The stories in this anthology speak of the love between Aboriginal peoples and their countries. They are personal stories that share knowledge, insight and emotion. Each story speaks of a deep connection to country, of joy and pain, and of feeling heartsick because of the harm that is being inflicted on country even today through logging old-growth forests, converting millions of hectares of land to salt fields, destroying ancient rock art and significant Aboriginal sites, over-use of water by industry in semi-arid areas, and a record of species extinction that is the worst in the world. Each contributor’s voice represents an ancient continuum, a way of being in the world that forged a mutually nourishing relationship between people and country that sustained succeeding generations for millennia. This anthology was driven by the need to speak of deeper things, and to share what is often only shared among Indigenous people. It has taken courage to tell these stories, and the telling has reawakened many feelings—old grief, past joys, and questions about the future and what will happen when these writers, too, have passed on. In an era of global environmental challenges, we all need to listen to the voices that offer a way of seeing and relating to country that will allow the earth not only to survive, but also to thrive. These stories provide an insight for other people everywhere to gain a better understanding of the relationships to country that Indigenous people hold close to their hearts. These are the diverse voices of lived experience and they share one passionate desire—to protect country for all the generations to come.
This continent, named Australia by Captain Matthew Flinders early in the nineteenth century, is a land of many countries—and for every country, there is a people. We are the Nyungar, Palkyu, Martu, Gumilaroi, Worrimia, Bardi, Indjarbandi, Palawa, Tanganekald, and Meintangk, and we are many others. We were formed with the hills and the valleys, the water and the sky, the trees and the plants, the crows and the kangaroos, created by the ancestors who gave meaning and life to our world. And for each of us, our country is not just where we live, but who we are. The countries of our hearts are the red sands of the desert, the green gullies of the forests, the white shores of the coast and all the places in between. Our blood is carried by the rivers and the streams, our breath is on the wind, and our pulse is in the land. There was a time when the rhythm of our hearts was strong and steady and sure, but now we all struggle in our different ways to care for country, to hold up the connections between all life that is our life, in a world where those connections are so often unseen and unheard.
Long, long ago, when this land was without form, the ancestors journeyed across the world singing and dancing, laughing and crying, fighting and loving—and everywhere they went, life sprang into being. The ancestors created all life, and gave all life knowledge and law. Each country has its own people who hold the stories of these great events. Len Collard tells of the powerful Rainbow Serpent, the Waakal:
All Aboriginal people are descended from the creation beings. Today, we can still follow the paths they travelled, see their tracks in the land, and feel and honour their presence in country. And, through the world that they made, the ancestors continue to teach us, showing us how all life is interconnected and interdependent. Dr Joan Winch tells of the Butterfly Dreaming:
As Aboriginal people, we are a living, breathing, thinking physical manifestation of our land—a thread in the pattern of creation. Dr Bob Morgan writes that ‘... my culture and worldview is centred in Gumilaroi land and its people, it is who I am and will always be. I am my country.’ [4] Country is not simply a geographical space. It is the whole of reality, a living story that forms and informs all existence. Country is alive, and more than alive—it is life itself:
The world the ancestors made is one in which all life is joined in a web of relationships, a web that exists both within and outside us. And it is by maintaining and renewing the connections linking life together, that country—and so all of reality—is balanced and sustained. This is why, to Aboriginal people, our relationships with all shapes of life are of vital importance. As Dawn Bessarab comments:
Country is the source of all creation, all beauty, all wisdom. It sustains us, nourishes us, guides us. It gives us life, and teaches us how to live so that life—in all its shapes—will always go on. Country is our joy, our love, our hope.
Our country is our heart.
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples cared for their countries, and were cared for in turn. Our Ancestors were not to know that, far across the seas, other people saw country in a very different way. One day the peoples of Europe would come seeking the place they called the Great South Land. It was the British who ultimately prevailed, with James Cook claiming our east coast in 1770, and the establishment of a penal colony in 1788. Those who arrived in our Ancestors’ time did not understand that the bush they saw around them was not a wilderness, but a culturally managed landscape; that life in all its shapes watched them anxiously from the ground, the water; the sky; and that there was not a single grain of sand beneath their feet that was not part of a thinking, breathing, loving land. In their language, the British described and catalogued the land as an object, not as grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, sister, brother and family. And by being named as the land, country became hidden—for, as Greg Lehman writes ‘words like “mountain”, “tree” and “wind” are no invitation for them to show us their presence.’ [7] Unlike Indigenous people, who had lived in cooperation with country for so many, many years, the British would cause the rapid extinction of numerous plant and animal species. This devastation was itself a product of a worldview in which land was, and could only ever be, an inert possession:
Paradoxically, with every action taken to ‘claim’ this continent, the British only succeeded in creating greater and greater distance between themselves and the territory they wanted to make their own. For there can be no belonging in country without honouring and respecting the spirit of this living land.
In the thousands of years before the British arrived, this continent had known transformations, not the least through extremes of climate change. But never before had there been a people here who could not hear the voices of the land, could not see that everything around them was alive, and could not feel the pain of country as pain to self. Greg Lehman writes:
The invasion of this land was an assault, not just on Aboriginal peoples, but on all life in country. Aboriginal peoples were killed, forced out of their lands, and confined in prisons, lock-hospitals, reserves, missions and other institutions. Country was attacked with the axe and the plough, scarred by roads, fences and mines, and subjected to a barrage of foreign species. And even when we were able to remain on our land, Aboriginal peoples were prevented from practicing the culture that sustained country. As Jill Milroy notes:
And Tjalaminu Mia comments:
Traditional food sources dried up as native species were hunted, habitats were destroyed, and waterways were poisoned, by ignorance or design. Country struggled to provide for her people, and Aboriginal people were forced into working for those who were harming their land. Elder Beryl Dixon recalls:
Aboriginal people continue to be affected by the violence of dispossession. This is not distant history but a living experience that is held within people and country. The sorrow, pain and trauma are still felt deeply, both where the stories are known, and where there are gaps in memory and history that might never be filled. Bill Jonas reflects on the world of his childhood:
It was not only Aboriginal people who were, and still are, affected by colonial violence. The land remembers where blood was shed. Tjalaminu Mia speaks of visiting a place where a waterhole had been deliberately poisoned in colonial times, killing many Nyungar people: ‘I felt depressed like I wanted to cry out in pain. It was like I was experiencing pain that did not personally belong to me but belonged to someone else.’ [14]
The consequences of damaging the connections between people and country are profound, both for Aboriginal people and the land itself. Dr Bob Morgan comments:
And in her story, Dawn Bessarab writes of how waterfalls in the Dampier peninsula dried up and no longer flowed. Elders in Derby had told her uncle that:
Like all colonial nations, Australia must reconcile its history. There has been violence here, and harm, sorrow and pain. But there is also joy in this place, and wonder, and creation. For despite all she has suffered, country yet lives. So there is still an opportunity to heal the connections that have been broken, a chance for us all to work together for country.
Despite the damage done to Aboriginal peoples and countries, the spirituality of this land remains strong. Connections have been damaged, but they are not yet broken. Our ancestors are still with us, teaching us and guiding us along the right path. And because the land holds memory, then for as long as it remains, nothing is ever truly lost. Songs, stories and knowledge that have passed from human memory can still be brought back to us. Pat Dudgeon tells how she dreamed of the death of her grandfather, who had died many years before:
Other stories speak of the spirits of our old people still operating in our present lives. Dr Joan Winch writes:
This land is still not the inert possession the British thought it was when they arrived over two hundred years ago. There are still powerful spirits here, in the deserts and the forests and the beaches, beneath the cities and the houses and the roads. As Noel Nannup tells:
The stories in this anthology speak of the relationship between Aboriginal people and the land, and they all share the theme of love. A love for country, of both its hard and soft faces, of our relations in the animal and plant worlds, of the fresh and salt water, and of the ancestors in the land and sky. They are also stories of the awe-inspiring way the land loves and cares for us all. But it is the deepest love that causes the deepest grief. To be heartsick is to be brokenhearted, or full of sorrow. To be heartsick for country is to speak of a feeling deeper still. It encompasses the emotions of loss, loneliness, sadness and grief. It is a profound wound of the heart, mind, body and spirit. Aboriginal people are heartsick over what is happening to the land; it is a stress we carry in our bodies. As Dr Joan Winch writes in her story:
And as Irene Watson says in hers:
The destruction of the environment, of our relationships with other life, is mirrored in the vast damage within us. We are all made less when we make country less. But perhaps there is now an opportunity, not just for Indigenous peoples, but also for all who dwell within country to work together to heal the wounds of the past. As Joe Boolgar Collard comments:
If we are to solve the multitude of environmental problems that we face, then we must begin with our connection to country. We must repair and regrow the relationships between peoples and peoples, and people and country that have been damaged by dispossession. Despite the environmental devastation that has been wreaked upon Australia, this ancient continent continues to nourish and sustain all who live here. It gives us our water and food, and it protects us in ways we often do not imagine. We cannot survive here without a loving land that cares for us, and all Australians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike, are bound to its rise and fall. And if this ancient land is to survive, then all who now make their homes here must learn to see the land as a living, connected being, to realise we are all a part of something so much greater than ourselves. And if we can come together to return that care, that nourishment, that protection that the land gives us, then perhaps it is this love of country that will, in the end, redeem us all. For, as Sally Morgan writes: