I Am an Australian Aborigine

As told to “Awake!” correspondent in Australia

I AM an Australian aborigine. My name is Warwirra. In my country, to distinguish from first-generation migrants whom we call “New Australians,” we use the term “Dinkum Aussie” for citizens born in the land. I am a “Dinkum Aussie.”

In appearance I am much like other aborigines, for although we are many tribes yet we are of one origin. Our head shape is longer than most, with a receding forehead and protruding brow. Our hair is curly, our nostrils flattened and our mouth large, set with white teeth. Our frame is of medium build, but our limbs are long and thin. Skin color is black-brown. People say that the nearest to us in likeness are the wild Veddah tribe of Ceylon and the hill tribes of India.

I live in a humble brick house, but my forefathers did not live this way. In this as in other things, we have changed. Consequently, we get a frequent yearning to go what we call “walk-about.” When the urge comes upon us, then we will leave our houses and “go bush,” there to live off the land as did our fathers.

The reason for this urge is that in the mind of every aborigine there is what we call our “dreamtime,” meaning our tribal history and early way of life. A nostalgic longing for the days of our “dreamtime” seems born within us. Before Captain Cook landed in Botany Bay we enjoyed a way of life so different from now​—a hard life, but a free one. By mutual arrangement my tribe and others held title to territories that were universally respected. There were boundaries, but unmarred by fences and gates. Inside each tribal territory were “sacred” places that were to us what Paris is to the French or London to the British.

Not all of our dreams are happy ones. Within them are memories of terrible savagery. After the Europeans established themselves in the country, they ignored our territorial rights and set about to exterminate us. Gradually we were degraded to the status of serfs in our own land. Even as recently as 1942 while, ironically, Australia was at war with Hitler on the issue of genocide, a parliamentary member in Western Australia advocated: “It will be a happy day for Western Australia and Australia at large when the natives and the kangaroos disappear. . . . In dealing with this matter all maudlin sentiment should be abolished. The time has come for drastic and positive action.”

For happier dreamings we have to go back before the Europeans arrived. We loved our land and tended it with care, but we had our own way of going about this. We did not, for example, fence in cattle or kangaroos. We had no tractor or plow. Our ways were better suited to our needs.

A Rich Nature Lore

We traveled over our territory, gathering what had grown of its own and, in the case of some tribes, scattering as they did so. Our mind was always projected to our next visit to an area. It was in our own interests that we conserve what would serve us on our next visit. We tapped water-bearing trees, but carefully plugged them afterward; we dug water holes, and then covered them with sand to prevent evaporation; we killed to eat, but never an animal with young; we fished the stingray, but in times of breeding passed it by.

So by these methods, peculiar to our way of life, we tended our land. True, we did not harvest huge crops as is done today, but what we did procure was highly nutritious and in constant, fresh supply.

The success of our methods depended on considerable knowledge and skill. Survival rested upon our storing in our dreaming a rich nature lore. See, here, what this book (The Australian Aborigine, by A. P. Elkin) has to say on this: “Nature is to the aborigine a system in which natural species and phenomena are related or associated in space and time. The appearance of an object, for example a . . . bird or flower or insect, has become through observation down through the centuries, the sign that rain is coming, that fish are running, that some particular animal or reptile will soon be plentiful, that yams or ground nuts are ready for digging, or that certain fruits are ripe. . . . The yellow flowers of the wattle tree are a sign that the magpie-geese will be flying over their yearly routes, over the giant paper-bark trees from swamp to swamp to eat the water-lily tubers. So the men build platforms in the branches of selected trees and, waiting, mimic the honk-honk of the geese, which then circle the tree and alight. But as they do so, they are knocked to the ground with well-aimed throwing sticks where they are quickly despatched by men at the base of the tree.”

Sadly, many of these skills are lost today. For example, the art of tracking. True, the police still use aborigines to track persons lost in the bush, but good trackers are fast getting scarce. But back in the dreamtime, our very lives depended upon it. Boys from infanthood were taught to examine the ground minutely and to read the story it had to tell, doing so as easily as my son today reads his schoolbooks. By adulthood we could tell you the story of any piece of ground, even hard rock​—what man, animal or reptile had passed that way, and when. We could follow these tracks for days. The tracks left by a person, whether he was known to us previously or not, would tell us a lot about him; if he was tall or short, fat or thin, male or female, sick or well, white or aborigine. As we followed we could relate what he had done on the way.

The tracking called for considerable patience and endurance. We might follow an animal track all day, and at nightfall settle to sleep and resume on the next day until we arrived at our quarry. If by our carelessness the animal learned of our presence and bounded away, then we started all over again until at last it was within spearing distance. Do you think you could do that? How many times we read in the newspapers of men who would have died in the waterless bush but for our skills.

Going “Bush”

I said “waterless” bush, but it is so only to the new Aussies. We aborigines know water is there and also how to locate it. That is another of our dreamtime skills. Would you care to come “walk-about” with me and let me demonstrate? See that green tinge among the browner grass? I can collect water there with the aid of my digging stick. If I tap this tree, water will ooze out. Under that sun-dried mud are water-storing frogs. The roots of this mallee tree, when pressed, give off water. If I dig deep enough in that dry creek I would reach water. So, you see, there is water all around us in this arid land if you know how to get it.

In fact, there is both food and drink, but you must know where. One modern anthropologist listed food items for aborigines in one small area as follows: 18 mammals and marsupials, 19 birds, 11 reptiles, 6 water roots, 17 seeds, 3 vegetables, 10 fruits, besides many water plants, fungi and eggs. Probably our choice of foods and methods of cooking would not appeal to you. Tastes differ, as people say. After a long, tiring day spent trekking and hunting, what a joy to sit down to a meal of tender kangaroo, fat lizards slowly roasting on sand or in a clay oven, along with freshly picked berries, green leaves and assorted seeds. Delicious! More importantly, it is packed with the nutriment so essential for our active lives.

In “walk-about” we have no need for houses. In Australia’s friendly climate, they are not essential. They are, in fact, a liability, for they tie us to one spot where water and food would soon be exhausted. Nor do we carry tents. Our hunting lives demand that we travel light. So beyond necessities​—water bags, fire sticks and tools, which the women carry—​we men carry only spears and boomerangs.

On the trek the tribe proceeds according to set pattern. We men go ahead, widely spread out, our eyes scanning the ground for fresh tracks. Far behind come the women, children and aged men. All observe complete silence. Why, even the toddlers will not step on a dry twig or leaf or utter a whisper. Remember, one sound and we go to bed supperless. We converse by using a well-developed sign language. In fact, basic words have signs universal among all tribes. Could you talk to persons whose language you do not know?

Trekking is not always by day. To conserve body moisture and snare the nocturnal kangaroo we may travel at night. When time to camp arrives, then a “house” of branches, to keep off the cold wind at night and the hot sun by day, is soon erected. A campfire is lit, and home is established.

That brings me to the subject of fire making. On trek our fire sticks are guarded carefully against moisture. See this stick like a pointed pencil and this board pitted with scorch holes. Now watch. I place the point of the “pencil” into one of these holes and twirl rapidly between my palms, pressing firmly, and see how soon the tinder starts to blaze. Let the sparks fall on this dry tinder and blow gently and, see, I have a fire started. Almost as fast as you could strike a match! Will you join us for supper? We have duck, fat grubs, emu eggs, edible roots and shall finish with the berries the children are gathering.

The Boomerang

You are wondering how we caught these ducks? I’ll explain. But to do so I will need first to describe our hunting weapons and methods. Let me start with the boomerang. Have you ever considered how precise an instrument it is? No gunsmith ever machined a bore more skillfully than we fashion a boomerang. The relative length of the blades, the angle of the bend, the propeller-like twist and the convex upper surface: any one fault could ruin the final product. The Australian Encyclopedia says: “Mathematicians have shown that a slight alteration in the shape of the returning boomerang​—in the ratio of size, twist and rounding—​all will cause corresponding changes in its flight which can be demonstrated by equations.”

You probably are wondering, seeing that we have no drawing boards or precision instruments, how we make so exact a weapon. Its design is in our heads, so to speak, learned from childhood. The only tools we use in its shaping are a chisel made from the tooth of an animal, a tula or graving tool flaked from quartz with a prepared convex working edge, and pieces of flint and rock for smoothing. Yet how carefully balanced and beautifully polished the finished instrument! Could you make a boomerang? or throw one?

Did you know that there are two kinds of boomerangs? Or that the returning kind is not the one for striking game? For this we use only the second type, the throwing-stick. This is just as delicately made and similar in shape, but the blades are set in planes that make it silent. If it were noisy, the grazing “roo” would hear its approach. So fast is the spin that it is lethal up to two hundred yards. The returning type we use only for competitive sport and for just one hunting purpose​—to catch the wily duck we have for dinner.

These wise birds post guards while feeding, so stratagem is needed. A team of hunters spread out and cautiously cram to the water’s edge, where one of them throws a returning boomerang out over the water. The sound of its revolving blades resembles the wingbeat of the hunting hawk. Alarm is sounded, up fly the ducks, easy targets for our throwing-sticks. So that is how we got duck for supper tonight.

Our ability to design and make the boomerang has captured the interest of other nations, but that is only one of our skills. In our dreaming we have stored up a vast nature lore or know-how. We learn animal habits, know and mimic their call, anticipate wind direction, make and throw delicate fish harpoons, convert skins or wood into watertight water carriers, flake and serrate quartz spears, build fish traps, make rafts or hollow a tree-trunk canoe. We can disguise body smells with mud, camouflage ourselves with branches, and if the quarry looks our way, we can freeze in an instant.

No Product of Evolution

Are you wondering why I keep bringing to your attention our talents? Please do not misunderstand; I am not boasting. It is because there is a theory current, linked with godless evolution, that we aborigine Australians are a sort of hangover “missing link.” You have seen those highly imaginative pictures of cave-dwelling creatures, half man, half beast, with abilities scarcely removed from animal instincts. Such creatures never did exist outside the pages of pseudoscientific books. But because we aborigines build no houses, shelter in caves, use no machines, those men try to prove that we are closely related to such creatures. Upset? Of course we are!

The point I am making is this. The difference between the apparently most backward peoples and the most advanced is one of opportunity. Printing presses have enabled other nations to store vast knowledge in libraries, but we only in our dreaming. Those who argue that, because of their advanced technology, such nations are more highly evolved, are leaning on a fallacy. We cannot equal their accumulated knowledge, but can they equal ours? Which illustrates my point: various peoples’ abilities have been channeled into different fields, each according to their needs.

There was an article published some years ago. It told of an African girl-baby abandoned by a cannibal tribe, rescued by Americans and then educated in America. In college she equaled and surpassed her classmates. It is not the place of birth that counts, but opportunity.

It is said that a people can be measured by the complexity of their language. So let us take a look at our languages. Although now five hundred in number, they stem from a single source. I have related how we still converse in sign language, but our spoken language is quite complex. Grammar, word order and vocabulary all vary. Where English has six noun cases, some of ours have nine. Others have three genders against two in French. The English conjugate the verb to six, we do so to eleven.

Our Social System

Do not, also, the culture and civilization that we built up call for respect? Although each tribal territory had set boundaries, yet that did not interfere with intertribal relations. In times of drought there was the need to share water and food resources. Relations were maintained by ambassadors who carried a sort of tribal totem pole, giving them ambassadorial status. The bearer of the pole was granted free access into other territories, where he would arrange bride exchanges, secure entry for food or water, and so forth. Thus were peaceful relations ensured.

The social system within each tribe was similarly well arranged. Authority was sometimes patriarchal, sometimes vested in a council of elders. Several tribes went naked, but the moral code was high. Any man had authority to spear both an adulterous wife and her paramour. The education of children began early; the girls to track, gather and cook insects and lizards; the boys to track, hunt, make and use tools, and memorize tribal and intertribal law.

You are not paying attention! Does not that noise distract you? It is Wanju practicing on his didgeridoo for tonight’s corroboree, soon to begin. Come along and let us watch.

It is at these corroborees that much of our dreaming is written upon the tribal mind, for here law, customs and hunting methods are rehearsed. For example, the dance now beginning is a lesson on hunting. How cleverly those men imitate the kangaroo. Those others are hunters, stalking them. Mimicry of bird and animal calls comes into the dance. See how keenly the children watch and learn. Now they are relating history, telling the story of when the tribe was saved from a great flood that destroyed all others of mankind. Recent events are also incorporated into the corroboree. See, they now depict the making of a movie film such as they once witnessed. Each dance enacts some drama, tragedy or comedy; but always with its roots back in tribal history.

How We Got Here

When somebody presented me with a Bible, it came as a surprise to find that it, too, tells of the great flood you just saw in the dance. It set me wondering how we aborigines traveled from far-off Shinar to Australia. From what I have read, nobody seems really to know. Guesses seem as numerous as guessers! However, certain facts stand out and do assist. These are that we are of Aryan, not Negroid, descent; that we came from the north.

Probably it was by island hopping that my forefathers landed on the shores of Australia, and then spread out over the continent, adapting themselves to each locality in which they settled and gradually divided into tribes, established local customs, built varieties into the basic language, and developed mutual boundaries and territories. Knowledge and skills brought with them they adapted to the new environment, acquiring more with time and need. They became specialists of survival in an arid land. Because they were now cut off from the stream of general knowledge that flowed in other lands, circumstances shaped them into the pattern that the first European settlers found when they landed in 1770 C.E.

Two civilizations, totally dissimilar, now clashed. Because the new arrivals were unaware of our territory boundaries and methods of tending our land, they concluded that the land was unpossessed and set about exploiting their discovery. At first we were tolerant, but inevitably war followed. Musket encountered spear. Bit by bit our land fell to the newcomers and we aborigines found ourselves thrust into the reserves. We saw our forests fall to ax, fire and bulldozer; we witnessed species of wildlife forced into extinction, others into near extinction. Digging stick and tractor met in conflict and the tractor won.

Or did it? Acres of land are now dust bowls; topsoil pours into the sea; rivers are fouled. Insecticides undermine the ecology of insects, birds, animals and now threaten even man. Just as aborigines live in reserves, so also many species of rare bird and beast exist only in tiny pockets that fast decline in size and number.

Only in the vast, desert-dry interior of Australia do pockets of aborigines live out the days of their dreamtime. One of these, the Pintubi tribe, just recently (1957 C.E.) was contacted by a Melbourne journalist in the Gibson Desert, 600 miles west of Alice Springs. His report on these included the following: they had never before seen a white man, nor money, fish, nor flour; they hunted with tame dingoes, ate rodents and lizards, went naked, had never bathed and spoke only in soft whispers.

Do I wish I were living there with them? Why, no! Nor do I long to return to the days of our dreamtime as once I used to. You see, of recent years I have learned much of what the Bible has to say of the immediate future of mankind, of how the whole earth has to be transformed into a new Eden. Nothing like this was ever written into our “dreaming.” Instead of the past, I now yearn for what the future holds and hope to have a share in cultivating this land of Australia, to see waters flow where now are deserts, to be here when my forefathers return in the resurrection, and to be allowed to add to their “dreamtime” the happy information about Jehovah’s kingdom, and encourage them to share with me in making a paradise of our smiling land down under.

[Picture on page 23]

Using the fire stick