An Indigenous Heart

There's a lot of it about these days. Non Indigenous people have dream catchers, medicine purses and cards, totem animals, posters displaying the wise sayings of Native American Indian Elders, smudge sticks, peace pipes, drums and on and on and on.....

Not so many people have Australian Indigenous cultural icons but a few people have didgeridoos and a dreamtime painting or two. Australia's Indigenes guard their culture jealously and do not often share important 'cultural stuff' with 'whitefellahs'. Perhaps this is why their culture has been far less commercialized than Native American Indian culture. Though part of me also suspects that there is still much Native AmericanIndian 'cultural stuff' that is not shared and my limited conversation with some Native Indian Elders does confirm this.

It's as if the Earth's Indigenous Heart is knocking and tapping at the door of more westernized hearts. These westernized hearts are 'trying' to tap in and answer the call.

I remember one conversation with an organizer at one of those big, New Age Expo type fairs; 3 of us were talking to this man who was addressing most of his questions to my 'boss woman' who was (RIP) a full blood woman. He was wishing to learn more about the 'song lines' that link up the whole of Australia. It appeared that from an outsider's point of view she was answering him by giving him an answer that, on the surface seemed to be completely unrelated. Except we, as would any Indigenous Australian person knew differently.

He became impatient with the answers being given to him and said something like, "I'm not so interested in that but want to know more about the song-lines". Both she and the other medicine woman walked off leaving me to deal with this 'stupid whitefellah'. I politely told him that he was being disrespectful before I too walked off leaving him scratching at his head in puzzlement.He just didn't 'get it'.

This brings to my mind another parallel; Many people are now also 'trying' to be green. Yesterday my friend was commenting about how people may be drawn to particular locations such as the beautiful 'hippy-ish' town of Fremantle or the rolling and forested hill suburbs that skirt or sit atop the escarpment around our city of Perth.People appreciate the 'green' or the 'vibe' and want to live there. So they buy an old art deco home in Fremantle or a patch of green in the hills and then proceed to known down the deco home or get bulldozers to flatten the hills block and then put up a new, modern, soul-less dwelling that bears little relationship with the land it is on. They are inadvertently dismantling what it is that they are seeking. Unfortunately they 'don't get it'. This holds true for so many people who appropriate Indigenous culture.People are seeking something but are dismantling it in their attempts to 'get at it'; so sad, but too true.

I came in here today to write about that beautiful looking wild dingo up there in the photo caption that my friend recently photographed in its natural habitat. She was returning from a stint of doing a bit of locum work in an isolated Indigenous Western Desert Community between Warburton and Yulara. She drove through the deserted desert in her Toyota 'troupie' with her adopted, part dingo dog that had been a 'camp dog' in another remote community she had been working at.

Something that I was trying to touch on in my article about the man who lived with bears (right click here) concerns how wild animals react to tribal and even many urbanized Indigenous people. I have so often witnessed wild animals being unperturbed by the presence of Indigenous people and they just go on doing 'their business' though it is common for wild animals to avoid 'whitefellahs' and to hide from them. I have oft times awoken to a kangaroo sniffing at the blankets, or watched goannas make their nests or seen emus 'dance' for us right in front of our eyes.The dingo seems relatively unperturbed by my friend's presence though I suspect that his 'wary' look related more to the presence of her dog than to her. And I suspect that a person who didn't have an "Indigenous Heart' would not have gotten so close to a wild dingo. She took a few photos and in some of them she was closer than in the one I chose to post here.

Keep posted.

PS - I'm trying to persuade my friend to compile a calendar using some of the beautiful Western Desert shots that she has taken. If anyone might be interested in procuring one let me know.

Yay - I just noticed I've slipped over the 10,000 PV's. Thanks and keep reading.

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