Walking on Ayr ...

Day 3: Monday 26 March (6pm, Ayr)

What a day! At 6am, I was full of energy and enthusiasm so began it with an hour long walk in the light rain – like most people, this is a real luxury as I’m normally rushing around the house to get ready to scoot into the office at this time!  At 6pm, I’m exhausted after burning through all my happy energy with the loveliest people today, and ready to cook dinner and head straight to bed! Let me tell you why …

Lynette is the office administrator. She’s also a mum to six kids, all under the age of 20, so she must have been up with the larks to get the family fed and watered and packed off to school/work in time to collect us from the motel. She spent the rest of the day making sure we were fed and watered and able to focus on the lessons we were getting in readiness for our projects.

Michaela is a trainee from TAFE, who also happens to be a cousin of Lynette’s and was ready to do any typing or running around we might have needed – of course it’s too early for any of that for us, but all offered anyway – everyone here is so amazingly friendly (just my kind of town!).

Next to join us were Renarta and Dorothy – our cultural trainers and guides. Renarta is an elder of the Juru clan and Dorothy is the Indigenous student support officer and part time lecturer at James Cook Uni. These amazing ladies shared precious histories of themselves, their parents, their grandparents and many others in between. I truly feel honoured to have spent the day in one-on-one training with these ladies and hope I can retell some of their stories fairly.

Renarta began the day with a traditional welcome, asking the spirits to welcome and watch over us in our work both in the building and outside of it today, all in the most mesmerising tone and beautiful language.  I was welcomed as a migaloo goothalin (white sister) by my midtha goothalins (you can guess that oneJ) and we each gave a brief history of our life story or who we were – my first lesson in the major differences between our cultures – their life stories began with their grandparents while we began with …   … us, of course.

Next was a history lesson, told in pictures, and obviously from an indigenous perspective. We commenced with the 1770’s and saw Cook depicted as a land clearing, disease bringing, murderous invader. We considered the slavery and forced religion of the late 1800’s which lasted well into the 1950’s. We contemplated the isolation that living as an aboriginal in a white environment would have brought about in the late 50’s and 60’s as they tried to assimilate into the western ideal of a working life, and the shame of being shunned by their original communities as they made changes to their world. This is the period of the stolen generation and stolen wages and deaths in custody, where many older aboriginals don’t talk about what happened as they fear the feelings of anger that arise in their children and grandchildren when they learn of the atrocities experienced.

We saw how the late 60’s and early 70’s saw the beginnings of change where efforts to understand and integrate resulted in the ability to marry without permission, or vote, or more importantly, to be counted in the census - but of course aboriginals were still expected to drink out the back of the pub and be home by curfew - unlike their white counterparts.  Finally, we looked at some of the more recent changes, of Mabo and land councils, of Charles Perkins and the Freedom Ride, of Wik and the Laura Dance Festival – and with so much context, we were ready to explore the local culture.

Shelley and Dorothy listening to
Renarta share the local history
(the Munda is in the background)



The dreamtime story

So, after lunch, we went outside to see what the snake sculpture was all about.  Turns out that it’s actually the representation of the local Jura tribe’s spirit (apparently every tribe around Australia has a snake spirit which together make up the Rainbow Serpent of the dreamtime stories). This snake, or Munda, is guarding the remains of four ancient local aboriginals, whose bones have been returned to this spot from museums and the like around the country. It was beautiful to watch Renarta and Dorothy give another welcome or “hello” to the spirits of these ancient relatives, letting them know they were here to watch over their resting place and protect them. Nothing seems to happen without some acknowledgement to the ‘Great Creator’, but it’s not tacky or contrived - just peaceful.

I asked Renarta how it is that she became an elder as I wasn’t so sure it was her age. She humbly told us that it in her 50’s she finally became interested and started asking her Dad all sorts of questions about their history and culture. She didn’t realise just how much of the information was being retained until her four older brothers pointed out one day that she would become an elder as they'd seen how people would look to her at important meetings for guidance. She was surprised by this, but they insisted that their Dad had told them it was to be. She asked her father why it wasn’t going to be one of her older brothers and she realised that she actually did have answers for all the questions that were being asked within the community and she knew it was right. She is turning 70 this year but her mind is as sharp as any younger person’s. She’s quite sure that the spirits she calls on for help are guiding her carefully.

Back into the centre and we were finally joined by Eddie, Chairperson of the Gudjuda Reference Group and John, the Business Development Manager who were both eager to hear how we'd enjoyed the day.  A few repeats of stories and special events and they sat us down to watch a quick DVD of them and their families 'turtle tagging' with some local marine specialists. This is one of the adventures we're going to be taken on at the end of our time here and the DVD contained all the people we'd met so far, so we jumped at the chance to take a copy of it home.

Hugs and kisses all around (we're family now!) and we headed home to catch up on grocery shopping.  Dinner tomorrow night is at the RSL to celebrate Dorothy's birthday, so don't wait up for my report!! :)