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HIST106 Assignment 3- Site Visit

Option 1- In what ways did the view of Australian Indigenous history

and people presented at the site you visited support or contest the
information presented during HIST106 this semester?

There is much information at Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre that was

presented throughout the HIST106 unit. Most of this information supported
what was presented and gave visual representations of the rich history of
Aboriginal Australians. Whilst walking around the centre I felt that I had a
much deeper understanding of what culture means to Aboriginal Australians
and the importance of culture in their communities than I would have
understood before I embarked on this unit.

I now know that activism is not a concept that is new to Aboriginal people.
They have been campaigning for their rights for a long time and continue to
do so. Black and white images of Aboriginal people protesting with signs
flash upon screens at the centre. These images read words like Rights for
blacks now! and Black control of black affairs (Bunjilaka, Melbourne
Museum).These images are profound and touching even if you are unaware
of the extensive history that comes before them. Now that I am aware I know
that the images show people at the tent embassy, which started in 1972 in a
protest for land rights. They camped out on crown land in Canberra in an
attempt to draw attention not only to their land rights, but to their continued
lack of rights in society. Protestors were also active around the time of the
1967 referendum where they made their voices heard about the importance
of voting Yes. This referendum was successful however Aboriginal people
continued to still be chronically un-enrolled to vote after this time (HIST106,
Week 9). There is a quote from an Aboriginal elder in Bunjilaka that says that
Aboriginal people are still fighting white fellas but these days they dont do
it with spears and physical fighting, they do it through the courts of law to
fight for their rights. Campaigns are still strong and the tent embassy is still

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active in its quest to secure equal rights and a better status in todays
society (Bunjilaka, Melbourne Museum).

There were many different groups around Australia that protested for land
rights. Reserves were being sold over the heads of the people in the
community once they proved it to be viable farming land. It was a system of
convenience and they were allowed to live on the land so long as the settlers
did not want it. This was seen when nuclear bomb testing was done on land
in Victoria in the 1950s and an Aboriginal tribe were ordered off their land. If
they did not need the land then Aboriginal people were allowed to continue
living there (HIST106, Week 8). Another example of the system of
convenience and perhaps the most famous plea for land rights is the Yirrkala
Bark Petition which happened to be the first traditional document recognized
by Parliament. The people of Yirrkala wrote to the government asking for
their land in east Arnhem Land back after hundreds of kilometers were taking
away for mining. They were granted land rights but they were not granted
ownership of the land which devastatingly meant that miners were allowed
to continue mining (Day, 2013). Despite this it was the beginning of
something big, a group of people who were not even considered people
under the law fought for their land and the government actually listened.
Throughout history it is seen that Aboriginal people did not take kindly to
having no rights to their land. The Wave Hill walk off in 1967 shows a group
of people who refused to continue living like second class citizens and they
wanted a say in what happened to their land. They wrote to the government
asking for their land back and eventually won after a long protest (HIST106,
Week 9). Land rights were something that were fought for long and hard by
the Aboriginal community however in Bunjilaka the only evidence of this is
the images of the protestors at the tent embassy.

The idea of social racism was explored throughout the semester, which
means that people were deliberately excluded from a societal group based
purely on their ethnicity or race. This is seen in an article by Dennis Foley

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(2000) where an Aboriginal man is denied the right to go to war because he

is Aboriginal yet is refused entry to the reserve where his family live because
he is white. It is also shown at the Bunjilaka exhibition where Aboriginal AFL
footballer Nicky Winmars story is told and the jumper he wore on that
infamous day displayed. Winmar was receiving racial taunts from the crowd
in one footy game and at the end he lifted his jumper and pointed to the
colour of his skin, a representation that he was proud to be Aboriginal
(HIST106 Tutorial, Week 10). This societal exclusion and prejudice towards
Aboriginal people is something that unfortunately is still present and the
negative effects of it are told by Foley (2000). He writes of students who
were excluded or victimized for being Aboriginal so they therefore have
decided that it is easier to pretend that they are not. This is nothing short of
tragic and if more and more people are made to feel ashamed of where they
are from, it will result in the loss of an important cultural aspect of Australian
life. Hence the importance of Winmars evident pride about who he is. It is an
important part of the exhibition and reminds others to embrace who they
are, even in the face of hardship (Bunjilaka, Melbourne Museum).

The dreaming is the centre of what Aboriginals believe. Different tribes have
their own dreaming stories and ideas about how they were created and came
to be and what happens after they die. There was a short piece of writing
describing Bunjil at Bunjilaka. Bunjil is the creative spirit of the Kulin nation.
He appears as both human and eagle and it is a powerful message and
meaning for Aboriginal people (HIST106, Week 2). To be able to understand
and respect Aboriginal culture we have to understand where they believe
they come from, so teaching children about the dreaming is an important
step forward in accepting Aboriginal culture as a normal part of our society.

Knowing who you are and where you come from in vital in Aboriginal culture.
One of the first things that they ask each other when meeting is how they
are connected, with questions like Where you from? Whos your mother?
Whos your father? (Bunjilaka, Melbourne Museum). Connection is

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important, but not just connection to ancestors. Connection to the land is

something of uttermost importance to Aboriginal culture and this is evident
throughout the cultural centre. Quotes on the walls tell the story of how
when tribes gather on their land they can feel the significance of the place
that they are gathered and that the thing that keeps them emotionally strong
is the feeling that they get from dancing on the land that traditionally
belonged to their ancestors. They do not believe that they own the land,
rather they believe that they belong to the land (Bunjilaka, Melbourne
Museum).

It is accepted that you no longer have to live traditionally to be an Aboriginal.

There is a new concept emerging of a 21st century Aboriginal (HIST106,
Week 5). This means that people are taking pride in who they are and where
they come from. It is shunning the negative stereotypes that have recently
surrounded the Aboriginal people and building up a culture to be proud of
once more. A prime example of this is seen in an ABC news report called
Aboriginal Dance Big Step in Learning Culture (Burin, 2013) where it shows
a community of children learning traditional Aboriginal dance and being
taught to embrace and feel pride about who they are. This means that unlike
the students in the Dennis Foley (2000) article, children will identify
themselves as Aboriginal and the traditional culture will continue on for the
next generation. Bunjilaka had recent quotes from people of Aboriginal
descent and video messages from people of all ages explaining their story
and what it means to them to be Aboriginal. This is important in teaching
that hardship and exclusion is still experienced by modern day Aboriginal
people. To be able to move forward and make changes it is vital to recognize
that it is not just a thing of the past.

Much of the information presented in the HIST106 unit was supported by

displays in the Bunjilaka cultural centre. The main idea that I have taken out
of the unit and the site visit is that although history has been difficult for the
Aboriginal and Indigenous community, we need to allow them to rebuild their

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community and culture and allow them to feel pride in who they are. We can
do this by accepting them and respecting their culture. From this we will gain
a rich Australian culture and be able to eventually take pride in our history
when we read back on the time where we righted our previous wrongs.

References

Bunjilaka: First Peoples, Melbourne Museum. Visited 30/10/2013.

Burin, M. (Writer). (24 June 2013). Aboriginal dance big step in learning
culture, ABC North Coast NSW Online. ABC.

Day, L. (2013, July 10.) 50 years on, Yirrkala celebrates legacy of bark
petitions. ABC Online Indigenous News, pp. 1-2.

Foley, D. (2000). Too White to be Black, Too Black to be White, Social

Alternatives, 19 (no. 4), pp. 44-49.

HIST106, Lecture 2, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives.

HIST106, Lecture 5, The Changing Tide- A Torres Strait Islander Perspective.

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HIST106, Lecture 8, Civil Rights 1- The fight for equality.

HIST106, Lecture 9, Land Rights and Native Title.

HIST06, Tutorial 10, Representation of Aboriginal People in Film.