Workshop 2000: Aboriginal Policy: Failure, Reappraisal and Reform

The Dominant Culture and Traditional Aborigines

Fr John Leary

I have spent the last forty seven years working with Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. The first two years were at Garden Point, Melville Island, with part-Aboriginal young people. Some few of them, I believe, were 'stolen', most were there for some good reason, some sent by parents or parent for education and to be with their own kind, some had parents come to visit them, some went home for holidays.

When I arrived in Darwin, part-Aborigines were commonly called 'half-castes'. They were accepted neither by the whites nor the blacks. They were trapped in between. Many old Darwin 'coloured' families seemed to be resigned to being Malay or Philipino and so avoided 'The Act'.

I am grateful to the Garden Point People, and frequently remind them of it, for helping me, in their own unique manner, feel at home with Traditional people. They were the link. Many of them, coming as they did from different parts of the Territory, had full-blood Traditional mothers. In addition, they were in constant contact with Traditional Tiwi people, whose land they lived on. Many spoke the Tiwi language. Some were so called 'adopted' by Tiwi families and got to using kinship terms. Most became proficient in hunting skills, even outdoing the locals. They were notably conscious of and proud of their Aboriginality. However, at the same time, having a non-Aboriginal father, they tended to identify for what they are, namely part-Aboriginal or of Aboriginal descent. I recently heard John Ah Kit, MLA, Arnhem, say he was proud both of his Aboriginal and his Chinese ancestry.

From my observations, it seems that very often it is the non-Aboriginal father, who allows these Aboriginal people to be better equipped to handle the values and the manner of living of the dominant culture. This is reflected in a more individualistic way of living as against the communal, in the way they manage a house, in their approach to their children's' health and education, in the way they handle employment.

In my discussions with them these days, I find many of them, despite their own troubles, are deeply concerned over the destructive upheavals presently occurring in traditional communities. They would like to be of help but seem at a loss as to where to start. I know of cases where they have attempted to help only to be called 'yeller feller' and told to mind their own business. I have noticed when the chips are down this derogatory term is often used. Miriam Rose Ungunmeer, a leading traditional woman at Daly River recently asked me, 'What right has Mr Mansel got to speak for us?' I told her, 'Perhaps it is because you don't speak for yourself.' Miriam has degrees of Bachelor and Master of Education mainstream correspondence with Deakin University.

This attitude, I believe, suggests the need to clarify the concept of 'leadership' in general Aboriginal society. It is particularly relevant to the cohesion of traditional society. Do we have to distinguish between 'leadership' and 'spokes people'? And how do the two relate? Or do they relate? There is quite a group of non traditional 'leaders'. Where does their authority come from? How do these 'leaders' relate to traditional groups? What sort of dialogue takes place between the two? On what basis might this dialogue take place?

The point of leadership raises questions about such matters as: 'community', 'community council', 'consensus', 'consultation'. In all these matters much confusion has occurred in traditional society because of the over intrusion of the dominant culture.

The Catholic Diocese of Darwin has what is called an 'Aboriginal Pastoral Council'. It's members are elected by and from various Aboriginal Communities: Tiwi Island, Darwin City (Urban people) Daly River, Port Keats, Palumpa, Alice Springs town, Santa Teresa. The meetings of the Council are held quarterly at the Daly River Leadership Training Centre over a period of four days. The first few meetings seemed to stress the good things that were happening in the various communities and the ways and means of supporting them. In more recent meetings discussions have been centred very realistically on the destructive things that were threatening the good. I list a few of them here from the minutes. They are particularly significant because they come from a mixed group of Aborigines, Traditional and Urban:

1. The divisions and lack of unity between Traditional and Urban People and this in the Northern Territory, where both groups live side by side. Many examples of this lack of unity were quoted. It also noted that often non-Aborigines used this to further divide Aboriginal People.

2. There were divisions and lack of unity in the urban situation: open disagreements, power struggles, family blocks, etc.

3. There were divisions and lack of unity among Traditional people. There are communities composed of different language groups with a continued history of feuding and payback.

4. In long established settlements where facilities were intended by Government for all, Traditional owners have made the others feel they do not belong, thereby causing much frustration, confusion and anger.

5. There has been a breakdown in traditional authority with many harmful repercussions on family and community life.

6. The devastating effects of widespread alcohol and, more recently, drug abuse on persons, families and whole communities.

7. The sudden invasion of all kinds of outside pressures, made all the more severe in the context of isolated settlements in transition from a long established way of living. Pressures from such as: media, television, videos, the ever growing number of not-so-well motivated non-Aboriginal employees.

8. The transition to a cash-economy and the supermarket.

9. Problems over the direction of Education---the 'why' and the 'what'.

10. Unemployment and the need for meaningful work.

11. Division in families, especially problems with youth, a separation of the young from the old. Parents had become afraid of their teenagers.

In all these considerations the Council noted one thing stood out, namely, that in the wider reconciliation process, there is a primary need for Aboriginal people to be reconciled among themselves at all levels.

Now that I come to speak of Traditional Aborigines, I want to use the Community of Wadeye, Port Keats, as an example for other Communities in the Northern Territory. From my conversations with Aboriginal People from many of these Communities and from my reading, I realise there are many suffering the same traumas.

I want to use Wadeye, Port Keats, because I lived there for fifteen years and have been well acquainted with the place for the last forty five years. In brief, I want to show how it was before and after money. I followed Fr Richard Docherty there in 1958. Docherty went to Port Keats in 1935 in answer to an invitation from the Northern Territory Government wanting someone who might settle down the people. The area was in a state of turmoil. An Aboriginal called Nemarluk had recently murdered three Japanese pearlers. There was endless tribal fighting. Because the situation was extremely dangerous, the police had forbidden anyone entry to the place. Dr Stanner, anthropologist, who was engaged in field work at Daly River, was anxious to extend his work to Keats and obtained permission to accompany Docherty. He later returned in my time and stayed a year with me.

I inherited a definite policy for Port Keats, namely to hasten slowly, at their pace and their style. The people had no money at all and very little clothing. To keep the peace, Docherty had worked out a system based on residence and work and divide and conquer. Protagonists were kept apart---one group worked at the Mission while the other stayed in its 'country'. There was a very productive vegetable garden won from a swamp by the hands of locals under Dochertys' direction. Stockmen brought in killers, and, along with the vegetables, the women did the communal cooking. My dwelling was an unsealed Sydney Williams building, rescued out of war time relics on Peron Island in the mouth of the Daly. The few other Aboriginal buildings were of similar design. As a young man prepared for marriage, he went to old man Dulla at the sawmill and, with the help of Harry Pallada, the local bush carpenter, picked up the necessary pieces of timber and built his unpretentious shed.

Because there was no money and little administration, I had time to work alongside the men on various jobs including a new airstrip. There were sixty men involved. All work was done with pick and shovel and axe and in a spirit of togetherness. It was an excellent way of me getting to know them and they me.

Discipline was exercised by appropriate Elders in each group. I recall only one incident of a young man being punished and sent to Timber Creek, dressed in his loin-cloth and armed with his spear. On a second occasion, I called in the police to apprehend a man who had speared a woman to death. Otherwise, there was no need for police. Occasionally, due I think to some mismanagement of the divide and conquer policy, there would be a shovel spear fight which I was expected to stop to save face, directing the contestants to their respective areas. Eventually, these fights ceased altogether. Entertainment was of their own doing. In the various camps, most nights, there would be corroboree or storytelling. I had the privilege of attending the men's' ceremonies.

Being a keen walker, I joined in several long walks. On one occasion I walked with three of the men from Port Keats to Daly River. I had estimated it would be ninety miles as the crow flies. It ended up more like one hundred and twenty miles, because they had to divert to follow the water holes. It was an enlightening experience. We took nothing, apart from what we stood up in, neither swag nor food so as to travel light. They assured me there was plenty of food along the way. They had no objection to sleeping on the ground beside the fire. I heard so many stories of various countries and people and incidents. I often regret the loss of so much oral history. I was amazed at their tracking and survival skills. I would excitedly point to many scratch marks on the bark of a tree and announce the presence of a possum. One look from one of them and he would declare 'no possum, he's out hunting.' The last tracks were downward. It was the same with goanna tracks. They could tell at a glance whether goanna was home or not.

The third night out I woke up in a nightmare thinking the men had walked away. To my great relief they were snoring their heads off. The incident impressed on me how I was completely dependent on them. Without them I would not only have been lost but died of hunger and thirst. Next day I spontaneously told them of my dependence on them and how good I felt about it. Some months after the walk I had to take a jeep to Darwin. The three men had never seen Darwin so, at their request, I took them with me. Surprisingly, in Darwin, the roles were reversed. They were completely dependent on me.

In regard to bush skills, we had a visit from Major General Dunstan, head of the Australian forces and later Governor of South Australia. He brought with him three Colonels, jungle war experts. They wanted to see how the Aborigines tracked and survived. For the tracking exercise, the Colonels deliberately selected a very rocky terrain. Two went ahead for an hour making sure they covered their tracks, one stayed with the men. When the hour was up the colonel with the men told them to find the two. They did it in an hour and a quarter. The colonel with the men was amazed. He admitted that some time was wasted by the men explaining to him how they could see the tracks and the concealment efforts of the two colonels.

I accompanied the General with a small group of Aboriginal men on a short survival exercise. In very ordinary scrubby looking country, the Aborigines pointed out various kinds of food above and below the ground and what could be used as medicine for various maladies. The general remarked that with his commando groups there came a time when certain articles of food and medicine had to be air-dropped to them. Then he added with some surprise that the Aboriginal people could go on indefinitely. No one would ever have to drop them anything!

I remarked, perhaps with a little cynicism, 'That's right, for thousands of years no one ever dropped them anything!

I have spent the first section of this paper endeavouring to show how this group of people, gathered at Wadeye, functioned before the advent of money. In so many ways, these traditional people proudly retained their independence and the capacity to live much the same as their ancestors had done over the centuries with a unique independence. I now found myself witnessing a dramatic turning-point in their history. It was a sad coincidence.

They had to deal with money and all that money brought with it with no preparation. They had to do it in haste against a background of values and skills at the other end of the spectrum. It was an uneven confrontation of the dominant culture with the traditional.

As I saw it, the first casualty was the destruction of Aboriginal authority, the binding force that held that society together. The first resulting symptom was the dramatic decline of discipline through the group. It was particularly noticeable among the young males where traditional authority was blatantly flouted. Parents admitted they were frightened of their teenage sons. Sadly this lack of authority became evident in a large section of the younger children. Role models for these children became no longer significant adults, but the disaffected, irresponsible young men. So the situation tended to become self-perpetuating, aggravated by the fact that some sixty per cent of the two thousand population was under the age of twenty years. Destructive behaviour became widespread. There was a constant stream of young men being taken off to gaol. The absurdity of it all became evident when the policeman's wife took breakfast to two young men in the local cell for taking a motor car only to find a third young fellow had broken into the gaol to be with his mates.

I truly believe I witnessed a life-style subverted almost overnight. The hunting and tracking skills that made them so independent were no longer needed, nor was the need to pass these skills on to their children. The Toyota replaced the legs. They became dependent on money and the things that money can buy. There was a sudden transfer from nature-dependence to money-dependence, from traditional values, to values that were artificial, not truly their own. It all happened so quickly.

Some of the more discerning members of the community felt concern for the whole fast deteriorating situation. I recall Harry Pallada, the bush carpenter, a middle-aged man, calling a meeting of his countrymen, about two hundred of them. He had his first 'Training Allowance' wage packet and was waving it about in one hand. 'This is something new', he addressed the group. 'It is a new way to live. It is not my way. My way is living in the bush, teaching my kids to live there. What if I leave my old way and try to live this new way? I will end up 'ma kadu'---literally 'a non person'---a nobody! Unfortunately, Harry died shortly afterwards. The community needs such leaders. I have confidence in the Port Keats' people. There is a Harry-type wisdom among many of them that, I am sure, when given a chance will find its way to sanity and healthy independence.

Some months later, after the above incident, there was a bang on my door about midnight. An eighteen year old lad wanted to talk to me. I suggested next morning. He said it was urgent, so we sat on the bed and he poured out his worries over several hours. He reminded me of the importance of the word in the Murrinh-Patha language---'thawait'. It means 'carefully-slowly'. The two words are really one. They go together. He brought up many instances where things were going neither carefully nor slowly. He was extremely worried. 'It is killing my people', he kept repeating.

This young man could see the whole community being badly disaffected (even the Elders) he whispered with a certain amount of fear. Young men were losing their respect for the old. Aboriginal Law violations, which formerly would have cost severe punishments were overlooked. The deeper, cultural things were not being passed on.

A group of Port Keats Elders I gathered at the Daly River Leadership Training Centre, especially to discuss the abuses occurring in the Port Keats Community, reluctantly admitted that they themselves were the cause of much of the breakup, mainly because they were drinking too much and so earning the disrespect of the young.

I have become convinced, regretfully, that the old order of discipline---Gerontocracy, rule by the old---is no longer possible. The young men, with money available, are free to travel and escape any restraining influences. In particular, the ceremonies no longer have both their significance and their indirect power to discipline the youth. Yet, I believe, because the ancient system worked so effectively and for so long, the people continue to think that somehow all will be well. Life must continue as it always has been. They admit to the changes money and benevolence have brought: Supermarket, Council Chambers, Take-Away shops, an Aircraft Company with an automatically lit airstrip, motor cars, TV, Videos, Travel, Long Grass, Alcohol, Drugs, Berrimah Gaol, etc, etc. They admit these changes have affected, very much for the worse, their personal and community lives. Despite all this, they remain anchored in the past, unable to see a way out of their present misfortunes. Surely, when such an attitude exists, it no doubt reinforces the inevitability of the future.

Over recent years, some zealous white advisors have tried, without success, to revive the old authority much to the puzzlement of the senior men. I am of the opinion that the Port Keats People, as well as those of other communities, need to take the next step and ask the question: 'Where do we place our authority?' I believe authority must be concentrated on the parents and the extended family. As long as these people are depending on an authority that can no longer function, they are living without a foundation for discipline, and chaos will forever be on the increase.

Discipline of children must begin in their way, with their necessary adaptations, at babyhood. Previously---and I watched it all---discipline was left especially to the time of initiation. Up till then, the boy was treated with moderate discipline, the ceremony called 'Javan' introducing him to the Law. Nevertheless there were still tantrums which were tolerated. At initiation, the very shock of being taken from the mother and the uninitiated was the first blow for discipline. What followed brought the young lad towards manhood. With all this missing in present times, the tantrums of pre-initiation continue through the teenage years in exaggerated form.

The breakdown of authority and the resultant chaos revealed what should have been obvious, namely, that Port Keats was not a community, but an amalgam of small communities---seven in all, three of them major. So traditional authority played little or no part in the larger gathering---call it 'community' for want of a better word. It could not. Traditionally, there was no mechanism for it. In this abnormal situation, authority figures, local and outsiders, black and white, multiplied and more confusion followed. Pressures from outside increased, while the locals were left with few resources to deal with these pressures. In addition, the more sophisticated Port Keats became under the generous input of money, the more need there was for non-Aboriginal outsiders to run the place and so less participation from the locals. The term 'self-management' became a pretence, a piece of window dressing.

From the dominant culture, came the suggestion of a local Council to keep the place together and be accountable for Government benevolence. Over the years, Port Keats has, in blind faith, made strenuous efforts to get the Council working. In the beginning, all members of the Council were Murrinh-Patha, the local landholders. Next, Council representatives were voted in by members of the different tribal groups. Young men who spoke English were elected to do Council business with the Government, while it was left to a group of Elders to confirm or make decisions. Eventually, after a protracted series of elections and Councils, the whole idea ground to a halt. The idea proved ineffective because the Council presided over a community that did not exist, because it was born of the thinking not of the traditional but the dominant culture.

Sadly for the cause of self-management, in recent times, the running of Port Keats is in the hands of a hard working Town Clerk with a small group of selected Aborigines and white offsiders and Consultants to give professional, often expensive, advice. Teams of outside contractors work on housing and major works. An old man who had worked on the first airstrip with me, as we watched all the heavy equipment and the busy white people laying the bitumen and the lights, remarked with a smile---different from us! The important difference, of course was that they were not part of it. Such had become the expected. I believe Paulo Freire described the situation exactly (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin, Great Britain, 1972): 'People are disempowered so they do nothing. They see themselves as hopeless and must wait for the 'sophisticated' ones to come and solve their problems for them.' I find it sad to think of these people on whom I was so recently dependent, now reduced to a state of abject dependency---and all in the cause of progress and self-management. Even sadder still, they do not seem to worry about it. However, it does show up in their behaviour. I agree with what Richard Trudgen has to say in his recent book, Why Warriors Lie Down and Die: 'It is important to try to understand what dependency really is and how it destroys people. As we have seen, dependency is a product of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness occurs when people lose their economic independence and become dependent on welfare programs. Through these programs they experience loss of roles, loss of mastery and hopelessness. These in turn translate into destructive social behaviour, including neglect of responsibility, drug use, family violence, self abuse, homicide, incest and suicide.'

I notice that Trudgen has written under the title of his book: 'Towards an understanding of why Aboriginal People of Arnhem Land face the greatest crisis in health and education since European contact.'

I often ask myself, why is it that these traditional Aborigines succumb to such dependency? The answer for me goes back to where it all began, to the time of colonisation. The deprivation of land and the slaughter of Aboriginal people were certainly fatal and criminal blows, but an even more fatal blow, lasting as it does till now, was the very co-existence of the two cultures, the traditional and the dominant. Geoffrey Blainey (in an address given in Melbourne on 15 August 1994) speaking of the Colonisers and traditional Aborigines says: 'Here were people (the Colonisers) from the most advanced technological nation on earth---the nation which had just invented the steam engine, face to face with people who, not having pottery, did not boil water ... there is a gap of such enormity that it is almost too difficult to contemplate.' The gap, I believe, is still there. Add to the 'steam engine', the jet engine, nuclear energy, the computer, etc, etc.

Maybe an old Aboriginal man from Port Keats, whom I knew, called Muta, summed it all up when speaking to Dr Stanner:

'White man got no dreaming,
Him go 'nother way.
White man, him go different
Him got road belong himself.'

Stanner (The Dreaming) attempts to describe the binding structures of the past on traditional Aborigines:

1. An immensely long span of time.

2. Spent in more or less isolation.

3. In a fairly constant environment.

4. With an unprogressive material culture.

Stanner also frequently spoke of the all powerful and pervading influence of their Law and the vital religious dimension of their life---materially poor, spiritually rich.

Stanner, after listing the binding structures, continues: 'Considering all this we may perhaps see why the sameness, absence of change, fixed routine, regularity, call it what you will, is the main dimension of their thought and life.'

This absence of change over thousands of years, no challenges from other cultures, shows there was no need for adaptation. So there was no race experience of adaptation. Now suddenly, so recently, these people were faced with an urgent need to adapt and at the same time maintain their integrity. It is, as Blainey truly remarks, 'a gap of such enormity that it is almost too difficult to contemplate. So for the culture that had survived so many thousands of years, that had proved so strong and enduring, this very strength now became its weakness.'

How then do traditional people overcome this weakness and regain their strength? Certainly, it must be through education, but a particular kind of education that is directed to the adult. In the past, I think, we have concentrated on the child, the education of the child. The thinking was---educate the child and you eventually will have an educated community. This has not happened. No matter how earnestly the school works to educate the child, the child succumbs to the confusion of the adult community.

There is a damaging dislocation between school and community. The school becomes an enclave where the children are occupied for so many hours a day, till they return to the camp where other knowledge circulates and other values are lived. The real world is the camp. So the community becomes a negative, counter-educator.

Until the adult community gets its act together, child education will continue to be frustrated. So there is an absolute need for this particular type of adult education that is directed towards identity and confidence-building out of identity, very much along the lines proposed by Paulo Freire. Freire's fundamental tenet is that oppressed people, and Aboriginal people are that, 'par excellence', must come to achieve 'a basic trust in their own resources'. At this present time, these resources, these skills the people have, of which I am very much aware having witnessed them, are forgotten. They play no part in the education process. Rather, education is imposed from the top; it does not draw out from, as the word implies it should ('educere'), the existing rich potential. As a result, motivation is extinguished and people stay the same.

Paulo Freire tells us that on this foundation of 'a basic trust in their own resources, through a thoughtful approach to their own reality---a process called 'praxis', they may attain authentic growth and true liberation. In addition, Freire maintains, and I am convinced it is true, that ultimately only the oppressed can liberate themselves---and the oppressor as well. The involvement of outsiders in this process is simply one of being a 'facilitator'. This is a very delicate and difficult task. It is so easy for the facilitator to become a manipulator, an oppressor. The kindest person on earth can become the greatest oppressor; so can benevolence. Both have been at work in more recent Aboriginal history.

In short, the Aboriginal adult, with confidence in his/her cultural identity, must come through honest 'thought-action-reflection-action' to a position where he/she is able to absorb or reject what is happening to him/her with a view to maintaining authentic cultural growth. Authentic growth is needed, otherwise culture dies or becomes something else.

To be in a position to achieve this, I am convinced that mixed unnatural communities such as Port Keats, must at least be reduced to a cultural basis that is compatible, or preferably be abolished and given to the landowners. So long as communities like Port Keats continue to grow, the felony is compounded.

Recently a leading Murrinh-Patha man, an owner of the land where Port Keats is, complained to me, 'I can't do anything with my land while all these other people are treading on it.' So, natural communities, such as homeland groups need to be encouraged and promoted. How they will develop must depend on genuine, honest, real consultation with the local group. I stress the absolute importance of genuine consultation. Without it the merry-go-round keeps going round.

It would be my hope and expectation that in such a situation the local group would: Regain its confidence and independence. True authority would develop. Parents and the extended family would become involved in the cultural education of the children and supportive of their further education.

I realise this will be a slow, long, painful process. 'Hasten slowly!' 'Carefully slowly!' 'Thawait 'Thawait'. So much damage has been done in the creation of dependency. So many mistakes are there to be learned from. An old Port Keats man once told me: 'We have made so many mistakes there is no time to learn.' In addition all must keep in mind 'that GAP of such immensity, almost too difficult to contemplate,' that has to be spanned. That is the challenge.

Appendix

The facilitator and solidarity. We are called to solidarity with the Aboriginal people as they grow in understanding of their experiences. In some respect this solidarity means we are followers. The Aboriginal people need first to grow in understanding of their experiences. They are the people who are having them, not us. They are therefore the ones, the only ones who can first, who can authentically 'come to understand'. Solidarity means on our part (facilitator), an awareness to some degree, of what they are coming to understand. It implies a deep and subtle sensitivity, an inner listening, even at times to hear the unsaid, because the experience is not able to be said. Solidarity implies a follower who is not far behind. Most importantly, the follower does not make the mistake, as is often the temptation and as so often happens, of interpreting for the Aborigine the Aborigine's experience and then letting the Aborigine experience the follower's interpretation.

Solidarity respects; it allows time and space; it is comfortable with silence; it can support without taking away the other's initiative and self-determination. Solidarity is self-effacing, yet with self completely involved. Solidarity does not come up with answers as people begin to understand their experiences. The answers and the strategies must be theirs. They must own them. Certainly, in a good relationship with the follower, they will discuss and seek advice, but the radical decision is theirs. Solidarity does not make the mistake of giving decisions when the request made is simply, perhaps timidly, seeking advice. At this stage, solidarity means to be acutely aware of the delicacy of the situation, of the whole range of possibilities of oppression from the subtle to the more obvious. Positively, it means to be aware that from this situation can be born authentic growth, true holistic development.