Larissa Behrendt - Indigenous Australia For Dummies

Indigenous Australia For Dummies, 2nd Edition

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Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd
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www.dummies.com

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ISBN: 978-0-730-39027-5

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READERS OF THIS BOOK SHOULD BE AWARE THAT, IN SOME ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER COMMUNITIES, SEEING IMAGES OF DECEASED PERSONS IN PHOTOGRAPHS MAY CAUSE SADNESS OR DISTRESS AND, IN SOME CASES, OFFEND AGAINST STRONGLY HELD CULTURAL PROHIBITIONS. THIS BOOK CONTAINS IMAGES OF PEOPLE WHO ARE DECEASED.

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 4
3. Chapter 11
4. Chapter 12
5. Chapter 13
6. Chapter 21
7. Chapter 22

1. Chapter 3
2. Chapter 5
3. Chapter 6
4. Chapter 7
5. Chapter 8
6. Chapter 11
7. Chapter 13

There is a place where Australia disappears. It is a holy place and an ancient place. It is a place where once people lived and laughed and loved; where they traded and danced. It is a place where a boy was born who would grow to be a powerful man; a leader of his people. When he died this man was given a ceremonial burial. His body was smeared in ochre and his arms folded gently across his chest and he was lowered into the ground. Forty thousand years later he would be discovered and given a name. He is Mungo Man and he is our connection to a time before time that today lives in time. He is a connection to what the famed anthropologist William H Stanner once called the Everywhen. We might call it the Dreaming. Mungo Man is the oldest human remains ever found on our continent.

I go there sometimes, to the dried-up shores of Lake Mungo. I have been there with old men who keep old stories. I have slept under the magical sky alongside my cousins and we have carved sacred totems into the ground. It is not my traditional country but my great-grandfather had kinship ties here and he spoke the languages of the Muthi Muthi and the Barkandji as well as his own Wiradjuri. It is a special place; not a place of bones and stones as scientists might see it but a living, breathing place. Away from the roads and the power lines and fences, where there is just openness and timelessness, I know there is something that beats eternal; that is older than any nation. No flag or border or anthem can capture what exists here; it is for us to feel and to know and to respect. It is for us to belong.

How many of us can say we truly belong in our country? Can we say we know our country? Are we alive to the stories and rhythms and the sounds of this place we now call Australia? We live in a land where the true stories have been silenced. We live in a land where old voices speaking old tongues have vanished. What does it do to a place to lose its sound; to lose its people? There is sadness here, deep sadness. But there is life too if we care to listen and feel.

There are places like Lake Mungo everywhere; Everyplaces for the Everywhen. You can find them by our riverbanks, under the stars, in our rocks and fields. Larissa Behrendt invites you to take that journey. She will take you into an Australia we think we know but remain so ignorant of, and we are poorer for that. Who are these First People of our land? How many languages were spoken here? What is their art and politics and music and ceremony? Larissa will open up a new country for you. And you will find that there is a place here more magical than you could know. But it demands something of you. Are you ready to face our history? Do you know what really happened when the British came? Are you ready to learn about invasion and colonisation and what it does to a people to lose their place in their own country?

Australia is a hard place. It is a place still seeking peace with itself. The journey for justice is a road half travelled. Sorry isnt enough when the First People of this land die younger and suffer more than any other Australians. Reconciliation and recognition and Treaty are the business we have not finished. But, oh how my people sing. And how we play. We are the living story of this land and it is a story just waiting for you.

The bones of our ancestors are buried in this soil, but they rest uneasy. It is for us to bring this land peace. That work starts here with this book. Larissa Behrendt calls it Indigenous Australia For Dummies yep thats about right; we are still just learning. But read this and be smarter.

Stan Grant

Television news and political journalist, television presenter,

filmmaker and bestselling author

November 2020

Understanding the history and culture of Australia is impossible without understanding the countrys Indigenous peoples. And understanding Australias Indigenous peoples is reliant on understanding their history, traditional and contemporary cultural values, worldviews and experiences.