Hello All
Once on Satonda, Indonesia, passengers from a cruise ship on which I was
working came upon a group of fishermen who had speared a large moray eel.
It was still alive and the men were trying to remove the spear from its
head, none too gently, flopping the eel this way and that. A woman began
screaming abuse at the bewildered men. While they couldn't understand
what she was saying they certainly understood her meaning and the
situation grew quite tense. I asked the fishermen if I could help and
when they nodded, removed the spear and then helped them kill the eel
quickly and humanely. Luckily the passengers took my gesture well; they
might well have decided I was no better than the fishermen and reported
me to my superiors.
Semi-traditional Aboriginal people find hunting great fun. And yet it is
also a very important means by which they recreate their bonds with the
land. I've seen grown men on the verge of tears when someone else
targets their dreaming animal for in their eyes a relative is being
harmed.
To give another example my children have python dreaming and so Rowan
grew up believing that he must nurture all python habitat, and that to
kill python was murder, to eat it cannibalism. At five he cried as if
his heart would break over a dying python hit by a car. By the same
token I don't have this dreaming and so I am the snake-catcher when we
hunt. Conservation by balance and counter-balance.
My relatives don't consider the well-being of an individual animal (
apart from a dreaming or a sacred animal) very important. Instead the
whole environment is cared for. In Kuninjku (Kuninjku means fresh-water
people) it is called Mankabo, the river of life, and encompasses
everything living and needed for living including air, soil and water.
The other side of the coin as Peter Woodall pointed out, is money. My
relatives earn money from buffalo royalties and if they could do so from
crocodile shooting they'd probably go in for that as well.
At one stage my son Peterson Nganjmirra wanting to take visitors into
Kikiyaw (little bird country, his country) asked me if such balanda
(white people) would eat fruit bat stew. I said I didn't think so. But
I would much rather see him and my other relatives killing flying-foxes
for stew (and visitors eating it) and allowing the odd crocodile hunt
than giving up their land for any money-making venture that damages the
land. Yet this might happen. Some are thinking of allowing mining at
Baby Dreaming. While elders such as Esther and Miriam know the possible
ramifications and would rather stay poor they are under pressure from
other relative who see mining as paying for educational and health
facilities. Unlike most of us they don't have a chemist and doctor at
the local shopping centre a block away, and a school just down the
street.
I'd better mention a bird here so, for all those who care for Darwin
Sewage Ponds, you'll be pleased to know my partner has Pied Heron
Dreaming and therefore a responsibility to look after all that bird's
habitat including the ponds!
Denise
Denise Goodfellow (Lawungkurr Maralngurra)
Specialist Guide
Ph/fax 08 89818492
PO Box 39373
WINNELLIE NT 0821, AUSTRALIA
www.earthfoot.org
Parap Bookshop
2ndhand and new books
08 89813922
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
