My education in Indigenous matters just gets more interesting. The more I find out about the Australian Aboriginal people the more I am appalled at how much we have missed. Although I never considered them as unintelligent, like many Westerners, I once viewed their culture as 'primitive'. I am a little ashamed to discover that I have been very misguided.
In a recent article in the Weekend Australian, Robert Manne wrote about W.E.H Stanner. Stanner worked with Aboriginal people in the 1930s and died in 1981 but he was way ahead of his time. He spoke of a 'great Australian silence' in relation to Indigenous people and astutely compared its uncomfortable presence to a foot sticking out of a grave.
When I think about the increasing conversations I am having about Indigenous culture lately this is what I say to people - our collective behaviour towards Aboriginal people indicates that we have no idea about who they are, what they believe in or even that there is something worth learning about them. We are silent and hope that it will all just get resolved somehow. But how will that happen if we pretend that they are not there. Not only is there silence, there is invisibility.
The Noongar people have an interesting phrase when speaking about education. They say 'learn me' instead of what we would say which is 'teach me'. It is not a phrase borne of ignorance or a lack of understanding for an introduced language. In my own experience it turns the tables in a way that could be threatening to one's ego if it weren't so damn fascinating. There is so much to learn - about their relationship with their country, their spiritual beliefs, their complex family systems and understanding of the interconnectedness of all aspects of life.
The notion of me turning 'native' is amusing and very improbable - I am solidly grounded in my own ancestral knowledge and spiritual beliefs. But, perhaps ironically, I am discovering that my own view of life synchronises more often with that of Indigenous people than with the prevailing contemporary Western culture to which I am supposed to belong.
Indigenous Matters: Learn Me
