2006/2007 Commentary
by Frances Rings
Unaipon
"Most Australians recognise David Unaipon's face
from the Australian $50 note but know little about this extraordinary
man. He was a Ngarrindjeri man of the Warrawaldi clan, born in
1872, the fourth of nine children, at Point McLeay Mission in South
Australia. He died in 1967, shortly before the referendum 'yes'
vote that included Aboriginal people in the national census. He
was an inventor, philosopher, writer and storyteller.
Unaipon grew up on the mission. His father became
the first Aboriginal lay preacher which was to have a strong influence
on him later in life. However, he grew up learning how to hunt,
how to look for birds and possums and how to climb trees - he knew
the cultural ways, the old ways. Then as a young man he was taken
to Adelaide to live with the white family of CB Young who gave
him a classical education. He was taught everything from literature
through to how to play Bach on the organ and how to speak Latin
and Greek. He studied all the great philosophers and cultures of
the world. It was at this time he also developed his passion for
Science. From an early age up until the day he died, he had an
insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Through his studies, Unaipon put his own culture
on the same platform as all the other great cultures of the world.
It was quite an incredible thing to be doing in that time and age.
He argued that even though we live very simply in harmony with
nature, our culture is just as complex and amazing as any of the
other great ancient cultures. He studied Egyptian and Inca cultures
and compared them to Aboriginal culture, he studied Aboriginal
carvings and symbols and compared them to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
He compared Greek and Aboriginal myths. He studied astronomy and
made connections to the myths and legends that existed about the
stars within his own culture. He mapped the flight pattern of the
boomerang and that fed into his inventions and explorations of
aerodynamics.
At the same time he was a very spiritual man.
His two great passions and influences were science and religion.
He says that the greatest books he ever read were Isaac Newton's
'Laws of Physics' and the Bible. In a white society where he could
find no place, whenever he felt rejected, demeaned or hurt by someone's
attitude to him or his race, he would always open up the Bible.
He found that there was a place in the Bible for him, a place for
all people with no prejudice against colour or race. He said you
may call the greater spiritual power by different names - Jesus
or Allah or Narroondarie, etc but it was all the same - the lifeline
from the moment our spirit is conceived in the womb, that continues
with us throughout our life and beyond. It was almost as if he
was saying 'We all breathe the same air and have blood and bones
and we have a greater power, why can't you look at me in the same
way and hold my hand or let me stay in your hotels- why is there
this prejudice?' He was always striving to break down those walls.
This is a man who was not even considered a citizen - yet people
dubbed him the 'Leonardo da Vinci of Australia'. White society
at the time was always trying to say Unaipon and people like Albert
Namatjira were 'exceptions'. In quite a few of the old articles
I've looked at they will be on the same page, mentioned in the
same breath. But as much as they would try to pull down Unaipon's
race, he would continue to bring them with him and say 'If I am
capable, they are capable. I am no exception'. He would always
be citing examples of the unique and wonderful things about his
culture. He retold his ancient myths and legends in a language
that romanced people - maybe then they would fall in love with
this culture, respect it a bit more and maybe want to explore it
for themselves.
Unaipon was always trying to find the perfect
place for himself and his people within a society that was changing
very quickly. In a way, he embraced assimilation and that was controversial
at the time because it was quite different from what Aboriginal
activists were pushing for. Unaipon was saying 'I don't think we
should mourn, I think we need to be educated and move forward.'
Visiting his family and the land of his traditional
community in Raukkan was crucial in the development of the work,
it is about respect and doing things the right way. The people
who welcomed me and taught me so much about this man as well as
the land where he came from, are an incredible inspiration. It
is a very powerful part of the world, you can feel it. Where the
fresh water comes to meet the salt water, it has always been sacred.
The Murray spills into these two massive lakes and they're teeming
with birds and wildlife. There are huge mussel shells on the shores
and it is just so fertile. It is one of the most amazing and beautiful
communities I've ever been to. Their culture is quite distinctive
- nobody in Australia or the world weaves like the Ngarrindjeri
weavers. Tragically the community was decimated by small pox as
it travelled down the Murray system - people all along the river
starting dying before they even saw white man. All these stories,
it's like a midden uncovering each layer, the history is still
alive and layers are still being set down.
The challenge is to translate all of this extraordinary
material into dance. The process has been like putting together
a jig saw puzzle of this complex man. At this stage, there isn't
a central Unaipon character - the dancers represent his energy,
his contributions and his spirit.
The initial section of the work is inspired by
his traditional land and his childhood. In terms of imagery I am
really attracted to the intricacies of weaving. In Ngarrindjeri
culture both men and women partook in weaving. Weaving also represents
the life line or bloodlines, the threads that tie you to your ancestors
and your country. The umbilical cord was very sacred to the Ngarrindjeri
accordingly. Its representation of the connection to the mother
through which life is transferred is honoured through ritual and
ceremony.
The next section transforms into another world,
the world of science - formulas, motion, energy and power. As a
dancer one of the things that you do is to apply each of these
elements to make movement. I am excited about scientific formulas
and applying that to dance. I've never done anything like it before
and neither has Bangarra but I reckon we're ready for it.
Personally I was attracted to Unaipon's life
and story because I have always been interested in who came before
me and what the ground was like that they trod on, the obstacles
that they encountered. I guess history informs us of how we turn
out to be. My sister first told me about Unaipon and I thought
his story would be a great subject for a dance work.. The more
I found about him the more I wondered why no one talks about his
man? Why is nothing being done?
People like Unaipon, Namatjira, Bennelong and
Truganinni have always fascinated me - they were people that were
'in between', they straddled Aboriginal and white culture, their
spirits walked between two worlds with dignity and grace. They
were brave enough to walk in a land that had no track and they
made a track for us to follow. I really just wanted to honour that.
Also the fact that I am from South Australia like Unaipon. It is
fitting that this work is premiered at the Adelaide Festival, a
festival directed by an Aboriginal man.
And I am hoping that this work will mean that
Australians will understand more about Unaipon, more than seeing
his face on the $50 note. Unaipon was a strong advocate of education
just as I am passionate about educating people through art. He
educated through his pursuit of science and his thirst for knowledge.
I can educate through the beauty of dance and art. This is our
history, it's not just my history, it is a shared history, shared
by all Australians. To deny that would be wrong. It is my responsibility
as a dance maker, as an Aboriginal woman, as an Australian. I have
my obligations and responsibilities and I know this is the right
thing to do. "
Rations
"Rations is set in colonial outback Australia
and explores issues of dependency and assimilation, station and
domestic labour -I haven't really gone into the stolen generation
because that deserves its own moment, you wouldn't be able to scratch
the surface doing a ten minute piece on it. All the pieces in Rations
flow into each other - they are all pretty much the one songline.
In my research I focused on South Australia, where
my family is from, and the influence of the ration system there.
The traditional walkabout ceased once we got rations. I want to
look at the reasons why it stopped and the songlines didn't continue.
I want to ask the question -what makes us stop doing what we've
always done? How did the culture disintegrate? We went from a fully
mobile lifestyle - travelling, hunting, moving with the seasons
and the food supply to all of a sudden being stationery, sedentary
and dependent.
 Rations
were used by white colonists to lure, entice and blackmail. For
the Aboriginal people at first, there was the novelty of it all
- the novelty of clothing, tobacco, flour and sugar but also the
deceptive ease of it. Not having to hunt for your food every day
to survive. There were also traditional counterparts for each ration
which made it more enticing -there was native tobacco ('piturukiri')
and a type of flour made from wild seeds.
Initially the rations were accepted and welcomed
because it was seen as a giving gesture, it was sharing -a big
part of Indigenous culture is sharing amongst each other so when
these other people came in offering these things, it was welcomed. "These
fellas are good to us, they are helping us" - it was embraced.
A lot of it may have been well intentioned but
the settlers didn't truly want to share. The settlers wanted to
give the rations but not share the land. They took advantage of
the Indigenous peoples' naivety I guess and had them work for them
or took priceless artefacts in return for flour, water, sugar.
Aboriginal people would come in from the bush
and be given the rations and then the settlers would say "You have
to stay here now, you can't go beyond those boundaries, you can't
go back out bush, you have to leave that and live in town and be
like us". These people had ceremonies and rituals they had to perform
and as soon as they were prevented from doing so, it caused conflict.
They couldn't go onto their land to hunt because all the land was
being taken up, the wildlife was being driven further out. They
couldn't hunt the sheep. They were trapped. They could apply to
the Protector of Aborigines for a certificate of exemption but
that would prohibit them from going to see their family and they'd
be stuck in this white world where they weren't accepted. They
couldn't go into a pub let alone a child go into a school. They
weren't allowed to partake in any of their own rituals either.
They were in this limbo zone, like a dead person walking between
two worlds.
The whole ration system had an addictive quality,
the addiction suffocated everyone and kept them there as well.
And the diet, it was a big difference in what they were used to
eating -the heaviness and the weighing down, the addictiveness
of sugar. But also the flour was poisoned with strychnine and arsenic,
the blankets were laced with smallpox. There was that other sinister
level which always exists in Australian history.
Researching Rations has been an intense
experience for me -it's great because I'm learning all this history
but I also feel bad because I'm finding out all these things I
feel I should have known. It makes me understand my mother, my
aunties and uncles so much more. It makes me understand the way
they are and why we are what we are today. It makes it so much
clearer, the transition they had to go through -it's like the walkabout,
you have to walk through it, you can't jump over it, you have to
acknowledge all those things that have happened so you can move
on and cleanse it.
 The
next generation that comes after us - they can achieve more greatness.
We're just here to pave the way for them. They're the ones that
are going to be the prime ministers and going to make the changes.
Our parents have given us the inspiration through their strength
and ability to survive. I want to recognise that this is what happened,
it is a tribute to them. It's often up to the next generation to
tell the story of the one before, there's too much pain for them
to do it, it's up the next generation to cleanse it for them."
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