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Glen Morris: Traditional knowledge

The at National Parks was basically to record Aboriginal sites which had Traditional Knowledge

The at National Parks was basically to record Aboriginal sites which had Traditional Knowledge throughout NSW. It was put on a grant at first, a five year Grant by then the Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra. The anthropologist and the linguist and archeologist said there were no sites that are still left that had traditions on them because we recorded them all. The history has been recorded the known sites were recorded and so we didn’t have sites which had traditional knowledge which were still remembered by Aboriginal people today.

In 1973 to 1980 we recorded 600 sites that had traditional knowledge from Elders stories, Ceremonial Burials, Art. It was when we did the sites that Initiated Elders at, the knowledge they had, they wanted to pass onto people that were interested in recording their history or past knowledge that they had. Once we finished the project we then became permanent in the National Parks into the mainstream because we were not only dealing with protection management but we were also dealing with development consent. It changed in 1979 when the Environmental Protection Act came out to protect Social Cultural Significance which we referred to as sites, places in the landscape.

So our role changed then from recording traditional knowledge sites to keep up with developments for development consent. There was only sort of like 13 of us covering the state of NSW from 1979 up until about 1985. So the role changed then from recording, keeping up with developments.

In those days we were pioneers, even to get the Government to look at the protection management of cultural heritage in NSW. It was very difficult, the communities weren’t willing to deal with people that come in, took the information, went away, didn’t do nothing in terms of protection management or even writing reports up saying this is your information and bring back to them. So we turned it around and said well we are here to protect and manage and we will get back to you and we will write these reports in plain English and get back to you. Once we done that then we were more acceptable in the communities because different languages from the north coast to Byron Bay out to west and southern, we are dealing with all the different language groups that still exist.

What is being taken, what have we lost now, is that losing our culture, you lose your land, you lose your law, you lose a lot of things and what I am finding is that Aboriginal people have lost their self respect, they have lost their dignity.

It’s been hard when you look at in a Traditional sense when you have a lore that’s been in place for 60,000 years. The control of a community even when I was young on the reserve, the kind of control the Elders had over the younger ones. When you have a breakdown in our Culture, in our Language, our Lore, there is no control of the young ones. There is no order and through the Initiations they had order. They had lores that dealt with punishment, severe punishment in terms of what people had done. What is being taken, what have we lost now, is that losing our culture, you lose your land, you lose your lore, you lose a lot of things and what I am finding is that Aboriginal people have lost their self respect, they have lost their dignity.

If some form of initiation was allowed to continue and communities were then allowed to deal with the way that young people have no respect to control them, then it would be a lot better system because what we found is that once that law was broken down and that culture was lost then you have chaos. There’s no respect, there’s no beliefs in the cultural side of how we lived, how we operated. What we find today is that the only thing in a lot of communities where you have that caring and sharing that is still there but fathers respect the Elders then to look at what you can do and you can’t do. The white laws we have today are too lenient and if they are too lenient how can they expect our people to respect those laws. Because they are too lenient they don’t deal with the issues properly. That’s the trouble we are finding now, if they don’t deal with the issues severely then you have chaos.

There was passing on of cultural knowledge

There was passing on of cultural knowledge you see I was brought up by my Aunty but spent a lot of time with my Grandmother and Grandfather. He was a non-Aboriginal but he was put through a high degree of initiation in the Anawan Tribal Group. He wanted to marry me Grandmother and they used to sing like, cause he was Irish or English, he’d sing a lot of the old Irish songs but then he’d sing the aboriginal songs. Those songs are still around. I still remember the songs today. A lot of the kids up home do.

He would tell of places we weren’t allowed to go to. Things like at night you can’t draw in the ground, if you put a mark in the ground at night it allows the spirits to come out at night to play so you couldn’t do that. When I was on the Reserve, when someone died, you’d get all their belongings, you’d burn them and then they would smoke the house right through. The burning of the belongings is that if you keep someone’s belongings they come back, smoking is to purify the house to get rid of the spirits, for them to move on and if you didn’t, cause I remember the old 4 gallon buckets the middle of the house and smoke coming out of them when someone died in the house, it used to go on for 2 days or 3 days cause the family would live with someone else then after the smoking then they would come back in.

We were spud picking up in Guyra and the old Grandfather said “Whatever you do don’t go up on the hill up there” there were two hills. He said “Don’t go up on there it’s a battle ground, don’t go up there”. One of the older blokes went out with his 22 to shoot some rabbits or kangaroo and went up on the wrong hill, he came back and he went crazy at night, he was singing out and going on. Me Grandfather come along and said “I told you boys not to go up to that hill” and so he spent the night with him because he’s very clever, he done things to the young bloke and he was right… We never went back up there again. It’s something you don’t do.