Gums frame Scruby and Smoky on the DARLING RIVER in Kinchega National Park. #roundAustraliawithSpelio
To be published in www.wildlifeaustralia.org.au
One of 40 great riverside camping spots along the banks of the Darling River in Kinchega National Park..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinchega_National_Park
Nearest town/city Menindee
Coordinates 32°32′39″S 142°17′50″E
Area 443 km²;
Established October 1, 1967
Managing authoritiesNew South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service
Official site....Kinchega National Park #VelcroPalace
see comments below on the Darling River!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darling_River
To Quote Daisy Bates... ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/bates/daisy/passing/chapter11.html
A glorious thing it is to live in a tent in the infinite-to waken in the grey of dawn, a good hour before the sun outlines the low ridges of the horizon, and to come out into the bright cool air, and scent the wind blowing across the mulga plains.
My first thought would be to probe the ashes of my open fireplace, where hung my primitive cooking-vessels, in the hope that some embers had remained alight. Before I retired at night, I invariably made a good fire and covered the glowing coals with the soft ash of the jilyeli, having watched my compatriots so cover their turf fires in Ireland.
I would next readjust the stones of the hob to leeward of the morning wind, and set the old Australian billy to boil, while I tidied my tent, and transformed it from bedroom to breakfast-room.
see our visit to her memorial... www.flickr.com/photos/spelio/4082534500/in/photostream/
Australia has really been through the ringer these last few years, pandemic aside.
Unimaginably large swathes of the country were engulfed in flames, then floods and, before all that, crippling drought. In the oceans, heatwaves are turning coral reefs bone-white and unrecognisable in the northeast and northwest of the continent.
The wounds these disasters have inflicted are deep. People have struggled to find clean water, choked on smoke, shivered in powerless homes, were rendered homeless, and worse.
But consider what they also mean for Indigenous people, who not only live on and love this wide brown land, but also hold an ancient, spiritual connection to it. Environmental disasters threaten their ways of life.
As Euahlayi research associate Bhiamie Williamson writes:
“For Indigenous people, Country is more than a landscape. We tell, and retell, stories of how our Country was made, and we continue to rely upon its resources — food, water, plants and animals — to sustain our ways of life.
"Country also holds much of our heritage, including scarred trees, stone arrangements, petroglyphs, rock art, tools and much more. Indigenous people talk of, and to, Country, as they would another person.”
Heal Country, the theme of this year’s NAIDOC week, doesn’t just apply to natural disasters like floods and fires. It also captures the very-much-unnatural violation of sacred sites, whether it’s blasting away the ancient Juukjan Gorge, or chopping down Djab Wurrung sacred trees.
Rob Williams, a Walgalu-Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri archaeologist, delves into the tragedy of desecrating cultural trees.
Trees, he explains, have always been a point of conflict between colonisers and Indigenous people. And people-tree belief systems are still alive in Aboriginal societies of southeast Australia.
“Trees transcend simple economics and sit at the centre of the sacred — they are sentinels in ceremony, birthing and burials,” he writes.
“Wiradjuri women still perform the ancient birthing ceremony of returning a child’s gural (placenta) to Country. My daughter’s gural was returned to Country and buried at the base of river red gum sapling on the banks of the Marrambidya.
"This is her place now, she is connected to this sapling. It will grow as she grows, and she will return to this spot for the rest of her life.”
Yet, trees like these continue to be razed for economic gain or by out-of-control fires. But what’s more insidious is public indifference. “It’s a sickness that has spread through our nation’s institutions and political systems,” Williams writes.
Indigenous people have always fought to protect their Country. But when their connections, culture and heritage are seen as less important than minerals, “it is often a lonely struggle”.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Bhiamie Williamson describes three practical ways the average Australian can help support the Healing of Country, and fight alongside our First Nations brothers and sisters:
theconversation.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/r/DA6ADC4A825ED3E...
P8190034
Gums frame Scruby and Smoky on the DARLING RIVER in Kinchega National Park. #roundAustraliawithSpelio
To be published in www.wildlifeaustralia.org.au
One of 40 great riverside camping spots along the banks of the Darling River in Kinchega National Park..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinchega_National_Park
Nearest town/city Menindee
Coordinates 32°32′39″S 142°17′50″E
Area 443 km²;
Established October 1, 1967
Managing authoritiesNew South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service
Official site....Kinchega National Park #VelcroPalace
see comments below on the Darling River!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darling_River
To Quote Daisy Bates... ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/bates/daisy/passing/chapter11.html
A glorious thing it is to live in a tent in the infinite-to waken in the grey of dawn, a good hour before the sun outlines the low ridges of the horizon, and to come out into the bright cool air, and scent the wind blowing across the mulga plains.
My first thought would be to probe the ashes of my open fireplace, where hung my primitive cooking-vessels, in the hope that some embers had remained alight. Before I retired at night, I invariably made a good fire and covered the glowing coals with the soft ash of the jilyeli, having watched my compatriots so cover their turf fires in Ireland.
I would next readjust the stones of the hob to leeward of the morning wind, and set the old Australian billy to boil, while I tidied my tent, and transformed it from bedroom to breakfast-room.
see our visit to her memorial... www.flickr.com/photos/spelio/4082534500/in/photostream/
Australia has really been through the ringer these last few years, pandemic aside.
Unimaginably large swathes of the country were engulfed in flames, then floods and, before all that, crippling drought. In the oceans, heatwaves are turning coral reefs bone-white and unrecognisable in the northeast and northwest of the continent.
The wounds these disasters have inflicted are deep. People have struggled to find clean water, choked on smoke, shivered in powerless homes, were rendered homeless, and worse.
But consider what they also mean for Indigenous people, who not only live on and love this wide brown land, but also hold an ancient, spiritual connection to it. Environmental disasters threaten their ways of life.
As Euahlayi research associate Bhiamie Williamson writes:
“For Indigenous people, Country is more than a landscape. We tell, and retell, stories of how our Country was made, and we continue to rely upon its resources — food, water, plants and animals — to sustain our ways of life.
"Country also holds much of our heritage, including scarred trees, stone arrangements, petroglyphs, rock art, tools and much more. Indigenous people talk of, and to, Country, as they would another person.”
Heal Country, the theme of this year’s NAIDOC week, doesn’t just apply to natural disasters like floods and fires. It also captures the very-much-unnatural violation of sacred sites, whether it’s blasting away the ancient Juukjan Gorge, or chopping down Djab Wurrung sacred trees.
Rob Williams, a Walgalu-Ngunnawal and Wiradjuri archaeologist, delves into the tragedy of desecrating cultural trees.
Trees, he explains, have always been a point of conflict between colonisers and Indigenous people. And people-tree belief systems are still alive in Aboriginal societies of southeast Australia.
“Trees transcend simple economics and sit at the centre of the sacred — they are sentinels in ceremony, birthing and burials,” he writes.
“Wiradjuri women still perform the ancient birthing ceremony of returning a child’s gural (placenta) to Country. My daughter’s gural was returned to Country and buried at the base of river red gum sapling on the banks of the Marrambidya.
"This is her place now, she is connected to this sapling. It will grow as she grows, and she will return to this spot for the rest of her life.”
Yet, trees like these continue to be razed for economic gain or by out-of-control fires. But what’s more insidious is public indifference. “It’s a sickness that has spread through our nation’s institutions and political systems,” Williams writes.
Indigenous people have always fought to protect their Country. But when their connections, culture and heritage are seen as less important than minerals, “it is often a lonely struggle”.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Bhiamie Williamson describes three practical ways the average Australian can help support the Healing of Country, and fight alongside our First Nations brothers and sisters:
theconversation.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/r/DA6ADC4A825ED3E...
P8190034