watawieh yorlye
It
is customary for European writers and academics to not declare cultural allegiances.
This is mostly due to a misguided notion of 'objectivity' in their writing. Maori,
Polynesian and Aboriginal speakers, make their allegiances plain. Me, I am descendant
of the Tahitians and mutineers of the Bounty, who settled on Pitcairn Island in
1790. The culture that resulted is very much a hybrid.
This
community literally made up their culture as they went along. The women adopted
European names, the community built Tahitian style canoes, the language was a
blend of Tahitian and English. There was basically a race war after arriving on
Pitcairn, and women made up most of the adult population within six years. The
pervasive power of women is felt today on Norfolk Island. That women had the vote
was recorded in 1837. The use of intuition is important. Respect.
The
culture is not official, in the sense of making tapa or dancing traditionally,
although music is a feature of the culture as is making good with what is at hand.
The ukulele is ubiquitous. On Norfolk the Tamare is danced, but at parties rather
than performances. My mother met my father by swimming into him at a beach on
Norfolk (he was stationed there just after the war). Afterwards, they moved to
New Zealand Aotearoa.
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let
our hearts
bleed exactly like
the river branching
in the tree
of the land
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There
is always the land; land and sea are permanent homes.
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"...recent
archaeological findings indicate that Aboriginal occupation dates back approximately
170,000 years. Aboriginal people, however, say We have always been here."
Tripcony,
P (1996). To obvious to see: Aboriginal spirituality and cosmology. Available
http://www.qut.edu.au/chan/oodgeroo/Spirituality.html.
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"If
this interpretation is correct, Tasmania and much of the area now beneath the
Bass Basin and central Victoria may have remained as an isolated fragment of continental
crust, with new oceans forming on either side. During the early Devonian this
fragment was involved in a collision along it's western margin...[in] the middle
Devonian a collision occurred on it's eastern margin...The deformation resulting...is
preserved in a collage of folds, thrusts, reverse faults and strike slip faults...related
is a period of extensive granite intrusion."
Hall,
M (1998). The structural history of northern Tasmania and the Bass Strait connection.
Available http://www.agcrc.csiro.au/publications/9798/335.html 3rd January 2002.
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"The
curator of the south Australian Museum, Peter Sutton, comments: "There is
a very strong connection between the use of symmetry in Aboriginal art and the
powerful commitment to the balance of reciprocity, exchange and equality in Aboriginal
thought...you cannot hold a ceremony with just your own group. You have to balance
it by having members of the other side present.""
King,
V. (n.d.). Images of Dreaming. Available http://www.gn.apc.org/resurgence/issues/king195.htm
3rd January 2002.
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"The
Dreaming...is not a word that Aboriginal groups have used...it is a non-Aboriginal
anthropological term which does not acknowledge diversity...Ungud Ngarinyin
people...Aldjerinya Arrernte people...Tjukurpa Pitjantjatjara people...Wongar
north east Arnhem Land...Bugari Broome, north-western Australia."
Tripcony
(ibid.).
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"The
indigenous population, which had been on the island [Tasmania] some 35,000 years,
numbered about 5,000 at the time of colonization; they were subsequently decimated."
Anonymous, (n.d.).Tasmania.
Available: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0847917.html January 3rd 2002.
"Of
non-native Tasmanians, 62% were born in one of the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, South
Africa, Canada or the USA."
"Just
over 2.6% of Tasmania's population was recognised as Aboriginal on the 1996 census."
Anonymous2, (n.d.).
People of Tasmania. Available: http://www.tased.edu.au/tasfaq/people January
3rd 2002.
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"the
painted rocks, a major attraction on Maria Island."
Actually,
they are sculpted by wind and geology.
"In
1825 the sealers gave way to a penal colony...the colony closed in 1832...the
second period of convict settlement started in 1842...abadoned for the last time
in 1851."
Anonymous3
(n.d.). Maria Island. Available http://www.walkabout.com.au/fairfax/locations/TASMariaisland.shtml
January 3rd 2002.
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"Errol
Flynn was born...on the 20th June 1909 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia."
Maskiflynn
(n.d.). Available: http://www.geocities.com/maskiflynn/errolflynn/efbiog.html
January 3rd 2002.
Flynn
was the son of Lily Mary Young and a marine biologist. Via his mother he is a
direct descendant of the Tahitians and mutineers of the HMS Bounty. So am I. Same
family, in fact, although due to early Pitcairn Island events, all Bounty descendant
Pitcairners and Norfolk Islanders are related.
Errol Flynn became a notorious actor, he even acted in In the wake of the Bounty,
although Hollywood didn't take his heritage seriously, thinking he made it up.
By his own account, Flynn was a very naughty boy; his maid once said that in the
morning when she went into his room 'I wouldn't know whether he'd be in there
with a boy, a girl, a dog or a bicycle.' It gets worse; he was accused of rape
and being a Nazi sympathiser. To live with this is 'to live with a member of the
other side present.'
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In
1788, the first group of convicts arrived on Norfolk Island. In 1790, another
183 convicts arrived. Between April and July 1795, 171,362 shearwaters were slaughtered
to feed the populace. In 1814 the settlement was removed to the mainland. A second
settlement was then established in 1825. In 1854 Norfolk was again abandoned,
after one of the most horrendous episodes of man's [sic] inhumanity to men and
women.
The use
of Norfolk Island as a penal colony has nothing to do with the mutiny on the Bounty.
In 1856, the descendants of the Tahitians and mutineers moved there en masse,
as the size of their community rendered Pitcairn Island too small. 18 months later,
17 members of the Young family returned to Pitcairn, ancestors of the island descendants
who live on Pitcairn today.
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Tasmania
has odd sexual associations. When I was growing up, a 'map of Tasmania' was stains
left on bed sheets after lovemaking. And then comic personality Sir Les Paterson,
Minsiter of Arts and Culture often referred to the shape of Tasmania and female
pubic hair. Does anyone know how is this got started? Email me.
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"Like
a throw of the dice, each opening is also a closing, for each work generates its
own laws and limits, each has its specific condition and deals with a specific
context. The closure here, however, is a way of letting the work go rather than
sealing it off."
Rath,
J. (2001). Representing feminist educational research with/in the postmodern:
stories of rape crisis training. In Gender and Education, Vol. 13, No.
2, 117-135.
