The Rotarian
January 2003

Australia’s indigenous arts open doors long shut

by Lee Mylne

Crouched in the sand beside the remnants of a bora-ring, Denis Walker politely declines to answer a question about what happens in an ancient Aboriginal site such as this. It is, quite simply, secret business.

“I can be killed for telling you more,” he says, and the small group of tourists around him falls silent. He is deadly serious; the gregarious tour guide persona is dropped and the initiated Aboriginal man in his place explains how his traditions allow only so much sharing of this ancient culture.

“Secret business” means some quite straightforward questions from non-indigenous people will be constantly frustrated. It will be subtle and courteous; your question may be ignored, or deliberately misinterpreted.

We are on South Stradbroke Island, in Brisbane’s beautiful Moreton Bay. This island, and nearby North Stradbroke, are the ancestral grounds of the Nunukul and Goomberri tribes and is the closest place to Brisbane where visitors can experience Aboriginal culture.

Here, you can walk the Alcheringa trail with Denis or one of his brothers. Alcheringa is an Aboriginal word for the Dreamtime, or time of creation. Archeological evidence suggests this area has been a tribal meeting place for 8,000 years.

One of the Nunukul’s most famous modern-day daughters was Denis’ grandmother, the late Aboriginal poet Kath Walker, also known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

The first Aboriginal writer published in Australia, Walker reverted to her traditional name - Oodgeroo means “paperbark” - in 1988 as a protest against celebrations of the bi-centennial of white settlement.

Her life and work were the catalyst for today’s tours and cultural performances at South Stradbroke Island’s Couran Cove Island Resort.

“Grandma’s motto was ‘don’t hate, educate’,” says Denis Walker. He and his three brothers have followed her lead, establishing their Gwondabah tours in partnership with the resort.

Couran Cove resort was built four years ago to strict environmental standards to preserve much of the island’s natural beauty and many significant stands of trees, which carry the scars linking them to the area’s Aboriginal history. Here is the shape of a canoe carved from a living tree; there, a boomerang has been hewn from a buttress root.

In Aboriginal lore, ancestral lands are defined by sacred sites, usually distinctive geographical features like hills, rocky outcrops or caves which play an important role in Aboriginal spirituality. Dreamtime stories explain creation and the relationship between the natural world – the land, the stars and planets, oceans, water holes, animals - and people. Much of the significance of Aboriginal art is linked to the land and sacred sites that are home to the Dreamtime spirits.

The half-day tour includes a bushwalk and a performance of dance and music by members of the Nunukul tribe in a lakeside amphitheatre. It ends with a gentle smear of ochre on each visitor’s forehead and the drift of wood-smoke in your hair to ward off bad spirits. The haunting tones of the didgeridoo will linger with you.

Australian Aborigines trace their heritage back more than 40,000 years. Some evidence suggests there were Aborigines living in what is now New South Wales more than 120,000 years ago. When Australia was “discovered” by the British in 1770, there were an estimated 300,000 Aborigines living on the continent in about 750 different tribal language groups.

There is no written Aboriginal language, but rock art records important events and stories. Most sites in south-east Queensland are inaccessible, with the closest public rock art sites to Brisbane about 10 hours drive away at Carnarvon Gorge.

At Brisbane’s South Bank, the Queensland Museum holds a collection of 10,000 artefacts and 6000 photographs relating to the history and culture of Queensland’s Aboriginal people.

Next door, the Queensland Art Gallery houses a dynamic contemporary indigenous art collection, which includes works from all major art-producing regions. It features emerging art from urban and rural centres, has a high representation of women artists and addresses issues of de-marginalisation and integration.

Although you may blanch at some of the prices (anything up to about A$170,000), it is also worth a visit to the private Fire-Works Gallery in Newstead, just outside the city center. Started 13 years ago as a studio-based network, the gallery tags itself as dealing in “Aboriginal Art and other burning issues” and shows art by established and emerging indigenous artists from across Australia.

Owner Michael Eather sees the role of the gallery as a platform for social issues such as reconciliation. Visit his small gallery, upstairs in an old printery, to ask questions, learn, look or just linger. You can also browse in the stock room where you may find something in your price range (from about $100).

The art at Fire-Works is outside the realm of what is on offer at tourist outlets, of which there are many.

“I think it is our responsibility as a gallery to be showing the best of the best and also things a bit edgy and controversial,” says Eather.

“Aboriginal artists will never tire of their desire to express connection to place, describe story with song and memory with location,” says Michael Eather. “It is one of the few constants in a fast changing world where cultural expression is cultural survival.”

“We like to blur the boundaries between traditional and contemporary art, to challenge people in a friendly, informal way and to get them as excited about the art work and culture as we are. We are doing things a lot of galleries would not see as their charter.”

The Dreamtime, culture and interaction with the environment are the basis for a growing interest in indigenous tourism. In Queensland, there are several major centers outside Brisbane where Aboriginal culture can be explored.

In Rockhampton, about 600km north, the Aboriginal Dreamtime Cultural Centre offers dancing and music as well as a sandstone cave, Torres Strait village, and rock art. The center was built on the site where elders of the Darambal tribe made their campsite and gathered for tribal meetings and burials.

The multi-award-winning Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park in Cairns is the only permanent Aboriginal theatre in Australia where traditional skills, corroboree dances and Dreamtime legends are performed daily. It is more theme park than back-to-nature, but should not be missed.

Tjapukai (pronounced Jab-oo-gai) was founded in 1987 by American theater director Don Freeman and his French-Canadian dancer wife, Judy, as a small dance theatre in the nearby rainforest village of Kuranda. The Freemans worked closely with local Aborigines, including acclaimed dancer-songwriter David Hudson, and today the park is 51 per cent owned by the Aboriginal people who work in it.

The Tjapukai experience needs at least two to three hours, but you will leave with a better understanding of the history and culture of the traditional people of the Kuranda region. It uses the latest in illusion, theatrics, and technology to tell the creation story, with actors, spectacular special effects and holographic images, sometimes almost 3 meters (9[bf]3/4 ft.) high, illustrating the legends. Performances are in the Tjapukai language, translated through headsets. Outside there’s a cultural village where you can try boomerang and spear throwing, fire-making and didgeridoo playing, and learn about bush foods and medicines. In the outdoor theatre, Aboriginal men and women perform dances incorporating ancient and modern steps.

Tourism Queensland special interest tourism manager Glen Miller, who is charged with supporting and encouraging the development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism projects in the state, holds Tjapukai up as an example of how it should be done.

“Most people forget Tjapukai started small and grew over six to eight years until it is the massive complex of today, packaging and marketing itself with other major attractions in the Cairns,” he says. “It is the model for everyone.”

Visitors to the far north should also make time to see the Cairns Regional Gallery, which has an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection including contemporary Torres Strait Islander sculptures, spectacular but functional dance headdresses, and works by the Lockhart River Art Gang of far north Queensland.

Discovering the culture of Australia’s indigenous people can be one of the most rewarding experiences of a visit to this vast continent. Understanding the depth of that culture in all its complexities may be a greater challenge, but every step counts.

On the walls of Couran Cove’s Gwondabah Environment Centre are the words of the poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, a call to reconciliation, to a time “when lives of black and white entwine, and men in brotherhood combine…”

With every visit and every tour, her dream becomes closer to reality.