference on the Cultural
and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous peoples, 1993, held in New Zealand.
The Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 1994,
article 29) states:
Indigenous peoples are entitled to the recognition of the full ownership, control
and protection of their cultural and intellectual property.  They have the right
to special measures to control, develop and protect their sciences, technologies
and cultural manifestations, including human and other genetic resources,
seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions,
literatures, designs and visual performing arts
(Janke, New Media Cultures, 2002, p. 7).
The World Intellectual Property Organisation at the 2002 International Forum,
‘Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge:  Our identity, Our Future, 2002’
developed a declaration acknowledging that ‘traditional knowledge plays a vital
role in building bridges between civilizations and cultures, in creating wealth and in
promoting the human dignity and cultural identity of traditional communities’.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation has also established an international
committee on Intellectual property to discuss Indigenous peoples rights in relation to:
• access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing
• protection of traditional knowledge, innovations and creativity
• protection of expressions of folklore (Janke, Song Cultures, 2002, p. 7).
The Pacific Regional Framework for the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and
Expression of Culture is a ‘model law’ for protection of Indigenous heritage rights.
The Framework was developed and completed in 2002 and emphasises the necessity
of ‘informed prior consent’ by traditional owners of any publication of Indigenous
Heritage (Janke, Writing Cultures, 2002, p. 7).
27
CUL00412 Topic 3 – Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights
Resale royalty – droit de suite
Resale royalty or droit de suite is the right to be paid a percentage of the resale price of
original art work and was first introduced in France in 1920. The royalty is intended to
pay the original artist a percentage of the profit made by art collectors when artwork is
resold at a profit.  As Terri Janke points out:
The greatest economic increases in the Australian Indigenous art market have
been in the resale sector.  For example, Kumantjayi Tjupurrula’s work, Water
Dreaming of Kalipinya, was first sold by the artist for $150.00 and is reported
to have resold at auction in 1997 for $206,000.00, and then again in 2001 for
$486,500.00. The artist (and his family) received no share of these resale prices
(Janke, Visual Cultures, 2002, p. 26).
In 1948 the international copyright convention, The Berne Convention for the
Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, provided an ‘optional provision’ for resale
royalty laws. In 2001 the European Parliament directed governments to standardise
resale royalty legislation across Europe. Currently approximately 70 countries have
introduced some kind of resale royalty legislation and while Australia is a signatory to
the Convention, there is no resale royalty legislation in Australia.
The Australian Indigenous Art Trade Association and Viscopy have developed an ‘Art
Trade Collectors Pledge’ morally binding owners of art work to pay the original artist
at least 1% of the sale price each time an artwork is resold.  Currently, some Australian
galleries voluntarily pay resale royalties (Janke, Visual Cultures, 2002, p. 26).
Recent reforms
National Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association
– Label of authenticity
After the publication of the Law Report Our Culture, Our Future, the National
Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association (NIAAA), ATSIC, Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Arts Board and the Australia Council collaborated to develop the Label
of Authenticity. The Label along with its sibling label The Collaborative Mark was
launched in 1999 and in use by 2000.
The National Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association is an organisation that
advocates for the greater recognition and acceptance of the legal and cultural
rights of Indigenous artists. In line with International developments concerning
the rights of World Indigenous peoples, specifically the principles and guidelines
of the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Economic and Social Council’s
Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities,
NIAAA strongly urges non-Indigenous artists, writers and performers to
respect the cultural and spiritual significance of Indigenous people and refrain
from incorporating elements derived from Indigenous cultural heritage into
their works without the informed consent of the traditional custodians. It is
important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have control over the
development of their own forms of artistic and cultural expression, as well as its
interpretation and use by others
(http://www.culture.com.au/exhibition/niaaa/about.htm).
28
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Moral rights
Moral rights were introduced into the Copyright Act in December 2000 providing
some new ways to protect Indigenous heritage. These new laws provide the following
rights to artists:
1. The right to be attributed as artist – right to be identified (referenced/cited) as
artist on all reproductions of original work.
2. The right not to have work falsely attributed to another artist.
3. The right of integrity – against derogatory use of the works (Janke, New Media
Cultures, 2002, pp. 25–26).
Indigenous protocol guides
In Article 8 of the Mataatua Declaration on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual
Property Rights (1993) mentioned above, development of ‘a code of ethics which
external users must observe when recording (visual, audio, written) their traditional
and customary knowledge’ is recommended (cited in Janke, Visual Cultures, 2002, p.
7). Recently, some protocol guides have been developed in Australia.
In 2002, the Australia Council’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board
commissioned Indigenous solicitor, Terri Janke, to write a series of Indigenous
protocol guides:
1. Song Cultures
2. Writing Cultures
3. Performing Cultures (drama/dance)
4. Visual Cultures
5. New Media Cultures.
The guides reflect the complexity of Indigenous Australian cultures and provide
information and advice on respecting Indigenous cultural heritage. While each guide
addresses a specific genre, they are all based on the same fundamental principles:
1. respect
2. Indigenous control
3. communication, consultation and consent
4. interpretation, integrity and authenticity
5. secrecy and confidentiality
6. attribution
7. proper returns
8. continuing cultures
9. recognition and protection (Janke, New Media Cultures, 2002, p. 9).
The protocols presented in the guides, while different from legal obligations,
outline appropriate ways of using Indigenous cultural material, and interacting with
Indigenous people and their communities. Protocols encourage ethical conduct and
promote interaction based on good faith and mutual respect.
Conclusion
29
CUL00412 Topic 3 – Indigenous intellectual and cultural property rights
The National Aboriginal Dance Council of Australia (NADCA) is undertaking a
pilot program to develop a cultural protocol guide for use throughout Australia. The
protocol document will be piloted in the Australian school system (Janke, Performing
Cultures, 2002, p. 28).
The Musicological Society of Australia (MSA) has developed Guidelines for the
Recognition of Indigenous Culture and Custodianship of Country at National MSA
Public Events (Janke, Song Cultures, 2002, p. 19).
While these reforms will go a long way in the protection of Indigenous Heritage
Rights, many of the recommendations made have yet to be realised.
The Association of Northern and Kimberley Aboriginal Artists of Australia’s AANKA
Statement (cited in Janke, 1997, p. 96) is a truly beautiful articulation of the issues
covered in this topic:
The paintings and patterns come from the land. Dancing comes from the land.
Names come from the land. The traditional ochres come from the land. Stories
come from the land. Sacred Ceremonies come from the land. The land belongs to
our ancestors and now the clans and the tribes.
All of this was looked after by the Yolngu (All Aborigines). Today we are the
clans and tribes. We were given it by our ancestors. Each culture, clan and
tribe is different. Each clan/tribe gets their own culture from their country. We
Arnhemlanders have two moieties – Yirritja and Dhuwa. Our skin names come
from our moieties. Our languages are spoken differently. Belonging means
responsibility – that is why we have ceremony to show it comes from the land.
Your new laws will not change our culture or the meaning of country but your
new law has to respect and protect our law.
We can’t and won’t change. We respect your law. We know your law. You can
respect and protect our law. You should respect our law as we respect your law.
Your copyright law only lasts 50 years after the artist’s death. For rock paintings
thousands of years old, in your law you can copy this. In our law, it clearly
belongs to clans, tribes and families. Your law must be made stronger.
What about writing of our stories. If a story of maybe thousands of years old is
written or recorded, the writer holds the copyright. In our law the story is ours.
Your law must be made stronger to protect our stories.
Filming of our stories or open ceremony. Our stories and ceremonies are very,
very old. If a filmmaker documents the dance or story they own the image. In our
law that belongs to us. Your law must be made stronger.
You can change your law but our law cannot change.
30
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Introduction
Topic 4
Orality: Oral literature
Storytelling and song poetry are the fundamental elements of orality, the oral
component of Indigenous literature. This topic will explore both classical and neoclassical
orality
concentrating
on the
classical
elements
of
orality
as
well
as
the fluidity

of
these classical elements in neo-classical orality including written literature and
contemporary
music.
Classical orality
History, law and all other necessary information is communicated through storytelling
in the forms of verse, (metrical or rhythmic composition), prose, (ordinary language,
without metrical composition) and song poetry. Storytelling and song are a dramatic
events, usually told with props to assist the dramatics of the story. Classical
ceremonies are alive with maban reality and dramatic re-enactments with body
painting and adornment providing abstract and realistic costume.
Orality functions as a means of teaching and learning. Story and song accompanies
every event in community and individual life and instructs in all aspects of life, from
the ceremonial to the mundane.
Music is the central repository of Indigenous knowledge … the main intellectual
medium through which people conceptualise their world
(Ellis, 1985, pp. 83–84).
Land, place or ‘country’ and the Dreaming are the key focal points for Classical
Literature and information contained in much Indigenous orality is spiritually
motivated. Public, or non-secret, orality details public aspects of the Dreaming that
reinforce individual and communal identity. Public orality also details historical
and contemporary social and political information, archiving history relevant to the
community. Orality serves as a vehicle of communication within the community and
between neighbouring and distant communities. Stories and songs are traded between
communities and have been found to exist many hundreds of miles from the point of
origin.
Orality articulates and reflects individual and community identity, relationships, roles
and responsibilities, world-views and spiritual affiliations to country.
The structuring and organisation of Alyawarra musical events are reflections
of those same aspects of Alyawarra society itself. In seeking to understand the
music … we must first establish the social framework to which musical events
relate and within which they occur.
(Moyle, RA, 1986, p. 22.)
31
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Holy or sacred stories and songs are primordial, meaning that they have existed ‘from
the beginning’. Sacred orality connects the present with the past and human beings
with the Spirit Ancestors. A Bundjalung Elder, Aunty Pauline Gordon from Baryugil,
explains the sacredness of music, dance and song. She says that:
The rhythms expressed through these activities relates back to the energy and
driving force of creation itself, in the beginning the ancestral spirits sung-up and
danced up all forms of life and the landscape.
(Guest Lecture, Bundjalung Cultural Heritage, CIAP, SCU, S1/1998).
Hunting and increase stories and songs play a major role in Classical Indigenous
environmental management. The North Coast Institute of Aboriginal Studies and
Monash University has recordings of Bundjalung Elder Harry Cook singing the
‘Porpoise songs’, as in the story ‘The Man and the Porpoise’.
Reading 14
Turn to Reading 14 ‘The Man and the Porpoise’, a Bundjalung story about a group
of people living near the coast in Northern NSW. This is an excellent example of
Classical Indigenous, specifically Bundjalung, orality (literature).
Stories like the Man and the Porpoise are often appreciated for their antiquity and
quaintness, although important information archived in the story is often overlooked.
For example, the story presents the geographical environment of the people, the
seasonal movement of the people, their diet, their technology, their food gathering
techniques, their communication techniques, their laws and consequences for
breaking the law and their spiritual beliefs.
Verse, prose and song are vehicles for education and communication as well as
entertainment. This is well expressed in Oodgeroo Noonucal’s foreword to her book
Legends and Landscapes.
Reading 15
Oodgeroo Noonucal,1990, Legends and Landscapes, pp. 5, 8, 9.
Classical song
Indigenous music is largely driven and dominated by song poetry (lyrics) with
rhythms deriving from the song poetry. Song poetry enhances the context of story and
visual literature by explaining through song language and structural musical signifiers,
vital information not conveyed through verse, prose or iconography. The language
used in song poetry can be quite different from ordinary language.
As with English poetry, Aboriginal songs have special linguistic characteristics. They
may use different grammatical frames from the spoken language and there is often a
special ‘song vocabulary’ which may include some archaic forms. An important song
would sometimes be transmitted across political boundaries and might be performed
by people who did not fully understand the language in which it was composed
(something like the performance of the Mass in Latin) (Dixon & M Duwell 1990, p.
xv).
Some sacred song words symbolise the Spirit Ancestors, sacred places, and reference
other sacred Literary elements, such as designs, dances and ceremonies, which have
meaning only for those who have sufficient ritual knowledge.
33
CUL00412 Topic 4 – Orality: oral literature
Vocal rhythm is often syllabic or one note to a syllable, resulting in polyrhythm
(alternate, yet complementary rhythms) when combined with the rhythms created by
body percussion and a range of primarily percussive instruments, such as clapsticks,
skin drums and rattles. Rhythms are usually non-metrical, that is they do not group
into threes or fours like popular western music, but continue for the duration of the
song poetry.
Activity
Go to http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/culture/amusic2.html for an overview of some
Classical musical instruments.
Songs are grouped in cycles, with shorter songs or verses combining to create the
cycle with some cycles having up to three hundred individual songs. Song styles
across Australia are as diverse as the environment.
Reading 16
Mudrooroo, Milli Milli Wangka – The Indigenous Literature of Australia, 1997, Chapter
1, pp. 24–32.
Many of the stories and songs performed today, apart from those associated with
on-going ceremonial maintenance, detail historical events that have occurred since
European invasion. The following examples relate to events that occurred in the
homelands of the Yanyuwa people during WW2 and in 1988.
Reading 17
Duwell & Dixon, Some Yanyuwa Songs, Little Eva at Moonlight Creek, pp. ‘map 1’,
3–37.
The Krill Krill Songs and associated ceremonies from the Warmun community in the
east Kimberleys of Western Australia were first performed in the late 1970s.

Activity
Go to http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/culture/amusic.html for more information on
the Krill Krill Ceremonial series.
Many Indigenous communities have maintained their classical literatures and
languages and continue to engage story and song for the purposes prescribed by the
Spirit Ancestors in ancient times. Due to the nature of ownership, sacredness, secrecy
and rights related to much Classical literature, public and children’s stories and songs
are usually the only genre of Classical literature performed publicly in modern times.
The transposition and translation of Indigenous
orality
Since invasion, Indigenous orality has progressively been transcribed into written
forms, sometimes in Indigenous languages though usually translated into English.
This process is continuing and has predominantly been controlled by non-Indigenous
people until more recent times. Most non-Indigenous translators have inaccurately
transcribed Indigenous orality, overlooking or ignoring the unique context and form, in
favour of a European cultural context and literary form.
34
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
… prose could easily be made to serve as a basis of a written tradition, and this
as been done in the case of books of legends and stories. But until very recently
… the form of the tale or story has been completely neglected. In the process
of editing, the oral form has been divorced from the content … The methods of
Aboriginal story-telling are edited out …
(Johnson C (Mudrooroo), White forms, Aboriginal content, in Davis & Hodge (1985, p. 22).
Reading 18
Reading 18 is an extract from ‘The Three Brothers’, in Reed, 1978, Aboriginal Myths,
Tales of the Dreamtime, pp. 70–71, by a non-Indigenous writer.
Considering that we’ve learned that Classical Indigenous Literature is local in focus,
personal, subjective, contextual and that Indigenous laws relating to ownership and
performance are extremely strict, this version of The Three Brothers story is obviously
lacking in vital information.
• Who told this story, which Indigenous nation ‘owns’ the story?
• Who interpreted the story, and did they understand the roles and structures of
the Classical literature of the storyteller?
• Does this story relate to specific, identified places?
• Is the storyteller referenced with personal information provided?
In his introduction Reed admits that he did not hear any of the stories first hand, but
relied on written translations in English, compiled by non-Indigenous anthropologists.
He also admits to editing the story to please his own aesthetic ideas as well as a nonIndigenous
readership:
A certain ‘westernisation’ of the traditional tales must be admitted. In some
cases they are the retelling of twice-told tales … Every writer who ventures to
retell Aboriginal myths and legends must adopt his own style and presentation
… Profiting by the research of others I have retold them simply, as they appeal
to me, and with only sufficient change to make them acceptable to present day
readers.
The ‘others’ referred to by Reed are referenced in his introduction and are all nonIndigenous
anthropologists, referred to by name, as well as ‘missionaries, fieldworkers
and enthusiasts of earlier generations …’
(Reed, p. 9). As
Mudrooroo points
out,
‘the
methods of Aboriginal
storytelling are
edted out …’i.
Reading 19
Now go on to Reading 19 – another version of the Three Brothers story recorded by
Bundjalung custodian, Ron Heron.
Analyse the information provided in Reading 19 taking note of the vital contextual
information provided in this story.
• Who told this story, which Indigenous nation ‘owns’ the story?
• Who interpreted the story, and did they understand the roles and structures of
the Classical literature of the storyteller?
• Does this story relate to specific, identified places?
• Is the storyteller referenced with personal information provided?
• What other information is provided in the second version, but omitted from
Reed’s translation?
(Reed, 1978, pp. 8–9.)
35
CUL00412 Topic 4 – Orality: oral literature
This analysis clearly highlights the inappropriateness of transcribing and translating
Classical oral literature by those other than Indigenous custodians. Indigenous
storytellers have struggled throughout colonial history initially, to simply be heard,
and more recently to present stories and translations in culturally appropriate contexts.
This process of translating and transposing Indigenous stories to a standard acceptable
to a European readership and based on European philosophy and literary traditions, is
an ongoing barrier for Indigenous story-tellers and writers.
The Anglo-Celtic majority culture seeks to condition and explain Aboriginal
literature through its own expectations. It dominates the economic and cultural
institutions of Australia and too often it is its voice which is heard, not Aboriginal
voices … Thus good Aboriginal literature is taken to be that which approximates
Western literature …
(Mudrooroo Narogin, 1990, pp. 43–44).
In some cases Indigenous stories, particularly life-stories, copyright is owned by nonIndigenous
editors, represented as ‘authors’. Some notable examples are examined
below.
I, The Aboriginal, published in 1962 is the life-story of Waipuldanya of the Alawa
people of southeast Arnhem Land. The book is copyrighted to Douglas Lockwood, a
non-Indigenous researcher who dedicates the book, ‘with gratitude and affection, to
Wailpuldanya whose story it is’. In this dedication Lockwood goes on to firmly place
himself as ‘author’ and Waipuldanya as ‘subject’, ‘I hope the author has been worthy
of his subject’. (Lockwood, 1995 edition in True Australian Tales, ‘Dedication’,
no page number). This is further implied on the back cover of the book where an
unknown commentator writes, ‘Words taken down by renowned writer Douglas
Lockwood for what was to become the first great classic of Aboriginal autobiography’
(1995 edition). The use of the term ‘autobiography’ is in direct conflict with the reality
of copyright over the publication and the kind of language employed in the text itself.
Reading 20
Excerpt from I, The Aboriginal, pp. 25–27.
In my opinion, the language used in this text is not only ‘standard English’, but also
patronising and condescending, hardly the way one would speak of their own family,
community and culture. The treatment of his story by Lockwood in this way tells us
more about Lockwood’s world-view and perception than it does about Waipuldanya’s.
The life story of Muruwari man from north-western NSW, Jimmie Barker, was
published in 1977 by non-Indigenous writer, Janet Mathews, The two worlds of
Jimmie Barker, The life of an Australian Aboriginal, 1900–1972, as told to Janet
Mathews. Jimmie Barker spent four years working with Mathews, recording his stories
onto audio-tape until his death in 1972. This material was edited, compiled into book
form and published five years later by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
While it may be fair to describe this book as a ‘biography’, an individual’s life story
written by someone else, the opposite is conveyed in the preface of the book.
The resulting book is written in the form of an autobiography, and I shall try to
tell the story of Jimmie Barker in the way he told it to me …  (1982 edition, p.
xii).
36
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
This blatantly dishonest practice of writing another person’s autobiography has
been accepted by mainstream literary circles, while strongly opposed by Indigenous
communities.
Neo-classical orality
Like many other Indigenous expressions, Indigenous writing and music was not
published in any quantity until the political activism in the 1960s. From the ’60s
onward Indigenous poetry, music, plays, life-stories historical non-fiction, fiction and
academic writing emerged and finally began to be recognised as uniquely Australian
literary traditions by mainstream Australia. These expressions are of Indigenous
content, but they often ‘wear’ the formal ‘clothing’ of established western genres.
Story – the written word
To succeed at winning publishing deals Indigenous writers and storytellers have been
unable to avoid the common practice of publishing houses editing manuscripts to
standard English, perceived to be ‘acceptable’ to a mainstream readership. Indigenous
people do not speak ‘standard English’; they speak a unique, Indigenous form
of vernacular or common English or an Indigenous language and this practice of
editing can detract from the authentic Indigenality of expression. Speaking on early
Indigenous publications Mudrooroo states that:
… there was an editing towards the fixed discourse of the European fairy
tale rather than towards the fluidity of Indigenous English … Our Indigenous
English was encased in a straitjacket; there was an abnegation of natural style,
and an expunging of all orality from our written texts … The Indigenous people
are under constant pressure from the mainstream to conform to its dictates …
(Mudrooroo, 1997, pp. 140).
David Unaipon, a Ngarrindjeri man born in 1862 on a mission in SA, was the first
Indigenous person to be recognised as a ‘writer’ in colonial Australia and the first to
translate and publish his work. His first work Native Legends, is believed to have been
published around 1924, as well as individual legends in the journal Dawn in the same
year. Unaipon became popular because his work is European in style, as related by
Jack Davis.
Native Legends was a romantic, completely anglicised version of Aboriginal
legends, inasmuch as it dealt with native kings, queens, princes and little
princesses, but it does stand out as the first published work of an Aboriginal
Australian. (Davis & Hodge (eds), 1985, p. 12.)
Unaipon’s legends detail the Dreaming, history and law of the ‘Nunga’ peoples of
South Australia and the fact that the work is ‘anglicised’ does not necessarily detract
from the authenticity of the story’s content. Unaipon maintained an Indigenous
‘essence’ to his work by including aspects of the metaphysical (spiritual, intangible)
inherent in much Indigenous expression. Mudrooroo describes these metaphysical
aspects as ‘maban reality’. In 1930, anthropologist William Ramsay Smith published
a collection of Indigenous stories, Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals,
which includes many of Unaipon’s stories from his unpublished manuscript held by
the Mitchell Library in Sydney. Smith’s publication does not reference Unaipon in
any way and has been reprinted as recently as 1970. More recently Unaipon’s work
has been published in Paperbark: a collection of Black Australian writings, published
in 1990, edited by Jack Davis, Mudrooroo Narogin, Stephen Muecke and Adam
37
CUL00412 Topic 4 – Orality: oral literature
Shoemaker. As well as his writing, David Unaipon is remembered as an outstanding
inventor and public speaker who used his notoriety to advocate for social justice for
his people. He died in 1967 and has been acknowledged through the establishment of
‘The Unaipon Award’, presented each year to a previously unpublished Indigenous
writer for a book-length manuscript either in English or any Indigenous language.
From the 1960s, Indigenous Literature in English was largely the expression of
oppressed people living on the fringes of the majority community. These expressions
or protest writings were deliberately written in English, the preferred format of the
oppressors (white page), so that Indigenous voices (black words) would be heard and
understood by those in power.
Otherwise known as Kath Walker, Oodgeroo Noonucul is celebrated as one of the
driving forces toward establishing Indigenous written literature. Born in 1920 on
North Stradbroke Island east of Brisbane, Noonucul country, Oodgeroo became
a prominent Indigenous activist and writer during the 1960’s and was the first
Indigenous poet to be published. Her first volume of poetry, We are Going was
published 1964 and her second, The Dawn is at Hand in 1966. Non-Indigenous critics
attempted to disregard her work as ‘protest’ writing not considered as legitimate
literature. Nonetheless, her poetry became extremely popular and she continued to
write and tirelessly advocate for Indigenous people until her death in 1993. Kath
Walker is quoted as objecting to being called ‘an Aboriginal poet’ by the white media.
‘They always tag me as that. Yet I don’t see myself as an Aboriginal poet. I see myself
as a universal poet who happens to be of Aboriginal descent.’ (Noonucul, cited in
Davis & Hodge, 1985, p. 82).
Reading 21
Oodgeroo Noonucul, My People, 1962, Aboriginal Charter of Rights in Davis & Hodge,
1985, p. 36–37.
Kevin Gilbert is known as a playwright, poet, painter and political activist. His first
play, The Gods Look Down and Other Sketches went largely unnoticed, though
his second play The Cherry Pickers became the first modern Indigenous play to be
published in English. The Cherry Pickers is the story of an Indigenous family who
worked as seasonal workers who often travelled hundreds of miles in search of work.
Mudrooroo and Jack Davis are two important figures in the development of
Indigenous writing in English. Mudrooroo, previously known as Colin Johnson and
Mudrooroo Narogin, is the first Indigenous Australian to publish a novel in 1965,
Wildcat Falling, and Jack Davis is a renowned playwright, poet and public speaker.
Apart from their original writings, they have both contributed to the body of critical
academic analyses on Indigenous literary expression.
Activity
Go to www.mudrooroo.com for more information on the career of Mudrooroo.
Reading 22
Jack Davis, Playwright and Poet, in Thompson (ed.), Aboriginal Voices, Contemporary
Aboriginal Artists, Writers and Performers, 1990, pp. 12–17.
38
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Song (music)
The performance of European influenced music and song by Indigenous people has
occurred since the first colony in the Sydney region. Introduced European genres
included Christian hymns, folk, commercial touring show, classical and country and
western. ‘Claypan Dance’, held on the flat or the bank of a river is one of the earliest
kinds of cross-cultural musical genres.
Indigenous musicians introduced the ‘gum leaf ’ to European style folk and dance
music, where players fold the leaf from a gum tree, and blow to create a high pitched,
tuneful whistle. ‘Gum Leaf Bands’, as they became known, were seen as the ‘new
Aboriginal music’, in Victoria, NSW and southern QLD, and were extremely popular
in Indigenous communities. Apart from gum leaves, Indigenous musicians adapted
kangaroo skins for drums, wallaby tail for violin and guitar strings as well as many
other Indigenous materials for European instruments.
The Country and Folk music genres in particular were embraced by Indigenous people
because of the similarity of these genres to classical song structures and content. Like
classical Indigenous music, country and folk ballads are dominated by words and
vocal rhythms are often derived from the one note per syllable structure in classical
song. Country music today, is one of the most popular genres of music in Indigenous
communities, Australia wide. An extensive multi media publication, A Buried Country,
the Story of Aboriginal Country Music (Walker, 2000) details the history of Indigenous
Country Music, celebrating Indigenous musicians such as Billy Bargo, Harold Blair,
Dempsey Knight, Jimmy Little, Col Hardy and Roger Knox among many others.
In 1972 CASM (Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music) in South Australia,
established a music course that fused classical Indigenous and contemporary musical
education. The course stressed the role of music as a means of education and
communication and Indigenous students from urban and rural communities were able
to work with classical Indigenous music and musicians. CASM was also instrumental
in introducing young Indigenous musicians to other world musics such as reggae,
which was particularly influential, with lyrics that identify with oppressed people and
condemn European cultural influences on black people. The growth of community
radio stations and Indigenous programs assisted this emerging Indigenous music
through broadcasts to all parts of Australia. Reggae continues to be a major influence
on neo-classical Indigenous music.
Neo-classical story (written literature)
In his address to the first Aboriginal Writers Conference in the early 1980s, Kevin
Gilbert detailed the challenge for Indigenous writers and storytellers to de-construct
and reconstruct colonial history from Indigenous perspectives:
Effective Aboriginal strategy for the immediate future should be to … Rewrite
our Aboriginal history and remove the distortions and the lies … The onus is on
Aboriginal writers to present the evidence of our true situation … (in Davis &
Hodge, 1985, pp. 40–41).
39
CUL00412 Topic 4 – Orality: oral literature
Indigenous writers have eagerly undertaken Kevin Gilbert’s challenge, in all genres of
writing, though particularly in the publishing of life stories and community histories.
Publications of Indigenous writing increased dramatically, although many continue to
be ‘authored’ and copyrighted to non-Indigenous writers. In some cases Indigenous
storytellers maintain some percentage of the copyright. Some recent examples include,
• Nyibayarri: Kimberley Tracker, published in 1995 by Jack Bohemia (the
tracker) and Bill McGregor (the white linguist)
• Travelling with Percy: A South Coast Journey, the life story of Percy Mumbuler,
Elder and story teller from southeastern Australia, published in 1997 by Lee
Chittick and Terry Fox
• I’m the One That Know This Country: The Story of Jessie Lennon and Coober
Pedy, published in 2000 by Jessie Lennon and Michele Madigan (ed.)
• Love Against the Law: The Autobiographies of Tex and Nell Camfoo, published
in 2000 by Tex and Nelly Camfoo and Gillian Cowlishaw (ed.)
• Bundjalung Jugun: Bundjalung Country, published in 2006 by Jennifer Hoff
More recently, particularly since the establishment of Indigenous publishing houses,
such as Magabala Books in WA and Black Books in Sydney, Indigenous writers and
storytellers have been able to maintain control and copyright over their work, for
example:
• Fringedweller, 1980, Robert Bropho
• Borne a Half-Caste, 1985. Marnie Kennedy
• Through My Eyes, 1987, Ella Simon (Biripi)
• My Place, 1987, Sally Morgan
• Windradyne: A Wiradjuri Koorie, 1989, Mary Coe (Wiradjuri)
• Story About Feeling, 1989, Billy Neidjie
• Auntie Rita, 1994, Rita Huggins and her daughter, Jackie Huggins
• The Calling of the Spirits, 1995, Elder Eileen Morgan
• Myall Road, 1998, and Learning the Ropes, 1992, Keith Saunders
• Don’t Take Your Love To Town, 1988, Real Deadly – My stories are about the
way we live life today, 1992, My Bundjalung People, 1994, Ruby Langford
Gnibi
• Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, 1996, Doris Pilkingto.
• Gwion Gwion Dulwan Mamaa – Secret and Sacred Pathways, 2000, Ngarnjo,
Ungudman, Banggal & Nyawarra
It is common for Indigenous publications to be authored by many members of the
community, reflecting Classical Intellectual Property laws. Indigenous storytellers
are publishing their work in forms that are appropriate to their use of language and
storytelling style.
Reading 23
Footprints Across Our Land, short stories by senior Western Desert Women, 1995,
Preface, by Jordon Crugnale, p. vii, Introduction by Ngunytja Napanangka Mosquito,
p. xv, Eat him up Ants by Ningi Nangalam p. 48, and Come to kill, not understand and
They bin chain them up by Tjama Napanangka, pp. 117–124.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
These written accounts of oral literature loyally maintain the orality of the storyteller.
There are thirteen names on the title page of the book and all of these women own
equal copyright in the book.
Melissa Lucashenko is a young, award-winning writer from the Bundjalung nation.
She has written three novels, Steam Pigs, 1997, Killing Darcy, 1998 and Hard Yards,
1999.
Reading 24
Melissa Lucashenko, Black on Black, an Interview with Melissa Lucashenko, 2000, in
Meanjin, number 3.
Currently, there are only a handful of working full-time Indigenous editors in the
industry and few Indigenous writers have publishing deals with mainstream publishing
houses (Janke, Writing Cultures, 2002, p. 14).
Writing for the Academy
Since the 1980s Indigenous academics have emerged responding to the challenge of
writing for the Academy from Indigenous perspectives. Professor Marcia Langton has
been writing for the Academy ever since her years of political activism in the 1960s.
Martin Nakata, an Indigenous man from the Torres Strait Islands is worthy of mention,
his PHD is an analysis of colonial historical writings on the Torres Strait Islands, and a
construction of a historical account from an Indigenous perspective.
Wendy Holland’s work is an excellent example of Indigenous writing for the
Academy. Indigenous writing for the Academy in Australia currently pervades all
subject areas and is an exciting development in Indigenous writing as well as for the
Academy.
Reading 25
Wendy Holland, ‘Mis/taken identity’, in Vasta and Castles (eds), 1996, The Teeth are
Smiling, the persistence of racism in multicultural Australia, pp. 97–111.
Indigenous writers today write for all literary genres including:
• short stories
• plays
• novels/novellas
• non-fiction, including essays and opinions
• poetry
• autobiography/biography
• community and oral histories
• children’s books (Janke, Writing Cultures, 2002, p. 3).
Indigenous storytellers remain, as they have always been, role models for their
communities.
Neo-classical song (popular music)
41
CUL00412 Topic 4 – Orality: oral literature
Indigenous music has adapted many distinctive musical forms and like many other
World Musics, neo-classical Indigenous music is often a fusion of classical musical
styles and perspectives with modern popularised western musical styles. While the
genres have changed and expanded, neo-classical Indigenous music maintains its
classical social role of communication, education and the maintenance of culture.
Indigenous song writers sing about what they know: police, prison, welfare, family,
racism, land rights, the stolen generations, drug and alcohol abuse, social justice,
cultural survival, maintenance and promotion. Music has remained a central social
focus for gatherings, communication, education and entertainment for Indigenous
communities.
Indigenous musicians ‘identify’ through the use of language, both English and
Indigenous languages, in their lyrics and the name of the group, and through sounds
that are recognisably Indigenous.
The most common form of Aboriginal rock group naming is based on the use
of place names … in groups such as ‘Amunda’, ‘Areyonga Desert Tigers’,
‘Kulumindimi Band’, ‘North Tanami Desert Band’, ‘Warumpi Band’, and
‘Yartulu Yartulu Band … Other naming strategies include the name of a language
(eg. ‘Arrente Desert Posse’, ‘Pitjantjatjara Country Band’) … A third naming
practice is that used by ‘Yothu Yindi’, reference to a concept with locally
understood connotations … The maintenance of language and naming practices
in regard to bands, places, and songs in this sense exemplify the ability of music
to form a medium of expression and affirmation for … identity. (Dunbar-Hall
and Gibson in Popular Music and Society, Summer 2000, v24 i2 p. 45).
Neo-classical Indigenous music performs the extended task of educating and
communicating with non-Indigenous Australia and the rest of the world. Indigenous
music is political in focus, promoting the identity and rights of Indigenous Australians.
Musicians have always been among the leading Indigenous cultural ambassadors and
political activists.
Rock – ‘No Fixed Address’ and ‘Us Mob’
In 1981 a film called Wrong Side of the Road’won the Jury Prize at the Australian Film
Industry Awards and attracted national attention. The film followed two Indigenous
South Australian rock bands, No Fixed Address and Us Mob on their first tour into
the white world of the pub ‘gig’ circuit. The film and the soundtrack were a landmark
in getting neo-classical Indigenous music recognised in the Australian mainstream.
Unfortunately, due to cultural and other pressures Us Mob disbanded before achieving
chart success. They played, among other things, heavy metal rock, with speed guitar
solos and lyrics that spoke strongly against racism in Australia.
No Fixed Address, before relocating to London in search of a more ‘receptive’
audience, recorded their album From my Eyes. The opening track We Have Survived
has become like a contemporary anthem for Indigenous people, particularly in the lead
up to the Australia’s centenary ‘celebrations’ in 1988.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
‘Warumpi Band’
In 1983 the Warumpi Band recorded some songs including Jailanguru Pakarnu (Out
from Jail) in Luritja, the language of the Pitjantjatjara people. This was the first ever
pop song to be recorded in an Indigenous language and the beginning of a new genre:
bush rock. It was heard on CAAMA radio and began to be played by commercial
Sydney radio stations. In 1986 the Warumpi’s supported Midnight Oil on a tour of
about 15 remote Indigenous communities, promoted as the ‘Blackfella – Whitefella
Tour’. In 1987 they released the single My Island Home which was only a minor hit at
the time, but has become a ‘Koori classic’ (more recently covered by Christine Anu).
The lyrics speak directly to the issue of dispossession.
Activity
Go to http://www.neilmurray.com.au/wb_history.html to read about the Warumpi’s

history.
‘Coloured Stone’
Coloured Stone released their debut LP Koonibba Rock (named after their mission
home in SA) containing one of the most popular songs ever in contemporary
Indigenous music, ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’. The song refers to performing
ritual and ceremony and ‘dancing in the moonlight’, at a time before Indigenous
peoples began using fire. This song is very much in keeping with the oral traditions
of communicating history through song, and directly contradicts and challenges
contemporary western scientific theories of the peopling of Australia. Bunna Lawrie,
lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and drummer, formed the band with extended family
members in the late 1970s. In 2000, Bunna was recognised by being the first rock
musician and the first Indigenous Australian to be awarded the prestigious Australian
‘Don Banks Award’.
Lawrie has worked tirelessly to achieve so much in both Indigenous and
mainstream rock music circles. He has been at the forefront of Indigenous music
for two decades. With 10 albums to their credit, Lawrie’s Coloured Stone is
Australia’s longest surviving Aboriginal band. Their music is a fusion of rock,
country and reggae combined with strong social justice and environmental
themes (Nathan Waks, Chair, Australia Council’s Music Fund in APrap
Magazine, March, 2000).
Coloured Stone continue to record and perform nationally and internationally. They
frequently tour remote Indigenous communities and can be seen performing at the
many music festivals around Australia.
Archie Roach
Archie Roach, a well-known performer in Indigenous communities, entered the
mainstream in 1990 after releasing his debut album Charcoal Lane which included
the song Took the Children Away, about the stolen generations. This song has had a
major impact in educating non-Indigenous Australians about the reality of government
practices of removing Indigenous children from their families.
Activity
Go to http://www.loreoftheland.com.au/indigenous/archie/ for background on Archie’s
career.
Kev Carmody
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CUL00412 Topic 4 – Orality: oral literature
Kev Carmody is a ‘legend’ in Indigenous contemporary music and began his career
in the country genre. When commenting on his fourth album ‘Images and Illusions’
(1995) to Rolling Stone magazine, he described himself as a storyteller who’s trying to
raise awareness about Indigenous issues. He says that all Indigenous music is trying to
do that, and that’s why it has such a powerful base to it.
Yothu Yindi
Yothu Yindi are a Yirrkala based band from the ‘Yolgnu’ people from northeast Arnhem
Land, formed in 1986 with specific aims to promote Yolgnu people to non-Indigenous
people, nationally and internationally. The Indigenous members of the band are among
the traditional custodians of the region. Yothu Yindi’s albums are a mixture of rock
songs and Classical Yolgnu songs, which are owned by specific families in the Yolgnu
community and are recognised and referenced on the album cover. The term Yothu
Yindi, literally translates as ‘child’ (yothu) and ‘mother’ (yindi), but also has deeper
reference to identity for those who are Yolgnu.
Reading 26
Yunupingue, Mandawuy Yunupingue: Yothu Yindi Band, in Thompson (ed.), 1990,
Aboriginal Voices, Contemporary Aboriginal Artists, Writers and Performers, pp.
101–103.
In 1991 from their second album Tribal Voice, Yothu Yindi released the single
‘Treaty’, relating to the Australian government’s promise of a formal treaty in 1988.
‘Treaty’ was the first ever Indigenous ‘Top 10’ single and remained in the Australian
national charts for 22 weeks.
Activity
Go to http://www.yothuyindi.com to get to know more about Yothu Yindi, their music,
Conclusion
culture and homelands.
Today, many Indigenous musicians of all genres, are leaving their mark on Australian
music including, among many others: Tiddas, Christine Anu, Richard Frankland, Rita
Mills, Kutcha Edwards, NoKTuRNL, Kerrianne Cox, Stiff Gins, Shellie Morris and
Emma Donovan.
Neo-classical Indigenous story and song maintain Classical roles in society as vehicles
for contemporary Indigenous comment, tools for cultural maintenance and promotion
and archives of contemporary Indigenous experience.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Introduction
Topic 5
Iconography:
visual literature
Outside observers have perceived Indigenous Australian societies as having no written
literature, but rich in ‘art’ forms. While Indigenous Australian literary traditions are
largely oral, Classical Indigenous literature has graphic and meaningful symbolic
(iconic) components. As stated by the late Japanangka West: ‘Indigenous Australian
Societies have a complex codes of script [literature], often misinterpreted as art’.
Iconography v art
The term ‘art’ is defined as ‘1. The production or expression of what is beautiful,
(especially visually), appealing …’ (Macquarie Dictionary, p. 54). Indigenous
Australian languages have no word for ‘art’ in this sense. Symbols or iconography
is defined as ‘2. A sign or representation which stands for its object by virtue of a
resemblance or analogy to it’ (Macquarie Dictionary, p. 559).
Indigenous words that mean ‘sign’, ‘design’, ‘pattern’ and ‘meaningful mark’ are used
to describe iconic representations in visual literature. Indigenous terms for design or
pattern, often relate to patterns and designs manifest in the natural environment such
as spider webs, wave marks on the beach, butterfly wings, reptile scales and so on.
The natural environment is a ‘Vast sign system’ (Sutton, 1988, p. 19) and Indigenous
iconography is based on that system.
Classical images that are not derived from the natural environment were created by the
Spirit Ancestors in the Dreamtime and have been handed down since then. Therefore
much Classical Indigenous iconography is sacred, those who reinterpret and produce
sacred images undertake education processes prescribed in Law. Images of landscapes,
people, flora and fauna are often representations of their spiritual essence, rather than
realistic portraits.
To interpret Indigenous Classical iconography as ‘art’ is inappropriate, Indigenous
iconography is more than the ‘expression of what is beautiful’; it is the expression of
history, Law, philosophy, religion and knowledge – literature.
45
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Classical iconography
Classical iconography communicates information to its ‘readers’ in a similar manner
to which written languages communicate information in a western sense. As Yirawala,
Elder of the Gunwinggu people of Northern Australia explained:
Each painting is like a page of a sacred book, the Aboriginal book; instead of a
written language, sacred designs are the book, the white man calls it art. (cited in
Le Brun Holmes, 1992, p.3).
As all people are expected to be ‘literate’ (able to read and write their languages), in
the Western world, all people are expected to be ‘literate’, (able to ‘read’ and ‘depict’
their society’s iconography), in Indigenous societies. Visual literature confirms and
expresses individual, family and community identity, status and relationships to
Country. The rights to depict designs and images are inherited through matrilineal
and patrilineal relationships and earned through participation and articulation in age
graded ritualised education processes. As we saw in Topic 3, the use of clan and
personal designs identify and protect regional and individual styles.
Art is an expression of knowledge, and hence a statement of authority. Through
the use of ancestrally inherited designs, artists assert their identity, and their
rights and responsibilities. They also define the relationships between individuals
and groups, and affirm their connections to the land and the Dreaming. Through
art, individuals express their authority and knowledge of a subject, the land
and the dreaming, and artists will use their authority to introduce change and
innovation (Caruana, 1993, pp. 14–16).
Reading 27
Reproduction of ‘Jimmy Pike’s, Mirnmirt’, from Paperbark, p. 197.
Classical iconography deals largely with events of creation, the places associated with
the journeys of the Spirit Ancestors and the continued survival of people and place.
Representations of places and sites are diagrams or ‘maps’ of the designs manifest
during creation.
‘In its focus on specific sites in the landscape … [Classical Indigenous] art is
centred on linked points marked by their social and religious significance in
human affairs, not on their appearance alone. Their aesthetic is not a matter of
‘beauty,’ as such. Site based … representations … are landscapes of landscapes,
or conceptual maps of designs already wrought, not views of nature. As a Cape
York man once said, ‘The land is a map!’ (Sutton, 1988, pp. 18–19).
Classical iconography is expressed through a diversity of media. Sculpture; weaving
of fibres; ritual and practical goods made from wood, fibre, shell, seed, bone and stone;
paintings on surfaces such as bark and stone; etching and carving in trees and wood
and temporary design in sand or earth and body painting and decoration. Iconography
enhances the context of song, dance and story, as song, dance and story enhances the
context of visual literature.
Reading 28
The visual literature reproduced in Reading 28 in Issacs, Australian Aboriginal Music,
p. 39, is part of a series of icons that accompany the song cycle of the Zebra Finch,
taught to Indigenous music students at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music
(CASM).
Interpretation and meaning
47
CUL00412 Topic 5 – Iconography: visual liiterature
Across Australia, Indigenous societies have developed a rich diversity of regional
styles. In any regional style, the meaning of designs and images are ‘contextual’,
‘subjective’ and often ‘private’. Apart from figurative and natural representation,
interpretation will depend on the artist’s level of knowledge, the interpreter’s
relationship to the artist, and knowledge of the subject depicted. Meaning is ‘multilayered’
with many levels of interpretation and references.
The meaning of symbols is layered and multi-referential; paintings are to
be interpreted not as prose but … regarded as poetry with all the inherent
complexities and cryptic references. The deeper and more religiously significant
‘inside’ meanings are privy to only those who have the proper ritual standing …
Elders divulge only the superficial ‘outside’ interpretations of designs to those
not initiated to receive the deeper meanings’ (Caruana, (ed.) 1989, p. 10).
While images are ‘subjective’, some icons have almost universal meaning in some
Indigenous societies.
… ‘universal symbols’ in the Western desert … [have] specific meaning …
however … known in detail … by the artists only … clues to context … [are]
added … [and are] familiar to those from the artist’s group. [Symbols] could
be interpreted in numerous ways by different groups by relating to their own
respective ancestor’s journeys … Symbolism is therefore both specific and
universal concurrently … the meaning of signs used by everyone can be
interpreted on a number of levels depending on the relationship of the viewer to
the artist. (Isaacs 1989, p. 15).
Iconic representations often accurately depict overhead perspectives of landscapes.
These ‘aerial’ depictions of country often cover vast areas and denote important tracks,
sites and events. The use of the arc or U shape depicts a person sitting cross-legged
and as they appear from the aerial view. Men are usually depicted with accompanying
spears and boomerangs, and women with coolamons (wooden carrying vessels
depicted as ovals) and digging sticks.
Reading 29
Reproduction of Diagram – Aboriginal Australia, p. 46 plus explanatory text, p. 47.
Colour
The use of colour in Classical iconography is related to the natural environment and is
a fundamental part of the contextual and religious meaning of iconography as summed
up by Sutton (1998)
… colours … are associated with specific dreaming figures … [and] particular
sites and ceremonies …Walpiri at Yuendumu say that the four basic colour
elements used for ritual purposes originated from an elemental fire (1988:
111). Indigenous artists do not simply make use of the colours found in their
environment; colours form part of the graphic system and encode particular
views of their relations with the environment … classification of colours is
part of an active perception rather than merely a reflection of nature … (1988:
115). Each dreaming is associated with a specific set of colours [and/or] colour
sources. (1988, p. 116)
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Visual literature of the south east
Iconography distinctive to the southeast of Australia includes the carving of shields,
clubs, boomerangs, spear-throwers, trees; designs painted on tools, possum skin
cloaks and rugs; stone arrangements, sculpture and hand stencils. Paintings in rock
shelters are common throughout the southeast, in central western NSW scenes depict
miniaturised human figures dancing and hunting. These styles differ greatly from the
styles common in the northern parts of Australia.
Early European visual and descriptive accounts detail the lush and colourful body
painting and adornment used by southern Aboriginal groups, particularly for the
frequent festivals held between neighbouring groups.
It was only in the late 1880s that the Indigenous iconography and cultural
products began to be seen by Europeans as expressions of complex Indigenous
worldviews, spirituality and societal structures. In the areas of the first European
colonies, Indigenous cultural products were considered, collected and catalogued
as ‘ethnographic evidence’. This has led to the iconography of northern Australia
becoming the stereotype of all Indigenous iconography, with a lack of awareness of
the rich iconography from the southeastern parts of Australia. It was only recently that
the classical iconography of southeast has been acknowledged, through the exhibition
‘Aboriginal Australia’, (1981–1982), presented by the Australian Gallery Directors
Council in association with the National Gallery of Victoria and the Aboriginal Arts
Board, Australian Council.
Reading 30
Reproduction of ‘Native weapons and implements’, Aboriginal Australia, p.108, S 121.
This is an example of European cataloguing techniques for Indigenous cultural objects
collected in the early colonial era. Items were sketched by artists and the sketches
were reproduced for inclusion in collections and publications.
Cultural fluidity – the maintenance of classical
Indigenous visual literature in the 21st century
While Indigenous people from all areas and situations in Australia (remote, rural,
urban) produce art for the western art market, Classical iconography continues to
be produced for ritual, often private, use and accordingly, these products are either
destroyed or kept secret. This literature is also produced to maintain and promote
culture within the community. The community at Yuendumu have used a unique
strategy to promote culture to their children, whilst beautifying their community.
Reading 31
Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu Doors – Kuruwarri, 1987, pp. 7, 9, 11.
Many of these artists also depict public, classical iconography for the art market, using
classical media such as bark or non-classical media like acrylic paints on canvas or
board. In this way Indigenous artists are publicly promoting their cultures nationally
and internationally, to educate, and create awareness about Indigenous peoples. This
is really well illustrated in the following reading where Yolgnu, Papanya and Fitzroy
Crossing artists discuss their work
49
CUL00412 Topic 5 – Iconography: visual liiterature
Reading 32
George Mulpurrurru, Bark Painting, A Personal View in Caruana, (ed.), 1989, Windows
on the Dreaming, and Michael Nelson Tjakamarra, Banduk Marika and Peter Skipper,
Three Aboriginal Voices in Crumlin & Knight (eds), 1991, Aboriginal Art and Spirituality.
In my opinion, these expressions not only illustrate the educational motivations behind
Indigenous visual expression, but also the diversity of contemporary Indigenous artists
both in style and perspective.
Neo-classical iconography
Europeans did not recognise Indigenous artistic talent until Indigenous people began
to visually express using European media, such as paper and ink. Two Indigenous
men, Tommy McCrae and William Barak, both from Victoria are noted for their
intricate drawings during the middle of the 19th century.
Reading 33
Reproduction of drawings by McCrae and Barak, Aboriginal Australia, p. 114, S 135
and p.115 S 137.
McCrae’s work was used to illustrate two late 19th century publications of Aboriginal
Myths and Legends. His work was the first to be ‘published’ in the Western sense but
unfortunately he was not credited or referenced for this. While several exhibitions
of Indigenous ‘art’ were held both in Australia and internationally between 1880 and
1930, work was promoted as ‘primitive’ and of ‘curiosity’ value only.
William Barak (1824–1903), a Yarra Yarra man, has recently been acknowledged and
his life and work celebrated though an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria
in 2003 and publication of a book, Remembering Barak (National Gallery of Victoria,
2003).
Albert Namatjira, who was born in 1902 on a mission in Central Australia, was the
first individual Indigenous artist to ‘make it’ in the western art world. He held his
first exhibition in Melbourne in 1938 and within a decade had held another nine
major exhibitions around Australia. The popularity of his European-style landscapes
caused riots at his exhibitions, as he was viewed as a successful example of the
assimilation policies and granted ‘honorary Australian citizenship, in 1957. What
was not understood was that Namatjira was painting his homelands, as his people
had always done; only he was using the European landscape style. The fact that
he also participated in his own, often private, Classical iconography was either
not acknowledged or not known. In 1958 Namatjira was stripped of his Honorary
Citizenship for supplying alcohol to an Indigenous family member, and gaoled for
three months. After release, he was placed back on an ‘Aboriginal reserve’, where he
died, many say of a broken heart, in 1959.
Activity
Go to http://www.artistsfootsteps.com/html/Artists_Namatjira.htm to view some of
Namatjira’s artwork.
Since the political activism and public awareness from the 1960s onwards, Indigenous
iconography has become internationally renowned and sought after. Indigenous people
living in urban environments have developed uniquely Indigenous neo-classical
styles that extend beyond Classical forms. Much of this imagery and symbolism
50
CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
has directly aided and abetted Indigenous political struggles, becoming nationally
and internationally recognised symbols of Indigenous Australia, the Land Rights, or
Indigenous Flag being an obvious example.
Initially these new styles were snubbed by the western market as not ‘authentic’.
Authenticity was equated with ‘cultural fossilisation’, only anthropological and
ethnographic work was considered authentic. In 1984, an exhibition called Koori
Art ’84, show cased the work of 30 urban and rural Indigenous artists. The Boomalli
Aboriginal Artists Cooperative was formed as an outcome of this exhibition and
institutional recognition of Indigenous artists followed.
Today, Indigenous visual arts and crafts cover a range of genres including:
• painting
• printmaking (including etching and other intaglio processes, screenprint,
linocut)
• craft (including fibre and textile arts, ceramics, glass, wood, bead and shell
work)
• photography
• sculpture
• multimedia and new media.
For Indigenous cultures, the visual arts and craft are central to identity, place and
belonging, and is an expression of unique and continuing traditions.  The visual
arts and craft have an important place in the continuing survival of Indigenous
cultures. Indigenous art is not just art produced by artists living in remote parts
of Australia; neither is remote Aboriginal art solely ‘traditional’ in that it is
anthropological or ethnographic art.  There are many forms of Indigenous art that
are also contemporary.  There are also many Indigenous artists living in urban
areas (Janke, Visual Cultures, 2002, p. 3).
Themes in contemporary Indigenous art are politically motivated – cultural identity,
social justice, land rights, dispossession, lost families, and racism are the strongest
themes in neo-classical iconography today. Since the late 1980s neo-classical
iconography or ‘Urban Art’, as it has become known, has received increasing
attention.
Reading 34
Fiona Foley, ‘Urban Art’, in Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, Crumlin & Knight (eds),
1991, p. 102.
Fiona Foley speaks of contemporary Indigenous art as being ‘traditional’ in essence,
yet ‘fused’ with European imagery. She relates and acknowledges that personal
experiences and history directly shapes the form of neo-classical iconography.
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CUL00412 Topic 5 – Iconography: visual liiterature
Activity
Go to http://www.aboriginalartprints.com.au/aboriginal_artists.cfm and view a wide
Conclusion
range of works by Indigenous artists from a diversity of regions, including ‘urban
art’ (e.g. Fiona Foley and Sally Morgan). Also visit http://www.boomalli.org.au/ and
http://www.tobwabba.com.au to view a wide range of current neo-classical works and
consider the following as you view the work:
What are the classical elements in these works?
What are the contemporary elements?
How do the styles differ from each other?
What are the similarities and differences in style and meaning related to? e.g. Land,
people, colour, media.
Does the work of these artists reflect Fiona Foley’s comments?
Now that you have viewed a selection of Classical, Neo-Classical iconography could
you say that, in your opinion, some styles are more ‘authentic’ than others?
Do you think that there is a general lack of awareness regarding the diversity of
Indigenous art styles in Australia today?
Indigenous societies continue to maintain their Classical iconography for the purposes
prescribed by the Spirit Ancestors in ancient times. Through innovation, adaptation
and maintenance of cultural diversity, Indigenous iconography is maintained and
promoted in the 21st century, worldwide.
Aboriginal art today …  reflects the values and perspectives of a world which,
in many cases, continues to be hostile to Aboriginal aspirations. Aboriginal art
today reflects the traditional ceremonial and artistic activities which continue
to be practised across the country, carrying the spiritual forces of the Spirit
Ancestors. The recurring and inseparable themes of the land and the Dreaming
are as pertinent now as they ever have been. The creative dramas of the ancestral
beings continue to provide the template by which Aboriginal society relates to
the natural and spiritual environment. Aboriginal art, once admired solely for its
antiquity, has now staked its claim on the artistic map of the modern world, as
being among the great expressions of the human spirit and human experience
(Caruana, 1993, p. 207).
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Introduction
Topic 6
Ritual:
dramatic literature
Ritual (or ceremony) draws oral and visual literature together with dramatic
performance through dance, and the gathering of people for ceremony and festival.
The performance of ritual, involving some or all members of the community, and
undertaking all the elements of literature, is fundamental for the physical, spiritual,
intellectual and social well-being of the community. Ritual affirms individual and
community identity and spiritual affiliations to country, and is the formal ‘classroom’
in the ‘university of life’. Ceremonies, like stories, songs and designs, were taught
by the Spirit Ancestors in the Dreamtime, and are performed by people to access the
power of the Dreaming to ensure the continuance of life.
Classical ritual
Inter-community gatherings provide opportunities for neighbouring groups to
undertake joint responsibilities to land and people, for formal and informal diplomacy,
trade and the resolution of any conflict, as well as for social purposes like catching up
with old friends and sharing entertainment.
[Gatherings are] … cooperative undertakings in which people [seek] and receive
… aid from others. A complex kin-oriented network stretche[s] across the
differing local descent groups, with their members depending on one another
in preserving the continuity of life. (Berndt, RM & Berndt CH & Stanton, JE,
Aboriginal Australian Art – A visual perspective, Mandarin: Melbourne. 1981, p.
25, tense changed from past to present).
Many gatherings are based on seasonal cycles and held where there is an abundance of
available food, particularly sought after food like seafood, game, vegetables, nuts and
berries. The ‘Bunya Nut’ Festivals and seafood festivals in this area, between Brisbane
and Coffs Harbour are well known and some local gatherings and festivals still occur.
Abstract and realistic ‘costumes’ are created through the use of body paint and other
adornment like feathers, shell, seed and bone. Ceremonies and gatherings are dramatic
events alive with maban reality and theatrical re-enactments. The next quote is about
the Indigenous groups around the early colony in Sydney.
A lush season when food was abundant, large festivals were frequently held
between neighbouring groups. These were often dominated by religious
ceremonies, but they were also times of great trading, feasting, singing and
dancing. On such occasions, and especially for the dances held at night, bodies
were elaborately striped in patterns of ochre and pipe clay. (Carol Cooper, Art
of Temperate Southeast Australia, in Aboriginal Australia, National Gallery
of Victoria, Australian Museum and Queensland Art Gallery, 1981–1982, pp.
35–36)
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
The organisation of ritual is based on strict laws, structures and procedures.
Regulations for ceremonial sites and spatial arrangements are strictly adhered to.
Participants are positioned according to the Law, depending on their relationships to
other participants and their role in the particular ceremony.
Rom ceremony
In 1982 a Rom ceremony was performed in Canberra by the Anbarra community
from North-Central Arnhem Land, the first time to be performed outside Arnhem
Land. The ceremony was presented at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal studies
in appreciation and recognition of the Institute’s role in the documentation of
Anbarra
culture through the publication of five books, various articles and a film
(Waiting for
Harry).
Rom in Canberra was a diplomatic initiative by one Aboriginal group to
the people of Australia through the mediation of the Australian Institute of
Aboriginal Studies. (Stephen Wild, 1984, in Wild (ed),  Rom, An Aboriginal
Ritual of Diplomacy, 1986, p. xiii).
Reading 35
Margaret Clunies Ross, Rom in Canberra, Chapter 3 in Wild (ed.) 1986, Rom, An
Aboriginal Ritual of Diplomacy, pp. 33–54.
Dance
Dance is an integral part of ritual literature, the theatrical element where creation
and history are dramatically reenacted. Dances tell stories about individuals, the
community, the land, relationships, flora and fauna, history and creation. Dances
enhance and accompany the context of oral and visual literature
There are many Indigenous dance groups in Australia that perform to keep culture
alive, to keep passing on stories to young people and to teach non-Indigenous people
about the diversity of Indigenous Australia.
Activity
View Dreamtime to Dance about NASDA, Australia’s Premier Indigenous Dance College
(DVD provided, ABC TV, screened to air 2/7/02).
Since invasion, Indigenous groups have continued to gather to perform Classical
ritual. Anthropologists have continued to research and write about Classical ritual and
ceremony throughout the colonial period, right through to the present day. Publications
by anthropologists such as C Berndt & R Berndt, A Moyle & R Moyle D Bell, HR
Bell, D Bird Rose and many others, deal with Classical ritual and ceremony and are
testimony to the maintenance of Classical literature today.
Neo-classical ritual
For other Indigenous groups dispossession, disease, massacre as well as oppressive
and restrictive government policies have made it difficult, if not impossible to
maintain their classical ceremonies. In these situations people have continued
to gather, particularly to sing and dance and to create new ways to participate in
ceremonial or ritual type activities.
55
CUL00412 Topic 6 – Ritual: dramatic literature
Political activism and gatherings as ritual
Political activism through gatherings such as rallies, marches and conferences, is a
way for Indigenous people to discuss the problems, and attempt to resolve the conflicts
of the colonial experience in culturally appropriate ways. Throughout colonial history
and particularly from the 1930s, Indigenous people have gathered at local and national
levels, for conferences, rallies and marches.
The Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) founded in NSW in 1937 organised the
Australian Aborigines Conference ‘Day of Mourning and Protest’ on Australia Day,
26th January 1938, the anniversary of 150 years of colonialism. They presented a tenpoint
plan to the Commonwealth government titled Aborigines
Claim Citizen Rights’.

This
was the first national gathering of Indigenous Australians
for 150 years.
The ‘Tent Embassy’ is a high profile example of a neo-classical gathering aimed at
protesting the denial of land rights for Indigenous people. On Australia Day, 1972,
the Prime Minister publicly rejected demands for Indigenous land rights. In response
Indigenous activists erected tents opposite Parliament House in Canberra and declared
the ‘Aboriginal Embassy’. The embassy expressed and emphasised Indigenous
Australians’ sense of being ‘aliens in their own land’, demanded autonomy and
claimed sovereignty for all Indigenous Australians. The Government immediately
passed legislation to enable them to remove the Embassy. On the 20th July, 1972
Commonwealth police forcibly removed the Tent Embassy. At least 8 Indigenous
activists were arrested in the struggle. Three days later, the tents were re-erected then
violently removed by police, with 26 arrests. On the 30th July the Embassy was once
again re-erected by at least 1,500 activists. Police, numbering around 250 confronted
the protesting crowd. This time, after several hours of strong protest, the activists
refused violence and police removed the Embassy without incident. In support of the
Embassy, other tent embassies were established in Adelaide and in Perth. The Tent
Embassy is the most enduring political statement in Australian History. The Embassy
stands in Canberra to this day and is a focal point for Indigenous political activism and
expression in the 21st Century.
In her analysis of Indigenous conflict resolution practices at neo-classical gatherings,
Marcia Langton suggests that when police arrest Indigenous people for swearing
and other abusive behaviours, ‘that police are not simply arresting and detaining
individual ‘troublemakers’, but intervene in an Indigenous social process aimed at
conflict resolution’ (Langton, 1988, p. 219).
Ritual, festivals and gatherings today
Today, Indigenous people gather regularly on local, national and international levels
to discuss all things cultural, political and intellectual. The following are just a few
examples of contemporary Indigenous gatherings today. All of these events combine
Classical literature in form and/or content; none of these events occur without the
inclusion of appropriate social customs, like the acknowledgment of local Elders and
custodians, as well as other ritualised elements such as story, song and dance.
Yeperrenye, billed as one of the largest cultural events held in Central Australia, Alice
Springs, was presented by CAAMA in 2001, to coincide with colonial Australia’s
celebration of 100 years of Federation, promoted by the government as the Centenary
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
of Federation Celebration. The festival was three years in the planning and attracted
national media coverage including a national live TV broadcast on ABC TV. The
concert featured the cream of established and emerging Indigenous talent.
The Survival annual concert series emerged from the Building Bridges – Australia Has
a Black History march and concert on Australia Day, 1988, as an Indigenous response
to colonial Australia’s ‘bicentenary celebrations’. Survival showcases established and
emerging Indigenous performers in an all day concert held each year on Australia Day
in Sydney. It is a day of mourning for Indigenous people who have struggled for social
justice and a celebration of survival, as the name suggests.
National Aboriginal and Islander Day developed as an outcome of Indigenous
political activism from the 1930s. The day has formally been recognised since 1957
and is marked by gatherings and other cultural and educational events. Commonly
referred to as ‘NAIDOC’ (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance
Committee), reflecting the community networks of committees across Australia who
coordinate events in each community, NAIDOC celebrations have extended from one
day events to activities, gatherings and events that occur over a week.
Activity
Go to http://www.naidoc.org.au
Familiarise yourself with both the history of NAIDOC, and current themes and events
for NAIDOC this year.
Stompen Ground, a well established, annual, two day Festival is an Indigenous owned,
designed and managed cultural festival held in Broome, WA. The festival promotes the
cultural diversity of the Kimberley region and wider Indigenous Australia by featuring
Classical and contemporary Indigenous literature, music and dance.
Festivals and gatherings have occurred in the Bundjalung area for thousands of years.
From the late 1920s in the area, Indigenous gatherings and ceremonies virtually
ceased, due to racist government policies. Protection severely limited opportunities
for Indigenous groups to travel or gather, and assimilation virtually outlawed the
practicing of Indigenous cultures. In 2000, the Bundjalung Elders of Wai:Bal/
Widjabal Country (Lismore area) formed an organising group to coordinate the 2000
Bundjalung Peoples Gathering, the first of its kind in over seventy years! The two day
event was billed as,
… a celebration of the culture of Bundjalung Peoples, featuring Elders forums,
classical and contemporary performances, dance, music, art & craft, a Kids
Program plus other workshops. The gathering will highlight the rich and diverse
talent on display in the Northern Rivers Area of both Indigenous and nonIndigenous
artists …  providing entertainment, activities and food free of charge

to
the guests and visitors at the Bundjalung Peoples Gathering 2000.
(Press

Release,
August,
2000, Bundjalung Peoples Gathering Coordinating Committee).
Activity
The Dreaming and the Wollumbin Dreaming Festivals are two current neo-classical
Indigenous gatherings. Go to the following websites to learn more about these
wonderful events.
http://www.woodfordfolkfestival.com/main/index.php?apply=&webpage=the_dreami
ng&PHPSESSID=&cID=1950&menuID=202 and http://www.wollumbindreaming.org/
wFestival.html
Theatre as ritual
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CUL00412 Topic 6 – Ritual: dramatic literature
Classical ceremonies are alive with maban reality and dramatic re-enactments with
body painting and adornment providing abstract and realistic costume, with props to
assist the dramatics of the story. Classical rituals are dramatic and theatrical events
comparable to Western concepts of theatre.
The first steps toward presenting Indigenous theatre in colonial Australia began in the
1960s, with Kevin Gilbert’s The Cherry Pickers. The first performance of the play by
the Nindethana Theatre in Victoria in 1971, was the first production by an Indigenous
artist with an all Indigenous cast. Gilbert refused to allow further production of the
play in protest that there was no state or federal support for Indigenous theatre in
Australia and that at that time it was common for theatre companies to cast nonIndigenous
actors in ‘blackface’
as Indigenous characters. The
play was performed
again
14 years later in 1988.
Other notable early plays are:
• The Cake Man by Robert Merrit, 1974 about life on a NSW Aboriginal mission,
poverty, racism, Christianity and alcoholism.
• Here Comes the Nigger by Gerry Bostock, 1976, about racism in black and white
communities. This play was attacked by mainstream critics for ‘over-projecting’
racism!
Indigenous theatre has progressively employed maban reality and Jack Davis’
plays have led the way. His works, listed below, have been instrumental in placing
Indigenous maban reality firmly on the map of Indigenous theatre.
• Kullark, 1979, his first play, about the influence of colonial race relations in a
country town on a modern day family
• The Dreamers, 1982, which explores the spiritual and psychological continuum
of the Dreaming and issues of identity. The play ‘superimposes’ historical and
Dreamtime realities
• Barungin (Smell the Wind), 1989, dealing with the natural and maban realities
of Deaths in Custody.
Notable in the development of Indigenous theatre was a political revue
‘Basically
Black’, performed in 1972 in Sydney with an Indigenous cast including Bob Maza,
Gary Foley and Zac Martin, all well known as instigators of the Aboriginal Embassy
in Canberra. The revue led to the establishment of Black Theatre Company in Redfern,
Sydney which went on to produce the Cake Man, the first Indigenous play to be
presented as mainstream theatre. The play was extremely successful, both nationally,
being broadcast on ABC TV in 1977, and internationally, with a USA premier at the
World Theatre Festival in 1982. The play starred two excellent Indigenous actors,
Justine Saunders and Brian Syron.  Syron was the first Indigenous Australian to study
at elite acting schools in New York in the 1950s. Four years later the Black Theatre
Company presented Gerry Bostock’s Here Comes the Nigger featuring a young Bryan
Brown.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
Australia was taken by storm in 1989 by the musical Bran Nue Dae, by Indigenous
playwright Jimmy Chi from Broome in WA. The show evolved out of Chi’s pub band,
The Kuckles and deals with race relations in Broome through humour, music and
maban reality. His next musical Corrugation Road was produced in 1996 and deals
with separated families and associated social problems such as alcohol and drug abuse.
Since the 1990s, Indigenous writing for theatre has concentrated on maban reality
more and more. An excellent example is Eva Johnson’s sole theatre piece What do
they Call Me? a monologue by an Indigenous women gaoled for being drunk.
Maban reality is strongly represented in Indigenous theatre by employing lighting,
music and dance to effect maban atmospheres. Indigenous theatre today deals with the
emotional and spiritual life of Indigenous people through more experimental theatrical
styles.
Aboriginality and the non-Indigenous playwright
While the Cake Man was the first Indigenous written and acted play to be presented
in Australia, Indigenous characters have been common in Australian plays. Between
the 1920s and 1960s many non-Indigenous playwrights examined the social condition
of Indigenous Australians. Most of these plays, while ‘well-intentioned’, were
patronising and condescending representations. Some of the more sensitive plays,
were either ignored, Katharine Susannah Prichard’s Brumby Innes, 1927, was not
performed until 1972, or attacked by critics. George Landen Dann’s play Beauty it is
Finished, 1931, about race relations and racism in QLD, was criticised as a ‘sordid’
story. From the 1960s representation of Indigenous characters in non-Indigenous
writing began to improve. Oriel Gray wrote several plays exploring the condition of
Indigenous Australia, his Burst of Summer, 1960, dealt with the life of Rosalie Ngarla
Kunoth Monks who was taken from her homelands to ‘star’ in Charles Chauvel’s film
Jedda. The film Jedda is now considered an Australian classic. It was not only the
first Australian film to ‘star’ Indigenous actors, it was the first Australian film to be
produced in colour. Your local video store may have a copy or you can borrow it from
the Library if you’d like to view it.
The 1990s saw a number of European plays adapted for Indigenous actors. For
example Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot was translated into the Bundjalung
language and performed by Bundjalung actors for the Festival of the Dreaming in
Sydney in 1997.
Louis Nowra is the most successful non-Indigenous playwright to represent
Indigenous characters. His works include The Golden Age, 1985, Byzantine Flowers,
1989 and Radiance, 1993 and are concerned with alienation, loss of identity and
violence. Radiance was adapted for screen by Indigenous writer, Rachel Perkins and
released as a successful feature film a few years later.
Film and TV as ritual
Indigenous film and TV production is a form that extends the concept of ritual,
story, song, dance and drama to be compatible with modern technology and society,
presenting Indigenous cultural expressions with all the sights, sounds and theatrical
elements inherent in Classical ritualised drama.
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CUL00412 Topic 6 – Ritual: dramatic literature
Some Indigenous communities have been making film and TV since the 1980s
facilitated by funding from various government bodies. Initially film and TV programs
were produced in local languages to maintain and promote culture on a local level,
film and documentaries for the education of wider Australia followed.
Activity
Go to http://www.imparja.com.au/company.htm and read about the history of Imparja
Television.
SBS TV began to develop Indigenous programming in the mid-1980s and in 1989
broadcast its first Indigenous program, First in Line, the first of its kind in presenting
positive journalistic stories about Indigenous people. In 1991 SBS TV established
an Indigenous Unit managed by Rachel Perkins that went on to produce the series
Blood Brothers, 1992. SBS screened the CAAMA series Nganampa-Anwernekenhe in
1991, Through Australian Eyes, 1992 and the children’s series Manyu Wana, 1992.
More recently SBS TV broadcasts its Indigenous video magazine ICAM as well as
productions by other Indigenous filmmakers and media associations.
Blackout was the first program to be produced by the Indigenous Program Unit,
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) TV. Blackout was presented as seven
series from 1989–1995 and covered Indigenous people and issues. The ABC’s next
Indigenous series was Kam Yan, screened from 1995–96, focusing on ‘ordinary’
Indigenous people and their stories.
The Bush Mechanics series, produced by the Warlpiri Media Association (Executive
Producers, Rachel Perkins and David Jowsey), was broadcast nationally on ABC
television in 2001. The series was written by David Batty and directed by Francis
Jupurrula Kelly and David Batty. Through humour, maban reality and authentic
Indigenous representation, Bush Mechanics presents an educational and entertaining
journey into Indigenous Australia. In my opinion, Bush Mechanics is a landmark in
Indigenous television.
DVD
View the whole series of Bush Mechanics – Enjoy!! (DVD provided).
Indigenous video and film producers in urban and rural areas have had extremely
limited access to funding compared to remote communities such as Yuendumu.
Nevertheless by the end of the 1990s, there were a number of established independent
Indigenous film and video-producers.
Tracy Moffat has worked extensively as a writer, photographer and filmmaker since
1985, working in documentary, experimental film, as well as music and dance videos.
Her films successfully employ maban reality and narrative to present contemporary
Indigenous characters and issues. Her work includes,
• The Rainbow Serpent, 1985, documentary series SBS TV
• Whatch Out, 1987, Film Australia, dance video
• Nice Coloured Girls, 1987, experimental film
• Moodeitj Yorgas, 1988, documentary
• A Change of Face, 1988, 3 part documentary series, SBS TV
• Night Cries, 1989, short drama, official selection
Cannes, 1990
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
• It’s Up to You, 1989, health video
• The Messenger, 1993, INXS music video
• BeDevil, 1993, feature film, official selection Cannes 1993
• Let My Children Be, 1994, Ruby Hunter music video
• My Island Home, 1995, Christine Anu music video.
Richard Frankland, singer/songwriter and award winning filmmaker, has primarily
produced short films and documentaries. His early work includes the documentaries
Who Killed Malcolm Smith, 1992, based on the life story of an Indigenous man who died
in custody, and No Way to Forget, 1996 based on his experiences as a field officer
during the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Harry’s War, 2000,
his most recent work, won best short film award at the Black Film Makers Hall of
Fame, 2000, the Hollywood Black Film Festival, 2000 and Flicker
fest 2000, in Sydney.
Indigenous filmmakers were showcased in two short film series From Sand to
Celluloid, 1995 and Shifting Sands, 1998. Film-makers showcased include, among
others, Rachel Perkins, Wesley Enoch, Erica Glynn, Danielle Maclean, Mark Olive,
Ivan Sen, and Michelle Torres.
Yolgnu Boy, released in 2001 by the Yothu Yindi Foundation in collaboration with
the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, is the story of a group of boys
raised in a community where they are taught their Classical literature and way of
life. Contemporary western culture; football, popular music, television, drugs and
alcohol also heavily influence the boys. Through adventure, maban reality and the
representation of Classical Indigenous literature in contemporary Australia, Yolgnu
Boy, is an outstanding film, which maintains a strong sense of authentic Indigenality.
Activity
Go to http://www.yolgnuboy.com for more information on this wonderful film.
If possible, view Yolgnu Boy available from video stores.
Doris Pilkington (Nugi Garimara) published the book Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence
in 1996, based on the experiences of her grandmother ‘Molly’ who along with her
sister and cousin, were forcibly removed from their family and community in 1931.
The book was adapted to screen by Phillip Noyce and released nationally as a feature
film in 2002.
Activity
Go to http://www.rabbitprooffence.com.au and read about the film. If possible view the
film available at video stores.
Indigenous performers today
Indigenous performers are no longer type cast into stereotypical roles in live
performance, film or television. Rather, from the 1990s, Indigenous performers have
entered mainstream on their own terms.
Indigenous performance is an important part of Indigenous cultures – ceremony,
storytelling, celebration, mourning, coming together and telling of events in
Indigenous people’s lives, both past and present.  Indigenous performance is not
easily divided into categories of traditional and contemporary … Indigenous
performance refers to:
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CUL00412 Topic 6 – Ritual: dramatic literature
• acting
• dancing
• dramaturgy
• directing that is carried out primarily by Indigenous Australian people,
or is based on the cultural expression of Indigenous Australian People.
Indigenous performance draws on and embraces a full range of dramatic
styles and forms including:
• street theatre
• improvisation
• readings
• ceremony
• dance performance
• dramatic performance
• festivals. (Janke, Performing Cultures, 2002, p. 3).
Video
Now view the provided video Australian Story – Leah Purcell, (ABC TV, screened to air
Conclusion
17/6/02). Leah and her family share their life experiences and Leah speaks candidly
about her experiences as an Indigenous performer.
Ritual and gatherings provide a focus for the coming together of people to participate
in forms of literature that have been developing since the Spirit Ancestor’s creative
era, known as the Dreamtime. Gatherings provide the vehicle for the articulation of
Classical Literature in its entirety, orality, iconography and ritual, to be performed
and experienced by the whole community. As is evident in Bundjalung Na, below, the
philosophy, or ‘essence’ of Indigenous cultures is maintained in the 21st century, while
recognising the colonial experience and the necessity of developing mutual community
understandings and experiences.
The Vision Statement of the Bundjalung Peoples Gathering articulates the Classical
and continuing practice of communal gatherings while providing contemporary
opportunities for community sharing, healing and celebration.
The following is a duplicate press release (courtesy Bundjalung Peoples Gathering,
Coordinating Committee) from the 2000 Gathering.
BUNDJALUNG    PEOPLES    GATHERING
OCTOBER,    2000,    LISMORE
VISION STATEMENT
The Bundjalung    Peoples    Gathering    has been called by the Elders of the Wai:
Bal/Widjabal Family groups of the Bundjalung Nation in conjunction with Elders
of the Bundjalung Elders Council, Aboriginal Corporation.
Gatherings of People are a Universal Social Event relating to all Races of
Peoples.
These gatherings are a symbol of Family groups belonging as communities with
intent, involvement, and commitment, as a form to generate understanding of the
issues present.
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CUL00412 – Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression
End note
The Bundjalung People have a long, rich and beautiful History of Family
Gatherings right across their own Nation. With this Gathering, let it be the first
in a genuine effort to participate, address, enlighten and reinforce the feelings we
all have of this Country.
This particular Gathering has been called to be a Family Gathering of all
Community Groups within the Bundjalung Nation, to offer an opportunity,
a show of support as an extension of the generosity and goodwill that’s been
created, and on offer to take the first true steps to bridge the vast social,
economic and historical differences between Bundjalung na and Jagurr na.
Let the torment, anger and pain from our past be reconciled and let the
HEALING process begin, for the safety and security of the Children of
Tomorrow, in this wonderfully rich, special place, which we now all call home
– Bundjalung.
The Elders of the Bundjalung Nation have asked that this Gathering be a DRUG
&    ALCOHOL    PROHIBITED    EVENT.
Let us all Gather in the Warmth and Spirit to share and respect, as different
People, the one Country.
Bundjalung    na    Jogun    Galah
(Bundjalung Country here)
Garima    gala    jogun    galah
(look after this Country here)
Bugal    wen    beh    leh    la
(Thankyou).
(Bundjalung Na, (Bundjalung Community) 2000)
This unit has attempted to present a contemporary overview of Indigenous Australian
Peoples and Cultures through the analysis of classical and neo-classical expression.
Through recognising and acknowledging ‘Indigenous Ways of Cultural Expression’
as Indigenous Literature, we are breaking down old-fashioned myths and assisting in
the development of mutual understandings between Indigenous and non-Indigenous
Australians – Reconciliation through education. I hope you have found this unit
interesting, challenging and enjoyable and I wish you the best in your future studies.
Marcelle Townsend-Cross
April, 2007.

SOLUTION

Koori Mail – Voice of Aboriginal Community

The Koori Mail was founded in 1991. It is available in every Australian state and territory through subscription and newsagents. The newspaper is a source of information about aboriginal people. Five Aboriginal community organizations based in northern New South Wales own Koori Mail. Aboriginal people constitute the directorial as well as editorial team of Koori Mail. Lismore is the headquarter of the newspaper and its correspondents and contributors are everywhere in Australia.  Koori Mail[1] is the child of Owen Carriage. Owen Carriage came to NSW twenty years ago from South Coast. He was requested by the local Aboriginal people to set up the newspaper in order to make their voice heard. Koori Mail has already completed its 500 editions in May 2011. In 1990s, the news paper faced a major financial crisis and was almost about to shut down its operations. Lack of media business experience was the main cause behind the financial crisis. It was then sold to five Bundjalung corporations. They employed a former Northern Star reporter to give a new start to the news paper. ATSIC also provided a grant to the news paper and then everything is just the history and the paper never looked back.

Every fortnight, more than 9500 copies of the newspaper are circulated and more than 115000 people read the newspaper. Chairman Russell Kapeen, who has served the news paper’s board for last 18 years consider Koori Mail as a community newspaper which has evolved over a period of time. Mr.Kapeen also term Koori Mail as the voice of Aboriginal people. Mr.Kapeen also believes that the Koori Mail has never afraid to publish stories which can cause a fuss among its readers. According to chairman, the success of the newspaper lies in the fact that it delivers true stories related to Aboriginal community. Editor Kirstie Parker who herself is a Yawallarai women believe that the success of the news paper is very vital for its board of directors and editorial board and the community they represent. Koori Mail shares its success with its people as well as its owning organizations in the form of scholarships and dividend so that all other organizations which are run by Aboriginal community can continue their good work for the betterment of their community. On the back of great support from Aboriginal community, Koori Mail is becoming stronger and stronger as far as circulation and readership is concerned. Editorial team believes that through their stories they are fighting a battle for their people to get what they deserve. The paper attempts to bring tough issues related to indigenous community in the forefront. Its aim is to create an environment where indigenous Australians can lead a better life, can have access to education, medical support etc. The Koori Mail is touching new milestone. The independent audit of the revenues of the newspaper is increasing day by day. Koori Mail is a fortnightly newspaper. The paper has a wide distribution network. Indigenous Australians show tremendous interest in the stories published in the news paper. Along with stories, promotional information, beliefs, current affairs, opinions are also liked by the readers. The paper is recognized as ‘The Voice of Indigenous Australia’[2]. Koori Mail is a successful national publication. Koori Mail is also a true Aboriginal success story. Five small Aboriginal organizations together own the news paper. Its office is located inin Bundjalung country. The profit earned by the newspaper is distributed to Indigenous Australians to make the community grew effectively and efficiently. Every fortnight, almost 123000 people read Koori Mail.

Who are Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians[3] are the initial residents of the Australian continent and the surrounding area whereas the Aboriginal Indigenous Australians are ones who moved from India via the “Southern Route” around 50,000 years ago, and finally settled in Australia around 45,000 years ago. The term “Aboriginal” has historically been applied to natives of mainland Australia, Tasmania, and some of the other neighbouring islands. After much research and study, it is believed that humans moved into Australia approximately 40,000 to 50,000 years back with a possibility of up to 125,000 years back. However, the oldest human skeletons found are as old as only 42,000 years old. These skeletons found are those of Mungo Man and on the comparison of the DNA of these skeletons with the modern Aborigines, it was observed that Mungo Man are not Aborigines.

There is another theory that suggests that aboriginal Australians draw their origin from the people who had migrated from Africa approximately 64,000 to 75,000 years back. Thus the Indigenous Australians are also referred as ‘Black’.

The primary reason for prevailing local communities in Australia today is the settling of people belonging to varied culture and customs over the years. At the time when the Europeans begin to settle in Australia[4], the universe of the Indigenous Australian was about 318,000 and they spoke 300 languages. These 300 languages contributed to approximately 600 dialects. However, today the population is only 750,000[5] with less than 200 languages being cont[6]inued to be used and it is believed that soon only 20 of these languages will only be used and the remaining will abolish. The primary reason for the languages getting abolished is that even the natives have started to speak English rather than using their own language.

The Torres Strait Islanders have a different heritage and culture vis-a-vis the aboriginal Australians. The eastern Torres Strait Islanders belong to the Papuan peoples of New Guinea and use Papuan language as their mother tongue. However, of the total indigenous Australians population, approximately six percent call themselves as 100 percent Torres Strait Islanders whereas approximately four percent call themselves belonging to both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal heritage.

The aboriginal Australians lived as nomads and migrated from one place to another for food and change in season. They hunted for food in and around the region they settled during the respective time. Finally, they settled primarily in the South-east Australia, cantered along the Murray River.

The year 1788 marked the beginning of the British colonization in Australia. As the Europeans begin to settle in, they brought with themselves diseases like Measles, Smallpox and tuberculosis. In 1789, almost 90% of the population of Darug people was estimated to be killed due to Smallpox.

Some of the other significant years included 1834 when the usage of aboriginal trackers was first recorded, 1860 when the skulls of Tasmanian Aboriginal were sought internationally for further studies and 1868 when the Aboriginal cricketers team toured England thereby being the first Australian cricket team to travel abroad.

Why Koori mail started?

The Koori mail was started with the aim of making their voice heard. This community has been discriminated over years[7]. The destruction of the Aboriginal people which started in 18^th century has not ended in present day as well. The act of stealing children from Aboriginal families and then killing them has lead to the destruction and imperishment of this community. An estimate indicates that there are around 300 million indigenous people in the world.

Every Indigenous Australian has the right to uphold and stiff his/ her status and culture, right to take decisions which will shape their future and most importantly right to own a land which is the basis for evolution and development of any community. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner advocates work with the attitude to gain regards and honor for Aborigine people from every Australian. Diversity in any country should be taken as the richness of its culture. Any kind of assumptions or differentiation towards any particular community should not exist in any country. One should respect each others’ traditions, lifestyle, values and systems. Giving equal rights to Indigenous people is not any kind of favour on them; equality is their right and it should be given to them in the most respectful manner (Dr. William Jonas, n.d.).

Within Australia, Aboriginal people are the one who have not benefitted from education at all as they are not being provided the level of education they should be provided. Most of these people are still living in rural and remote areas. They are suffering from issues like poverty, health and above all negative attitude of non indigenous Australians which is actually making their life hell. The gap between an Australian and an Aborigine Australian is getting wider and wider with the course of time. One should understand the richness and importance of this culture. This ancient culture is more than 60000 years old and should be treated as a precious asset of the evolution of mankind. This culture reflects various people, politics, places and over all traditions. More than anything else, considering humanity as a base, Aborigine Australians should be provided all the rights to have a reasonably good life.

Media and Indigenous people

In the past, Aboriginal community has been given a negative coverage but there is positive side of the coin as well and that part of media has done quite a lot of positive work for aboriginal community. Giving Indigenous media its due importance is the responsibility of key influential people and they should seriously work on that front.

Sadly, most of the Australians get to know about the life of Aboriginal person through media. For them, Aboriginal people are what they read. They have never met these people and perceive whatever journalist wri[8]te about them. The negetative image of Aboriginal people has been created by the media, and then it is the responsibility of the media only to change this image. In Western Australia, a group of journalists and Aboriginal people have joined hands to make things better for Aboriginal people. In order to improve the coverage regarding Aboriginal people,

They have formed the Aboriginal Media Liasion Group[9]. Campaigns are being conducted to enhance standards and forums have been created to make improvements in reporting for Aboriginal people. For hundreds of years, there has been a stereotyped image for Aboriginal people in the media. However, great initiatives have been taken by the Aboriginal communities to establish their own media networks and programming. As far as Aboriginal community coverage is concerned; political, constitutional, forest fires, poverty and substance or sexual abuse are very few issues that get attention of media. Sometimes their cultural activities also get some attention. However, the aboriginal community is rarely consulted regarding their media coverage. Federal government in Australia has announced root-and-branch review of all funds of public for various sectors. National Indigenous TV, Imparja TV and Indigenous Community TV as well as the 27 metropolitan and regional indigenous community radio stations, eight Remote Indigenous Media Organizations and 71 Remote Indigenous Broadcasting Services will also get the benefit of this fund. The objective of the review is to determine whether the public fund is being utilized for the betterment of indigenous people. This decision will also support future considerations of free-to-air carriage of indigenous television and radio content, including the exploration of options for the delivery on new digital broadcasting platforms. This move will also help to remove the excessive bureaucracy in indigenous broadcasting. Initiatives are being taken to make things better for media coverage of Aboriginal community. Complaints can be made to the Australian Press Council if the error has been made in a newspaper, to the Independent Complaints Review Panel if the error has been made by the ABC and the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal if the problem is with a commercial radio or television station.

There have always been contentions about the treatment that Aboriginal people have received in Australia. The 1991 Royal Commission made four recommendations concerning the role of the media in terms of the broader Aboriginal environment in Australia. Adequate funding should be made available to the Aboriginal media organizations for smooth running of their functions. Directions should be passed to all the media organizations to formulate policies to train Aboriginal employees so that aboriginal news can be presented in the manner they should have been presented. Recognition of hard work is quite essential for motivating the hard work of people associated with Aboriginal media. Efforts should be made to make courses on Aboriginal journalism.