Open Writing

The black man stood on the headland, looking out to sea, his flint tipped spear in his hand, his tjurunga around his neck. He watched the little ship, like none he had seen before, try to make its way into the harbour, through the surging surf. It tacked this way and that, seeking to find a way through the heads, until, safe at last, it dropped anchor. The year was 1788 and the place Sydney Cove.

The black man felt a new feeling surge through him, one he had not experienced before, fear. He did not like it. He clutched his tjurunga, given to him at his initiation into manhood, it contained the power of his ancestors, his spirit god and told of his lineage. He sought its power, none came. He kicked the red earth, his mother, for he belonged to the earth and the earth belonged to him. He felt its unease. Something bad was coming to his land and his land did not like it.

At the beginning of time, when chaos engulfed the universe, there was the dreamtime, the beginning. The ancient spirits warred with each other, seeking to bring order out of chaos. They established boundaries and laws, they created each living creature, each plant, each stone, then, exhausted they slept. All things belonged to them and they were part of all things. There was no beginning, no present, no end, just the continuity of the dreamtime, for once there was a dreamtime.

The aborigine looked back with his unique power to that beginning. He identified with his sacred spirit, with his tribal land, with the bush and its wild life, they were all one with the land, all interrelated and all worthy of the same respect. His land was a living being, his creator.

The white markings, painted on his jet black body, showed the path to his sacred meeting place, the place where his spirit god slept, and they told of his heritage and of the tribes with whom he had kinship.

His life was that of a hunter-gatherer. He lived with his small tribe, wandering through the bush, taking each day no more than he needed, sitting around his camp fire at night and listening to the elders telling the tales of the past, passing on history from one generation to another and recording it in the markings of their totem. Busy hands created artefacts, paintings and adornments, but this was no permanent settlement, there was no need for possessions, everything belonged to everyone. The elders were revered but were not feared. Parents were respected but when, in turn, their children became parents, the parents placed no demands on them. Each tribe was an extended family, each looked after its own.

When unrest or unease came upon him, the young man sought dadarri, peace. He went ‘walk about’ in the bush, got close to the earth and let his mother, the earth, renew him. He was afraid of nothing in the bush, he knew its ways, even the poisonous snake had its place in the scheme of things.

His life was peaceful, conflict did not exist unless tribal boundaries were crossed, then the trespasser, once turned back to his own land, would be left alone. There was no need for possessions, so avarice and greed were not part of his make up. His life was simple and uncomplicated.

A call for the related tribes, the tribes of the same spirit god, would come for them to gather at their sacred site, the site where their spirit god slept. How the call came no one knew. Here they would dance, tracing out the well known patterns which marked the boundaries of their spirit’s land. They would kick the red dust of the earth and stir up the spirit to be close to it. They would sing the old songs and the elders would tell the old stories. They would renew their kinship with the tribes of the sleeping spirit.

For 50,000 years his people had lived in this vast continent. They travelled round its fertile edges, had followed the water courses into its centre and found Uluru. They had crossed the land bridge into Tasmania. They survived an ice age and, with its thaw, land mass receded and land bridges drowned.

50,000 years of history. A race separated from all other peoples, ignorant of their ways, of their existance. A race with a different philosophy, a race without greed, a race which could not understand ownership, for everything belonged to everything and everything belonged to the land. The land was his, he was the land's. This was his life and the life of his ancestors. There was no past, no present, no future, they were all one, ‘the dreamtime.’ There was no need to fear death, it was merely a passing on. Just as the spirit of an old ancestor had entered him at the time of his birth, so his spirit would be passed on at his death, no beginning, no end.

The lone aborigine stood on the headland, watching the boat, as the fear rose inside him and he felt the unrest in his land. He looked back to his spirit ancestors and their struggle to establish order in his land, the order that had lasted for 50,000 years. He contemplated his present and his way of life, precious to him, and with fear, his tjurunga in his hand, he dared to look into the future.

He saw white men beat and kill each other. He saw lashes scar bleeding backs. He had not known this before, his feelings were new and unsettling. He saw land claimed, enclosed and desecrated. He saw his people driven from their tribal lands. He saw children torn from parents to become ‘the lost generation’ and he saw the hope in the white man’s mind that, like a lot of the bush, he would become extinct, as the white man sought to tame this so called barren land. This land which for 50,000 years had allowed a race of people to live a unique and fruitful life. A land which had taught its children all its secrets, where to find water and food, how to cross its vastness with maps imprinted in the mind and, above all, how to preserve and live in harmony with the land. To the white man he would become “Black Trash,” To his mother earth he was still its child.

As the light faded, the aborigine’s silhouette died in the darkening sky. Once there was a Dreamtime.