Spilyay tymoo., October 05, 1979, Page 9, Image 9

S pi ly ay Tymoo
October 5,1979
Page 9
Visiting Aboriginal shares concerns of Indians
by Cynthia Stowell
His words are those of the
American Indian. He speaks of
the exploitation of resources on
sacred lands, threats to self-
determination, the ravages of
alcohol, the struggle to retain
cultural traditions, poor
housing, high unemployment.
But the words are spoken
with an Australian accent. The
speaker's face is darker, his hair
curlier. He calls himself
“black”, his people are
collectively called Aboriginals,
and his sacred lands are the
“outback” of Australia.
Frank Chulung, an
Australian Aborigine, was a
visitor to the Warm Springs
Reservation last week as part of
a ten-week study trip to the
United Statesand Canada. One
of ten chosen by the Australian
Department of Education for
an Aboriginal Overseas Study
Award, Chulung is studying
indigenous legal aid systems,
tribal courts, civil action
programs, and treaties and
land rights.
Back home in the East
Kimberley region of Western
Australia, Chulung, 40, gave
up a life of heavy equipment
operating to become a field
officer for the Aboriginal Legal
Service. Even without formal
training, Chulung is entitled to
advise and represent Abori­
ginals in court and assist them
with problems of a legal or
semi-legal nature.
While in Warm Springs,
Chulung participated in the
American Indian Lawyer
Training Program sessions at
Kah-Nee-Ta and observed the
Tribal Court. In Australia a
new system of courts is
currently being introduced
employing Aboriginals as
Justices of the Peace, but tribal
courts as Indians know them
do not exist.
Chulung’s next stop is
Window Rock, followed by
Albuquerque. He hopes to visit
the Seminóles in Florida and
plans to do it all by bus—to see
as much as he can in his first
trip abroad.
“Very distasteful” attitude
Driving through the open,
arid country on the reservation,
Chulung commented several
times how much at home he
felt. But he was also acutely
aware of the differences
between the Warm Springs
Reservation and the Abori­
ginal reserves and communities
in the Kimberley. The visitor
was particularly impressed
with the degree to which Warm
Springs administers its own
economic and governmental
affairs.
In Australia, self-govern­
ment is unknown to the
Aboriginals, whose sover­
eignty has never been
acknowledged with treaties
during 200 years of European
settlement arid expansion. Nor
do they have a substantial land
base, a cornerstone for Indians’
political and economic
identity. While a 1977 act
proclaimed Aboriginal
ownership of 18% of the
Northern Territory, Abori­
ginals in the rest of the country
reside on the “fringes” of
communities or on state-owned
and controlled reserves.
Progress has come only
recently to the Aboriginals.
Chulung explained that his
people did not have the right to
vote until 1967, at which time
they were also counted in the
national census for the first
time. Soon after, an Office of
Aboriginal Affairs was created
in the Department of
Environment, Aborigines and
Krulitz won’t help in land fight
Interior Solicitor Leo M.
Krulitz announced he will not
ask the Justice Department to
go to court on behalf of the
Shinnecock Indians who are
seeking restoration of 3,150
acres in the town of
Southampton, New York,
which they claim is their
aboriginal territory lost in
violation of federal law.
The Shinnecocks asked the
Interior Department to help
them recover the land,
occupied by them since the
early 17th century and secured
to them for a period of 1.000
years in a 1703 lease from the
town of Southampton. In 1859
the New York legislature,
authorized the Town to
negotiate with the Shinnecocks
for the relinquishment of the
land. The Shinnecocks gave up
the land in return for a small
reservation.
The Shinnecocks argue that
since the federal government
was neither involved in nor
consented to the transactions in
which the land was lost, the
transactions are void under the
Non-Intercàurso Act of 1790.
In a letter to the Native
American Rights Fund, which
is representing the Shinne­
cocks, Krulitz explained that
there has been no formal
determination by the federal
government that the Shinne­
cocks constitute an Indian
tribe. Until there is, he said, the
Interior Department cannot
acknowledge a trust relation­
ship with them under the Non­
Intercourse Act.
who quit drinking and smoking
almost four years ago. Much of
the crime among Aboriginals is
alcohol-related, and health
problems accompany the abuse
of alcohol.
In the unbalanced and
unfamiliar environment
created by rapid moderni­
zation, Aborigines face many
social and physical problems.
The average life expectancy of
an Aborigine is only 38 years,
and those short years are not
easy ones. Infant mortality is
five times more frequent than
in the rest of the population
and malnutrition is wide­
spread, noted Chulung.
Families are plagued with crisis
while unemployment soars.
Many Aborigines are homeless
or poorly housed. Few finish
school and a large percentage
are illiterate.
Government policies that
have vascillated among,
extermination, separation and
assimilation, as in the United
States, have rested temnorarily
on efforts to assist Aboriginals
with these problems, while
preserving cultural integrity.
Housing is a government
priority, loans are available to
Aboriginals who want to start
business, and education is free.
Pastoral stations (cattle
ranches) have been purchased
for tribes to operate, an
Art, and not until 1972 was the occupation popular among
separate Department of Aboriginals.
Aboriginal Affairs formed.
Sacred land
According to Chulung, the
Labor government made some
sweeping changes in the early
70’s, including the transfer of
responsibility for Aboriginals
from the states to the federal
government, establishment of
an Aboriginal Land Fund, the
prohibition of discrimination
against Aboriginals, and
encouragement of self-
determination. But the present
Liberal government’s attitude
toward Aboriginals is “very
distasteful,” said Chulung.
At the end of a gun barrel
But the struggle for land is
consuming the energies of
many Aboriginals, including
Chulung, “Every bit of the land
is sacred,” he believes, and
therein lies the “key to cultural
pride, self-respect and dignity.”
Chulung was the first chairman
of the Kimberley Land
Council, formed during a
traditional dance gathering in
May of 1978 for the prupose of
regaining lost lands and
protecting existing reserves.
The scenario is familiar. A
resource-hungry nation is
looking to traditional
Aboriginal lands for new
developments, and ironically
many of the developers are
American. But without treaty
rights, the Aboriginals are
nearly powerless to resist.
Chulung bitterly describes a
setback experienced a year ago
in the Kimberley. Fighting
proposed diamond mining and
oil drilling in the sacred
“mythological” lands of the
Noonkanbah pastoral station,
Aboriginals were told by the
state that they did not have the
final say on entry into their
homelands.
“I didn't get politically-
minded until three years ago.”
said Chulung, but now he
hopes to increase the political
awareness and involvement of
all Aboriginals. “Through the
ballot box we have a lot of
power,” he said. Putting an
Aboriginal in the Kimberley
legislative seat is one of his
goals.
Along with political
sophistication, however, comes
the threat of lost cultural
traditions, noted Chulung.
Already the Aboriginal
population is divided between
the “tribal traditionals” with
their time-honored rural
lifestyles and the non-
traditionals who have migrated
to the cities and forgotten their
tribal affiliations. If there is a
way to continue dancing,
speaking the native toungues
and living off the land while
participating in the main­
stream, Chulung and others
want to encourage it.
Chulung's presence in Warm
Springs was a reminder that
American Indians are not alone
in their struggle to shape a
future. Their faces are
different, their culture distinct.
But on the opposite side of the
world Australia's Aboriginals
are dreaming the same d rearin'
When Chulung recounts This poem, which was among the literature Chulung
injustices suffered by his brought with him, resembles sentiments expressed by
people, his words fly rapidly American Indians.
and easily. At the tip of his
tongue are some interesting
The land is my mother culture
statistics: Australia was once
It is my spirit world
inhabited by a half million
'The land gives us our life.
aborigines but only 160,000
Our tribal law was there from the beginning. The
remain. Aborigines now
land, the emu, the Kangaroo, snake, fish and turkey
comprise 1.2% of the
have all been put there.
population but account for
This land is the womb—to us it is everything.
13% of the prison inmates; in
For us, the rivers, the land all has meaning.
Western Australia, they are 2%
We have our tribal law. We call it daragu. This is our
of the population and 30% of
tribal land, our tribal story. This law stays in the
the prison inmates. The
ground.
Kimberley region is 55%
We can’t change it. We’ve got it in ourflesh today—
Aborigine but the legislative
in
these marks on our bodies.
seat has always been filled by a
We own this land, and we follow the dreamtime
non-Aboriginal.
story.
As Chulung tells it. the
history of “white man’s”
When the whiteman first came to this land,
contact bears .an eerie
they saw the A borigine painted up in his dreamtime
resemblance to North
story,
American history. “We have
and they shot him in his dreamtime.
lived off the land like the
The whiteman says he owns this land.
American Indians,” said
But he can’t read that land, those sacred areas, that
Chulung, describing the
tribal law ground.
harmonious relationship
Aborigines enjoyed with their
The whiteman has taken our land away.
environment. “Our land was
Now we are fighting to get back our land.
taken away at the end of a
We will pur our heads together, and speak with one
(gun) barrel,” he continued.
voice, to ask the government for land rights.
Missionaries forced their
For, without our land we are nothing.
Christian and “civilized” ways
When the whiteman tries to destroy our land, we
on . the natives, causing the
cry.
traditional culture to go
We cry in our hearts for our country.
underground. And the greatest
You mine our land. You break our bodies.
destruction was wrought by
Whiteman took the land away from the Aboriginal
white man’s alcohol.
. people before.
“Alcohol has definitely taken
What more do they want?
its toll.” remarked Chulung,