, assignment opinions

[, keely dunn]

Okay, so I had to write something based on an Australian poem. The poem I chose is called "We are Going" by Kath Walker - an Indigenous poet:

They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroboree and the bora ground,
We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.
We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.

Now, onto my craptastic work. Please note, it's due tomorrow, so I basically wrote this tonight. But yes, think I'll pass?

My family has walked these lands for thousands of generations. We had been one with the majestic land that was taken away from us, so cruelly. Times before the white man were plentiful, happy and peaceful. The tribes thrived, living from the land which gave us life and was one with us in death. My ancestors roamed the land, taking only what was needed and respecting the beautiful and most sacred land, land which gave us life. It was our reason for existing, the centre of our ways of life, or our beliefs. Our mother and father taught us that the land was to be respected, that it was to be treated with the utmost respect. It was more than just a resource. It was a part of our very being, or our ways. It ensured that life would continue, the way it had, the way my ancestors had always thought it would.

They were, however, deeply mistaken. The day the white man landed was the day that changed everything. With one declaration, they were stripped of their land, of their way of life. The most tragic part was they had no idea what was happening. Life continued, until the day the white man decided to venture forth into the land that was rightfully ours; the land they had taken away because we didn’t fit into their stereotypical ideas of what owning land was. They watched as they robbed our sacred earth of resources and we watched as they cleared areas that we held close and made way for houses and agriculture. My ancestors watched helplessly as they took away their sacred lands, the places where our loved ones lay buried and where their spirits lay waiting; waiting for us to return once more.

As the years past, our treatment worsened. More of our land was taken by brute force. White man killed my grandfather’s grandfather, his wife, his children. White man destroyed my family, crushed their spirit. Without our land, they had nothing. Being put into camps and being told how to live was not the way of our tribe. Stripped of their right to teach their children the old ways. Stripped of any right to the lands that our grandfathers had walked for thousands upon thousands of years. Our tribe suffered in those camps. They were controlled and denied the right to pass on their knowledge that had been taught to them by my grandfathers. Their language was forbidden, as well as the practice of our traditions. They could not hunt; they could not perform the spiritual ceremonies that kept them close to family members’ long gone. It was the biggest travesty faced by our tribe up to the point. The restriction of our way of life was devastating.

Time passed and our culture deteriorated. It was harder and harder to find tribes who lived the way of our elders. Our traditions are meaningless, our languages nearly forgotten. All of this is because of the white man and their indecent treatment of my family; of my ancestors. There is no more laughter amongst the tight-knit tribal group. There is no more hunting like my grandfather’s used to pass down the line, man by man, father to son. There is no more corroboree and no more stories around the camp fire at night time before we go to sleep. There is no more land our tribe can call our own. No more spiritual lands that we visit to show our respect. Our lands have been taken, our culture left in pieces and slowly, we are going. We are drifting into nothingness and soon, the miraculous culture that I am proud to be a part of, will disappear, nothing more than a memory.

That brings me here. I’m here, questioning what has become of my culture. I hear my elders, talking of days with their parents, days that at least filled them with some knowledge of where they come from, of what their parents were taught as children. I’m here, wondering what will become of me and what I can pass down to my children. There is so little knowledge left, we struggle to grasp hold of the culture that was once so rich, so full of life and traditions. Will the stories of the Dreamtime be forgotten? Will our legends vanish, slip through the cracks as we are obliterated, generation by generation. All of this, from two words; two words that were proven to lack any meaning when applied to us. Two words left us in ruins. Two words: Terra Nullius.

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