Marcia Langton - Marcia Langton: Welcome to Country: A Travel Guide to Indigenous Australia

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this book may contain images and names of people who have died.

FOREWORD

For years I lived far from my country. I found new homes. New smells, sights and sounds slowly erased the memories of my country.

But then I would fly home. I could feel Australia before Id even seen it. I would often wake over the Red Centre, looking down on an earth like no other. Like a dot painting it revealed itself: a mosaic of brush and spinifex and red dirt cut with creeks and flat plains and hills.

This country does talk to me. It talks in a language as old as humanity. This is a language that lives in art and music and story. If we open ourselves up, it will speak to us all.

That is what Welcome to Country does, it speaks from somewhere deep inside our land to something deep inside all of us.

Marcia Langton takes us on a journey through this continent. We meet the keepers of sacred places; those who carry the traditions of care for country. They have held it for time immemorial just for us; all of us, no matter where our ancestral journeys may have begun.

It is a story of place and a story of people. It is our relationship to land and our relationship to each other. My blood is buried deep in this place; my kinship winds back thousands of generations and it blends with those who have come here from other lands.

Marcia tells us that kinship matters; culture matters; stories matter. She tells us too that law matters; Indigenous law and the fight to have our place recognised in a country that denied us for too long.

This is an ancient book and a modern book. We live in a globalised world, we are a touch away from anyone anywhere. This is a book of song lines and trade routes; it is also a book of modern tourism in a global economy.

I live now in Sydney, but my real home lies six hours drive away. I often take that trip, slowly I leave the noise of the city behind and the land opens up to me. There is a place on the Hume Highway where the road rises and dips. Off to my side is a valley leading to the Murrumbidgee River. I come alive here; nothing on earth feels like this.

This is my country. Welcome to country.

STAN GRANT

CONTENTS

Australia is alive with the long history of the Indigenous people, our culture and our presence. Nowhere else in the world can you see and experience the oldest living cultures of humankind. There are two distinctive Indigenous cultural groupings in Australia: Aboriginal peoples on the mainland and most islands; and the Torres Strait Islanders, whose homelands are in the Torres Strait between the northern tip of Queensland and Papua New Guinea. People are believed to have settled on these islands about 20000 years ago. Aboriginal peoples have been living on the mainland for more than 60000 years; archaeologists have uncovered evidence of people living in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory 65000 years ago.

The Indigenous footprint can be found across the Australian continent and its islands, but it is often invisible until it is pointed out. Once you see the evidence of Aboriginal life, a whole new world opens up. You begin to see the country around you differently. Keen to share their cultural riches, hundreds of Aboriginal people have found ways to invite tourists into their lives, even briefly, to enjoy the experience of being in Aboriginal country with the people who know it best: the Traditional Owners. With a deep knowledge of the natural world, they are the ideal guides to show you the extraordinary range of environments across the country. For over 200 years, Indigenous Australians have hosted and guided scientists, scientific expeditions, and explorers seeking to understand the environments, flora, fauna and climate of this continent, as well as the cultures of the Indigenous people themselves. This has resulted in a vast literature on Australian life, but until recently much of it was read only by the experts. A growing number of writers, both Indigenous and other Australians, are now publishing more accessible books to show the wonders of this rich heritage to the world.

The opportunity for Indigenous Australians to share their experiences and knowledge with tourists opened up when land rights were recognised and Indigenous people became joint managers of large swathes of our country. Now there are visitors centres, art and cultural centres, museums and festivals in even the most remote places, showcasing the fascinating history and cultures of Indigenous societies.

When you are travelling around Indigenous Australia, you will find yourself in extraordinary situations with extraordinary people, whether you are exploring by foot, vehicle, boat, horse or camel; in semi-arid areas such as the Central Desert or the Western Desert; savanna country across north Australia with its many dramatic rock outcrops, escarpments and gorges; or the wet rainforests where fast flowing rivers cascade over mountain ranges; the temperate-zone coastal and riverine plains; the forests; the Great Dividing Range in its many forms; or on the beaches, islands and reefs.

Indigenous people have established cultural and natural tourism businesses and opened up their country for tourists with great energy, determination and a love of sharing the beauty of their culture and heritage. Also, the benefits of tourism to local Indigenous people are many. In large parts of Indigenous Australia, where there are few other economic opportunities, tourism businesses are a pathway for local families to enjoy the benefits of their unparalleled ancestral heritage. With their own tourism projects, local people have the opportunity to work on their country with their family members. They can also teach their own young people as well as tourists about their culture, history and heritage because Indigenous tourism preserves traditional knowledge and involves the younger generations in its continuation. There are surprises, too, for even the most knowledgeable Traditional Owner. While visiting remote parts of their old estates, where threatened populations were protected from introduced predators and land clearance, Traditional Owners have discovered new species of flora and fauna, and surviving pockets of species thought to be extinct.

The Aboriginal domain was reduced to segregated reserves during and after colonisation and the spread of British settlers and their land clearing for farming and grazing across the continent.

The growth of Indigenous rights over the last fifty years has resulted in the return of land areas to the Traditional Owners and resumption of the Aboriginal traditions of management. Free once again to steward the land, Aboriginal people are protecting the biodiversity of the country with a range of strategies. Tourism is one of them, and often it is the Aboriginal rangers who take on the task of conserving the environment as well as working as guides for visitors.

Over the last century, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, like other Australians, have been attracted to the cities and towns from the rural and remote areas. Today, the majority of Indigenous people live in towns and cities. The remainder mainly live in small towns and Aboriginal settlements and communities scattered across the country. Even in the largest cities, such as Sydney and Melbourne, Aboriginal people have retained their traditional ownership customs and established tourism ventures to guide visitors across their land and waters and to understand their culture and history.