Yuendumu Door Analysis

In this scene, the camera shifts back and forth between their elders back at Jigalong and the girls in the desert. This constant transition conveys the relationship between the girls (protected by the eagle) and the elders praying in an Aboriginal dialect for the girl’s safety. With these few examples, we can see how the Indigenous people have a special bond with their land through their cultural religion, which, in return, assists them when it is needed.

On the caves in Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria, around 6,000-4,000 B.C.E of the Neolithic Period, an artist created an example of parietal art called The Running Horned Woman. Although the artist remains unknown, most historians believe that the Running Horned Woman emerged from the Tuareg, the nomadic indigenous people of the region who farmed and shepherded. Through the artwork and the Tuareg culture, many historians suspect the land of Tassili n’Ajjer transformed from a region full of grasslands to a desert. The artist of the Running Horned Woman creates this piece with a variety of elements of art, such as line, color, and space, and principles of design, such as movement, proportion, and emphasis. By selecting these elements and principles, the artwork focuses on the woman of the piece as the main subject.

The notion of the contemporary indigenous identity and the impact of these notions are both explored in texts that have been studied. Ivan Sen’s 2002 film ‘Beneath Clouds’ focuses on the stereotypical behaviours of Indigenous Australians highlighting Lina and Vaughn’s journey. This also signifies the status and place of the Australian identity today. Through the use of visual techniques and stereotypes the ideas that the Indigenous are uneducated, involved in crime and the stereotypical portrayal of white people are all explored. Similarly the notion of urban and rural life is represented in Kennith Slessor’s ‘William Street’ and ‘Country Towns’.

The poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, draws the realistic image of the confronting realities of alienation and displacement of Indigenous Australians. It is because of such experiences that has empowered Noonuccal to express and advocate learning from experiences by positioning the audience to view the horrors that occurred, creating a platform for her poetry. Through the emphasis of identity, it allows the audience to deeply connect with the past, determining and illustrating a profound link between the ancient past and contemporary present. Oodgeroo’s deep connectivity with art and poetry highlights the importance of learning from experiences, for not only the Aboriginal culture but, for all cultures, and that colonisation does not destroy self-identity. Through the poems The Past and China…Woman, it has allowed the individual to promote change, encouraging the survival of cultures through learning from past experiences

Australia is a young, modern country made up of a diverse and multicultural population, therefore, it’s difficult to say that it has a single national identity. This essay will examine what Australia’s identity may look like, specifically, through art.

Kanyini takes us on a journey to not only discover Aboriginal culture, but also to discover the shocking pain white

Australian landscapes have long been used to place fear and anxiety in the Anglo-Australian’s psyche. This anxiety and the requirement for Indigenous peoples to negotiate white ideals is reflected in current Australian literature and cinematic identities. This essay will discuss the critical arguments of what makes the chosen texts Australian literature. This discussion will be restricted to the critiques of the film Lantana directed by Ray Lawrence and the novel Biten’ Back written by Vivienne Cleven. The will firstly look at the use of landscape as a crime scene and how this links to the anxieties caused by the doctrine of terra nullius and the perceived threats from an introduced species. It will then look at the Australian fear of a different ‘other’ followed then by a discussion around masculinity and the need for Indigenous people to negotiate white ideals. The essay will argue that Australian literature and film reflect a nation that still has anxieties about the true sovereignty of the land and assert that Indigenous people have a requirement to fit in with white ideals.

The religion detailed and examined throughout Don Talayesva’s “Sun Chief” can be difficult to understand and near impossible to appreciate. At first glance to the casual reader it can appear shallow and ridiculous; a religion created around the wants and needs of the Hopi but not based on any empirical or even supposed sacred evidence. When coupled with The Sacred Canopy however, the reader begins to understand the simplistic beauty of their religion providing necessary guidance and support to the Hopi tribe. The reader also is able to relate to Don’s religion in terms of the love one has for his or her own dogma and the importance it plays in an individual’s life.

For Aboriginal Australians, the land has a special significance that is rarely understood by those of European descent. The land, or country, does not only sustain Aborigines in material ways, such as providing food and shelter, it also plays a major role in their spiritual lives. As Rose put it, "Land provides for my physical needs and spiritual needs." (1992, p.106). To use Rose 's own term, to Aboriginals the land is a 'nourishing terrain '. (1996, p.7).

Indigenous literacies are used to communicate certain messages that are meaningful to the people in that individual community. These literacies are used to communicate stories, laws, maps, songs and dances to their own society. These forms of literacies are seen as being crucial to the cultural community as they are used to convey the social practices that should be handed down through the generations. Indigenous literacies may be interpreted in western cultures as art but they are actually narratives and recounts that Indigenous people generate. Indigenous literacies derive from different worldviews and connection to a range of components. They are then shaped and reiterated through knowledge systems that highlight knowing one’s stories of kinship. Indigenous Literacies are seen in forms such as on tress, bark, wood, sticks, rocks, carvings, in the soil and on bodies and

Aboriginal art in Australia is both beautiful and meaningful. According to Perkins, Hetti and West (2007) Aboriginal art allows for reconciliation of the events of the past two centuries’ that is used as inspiration for their work. Whilst researching the Indigenous cultural heritage of Mount Barker, Western Australia I came across a well know Noongar artist from the region, Charlie Colbung. Colbung was born in Mount Barker in 1970 and still resides in the South West region where he is an Indigenous health worker as well as an Indigenous programs officer for the Great Southern TAFE (Design and Art Australia, n.d.). There are two prominent themes in Aboriginal art consisting of both country such as the land and kinship, the people (Perkins, Hetti

Furthermore, the Wurreka is an etched zinc wall created by Judy Watson, which surrounds the entry to First Peoples and spans the north wall of Birrarung gallery. Judy was from North-Western Queensland and the inspiration of her work was the traditions and land of the Waanyi culture, which is where the zinc comes from, whereas the symbolism in the art comes from Victoria. Judy worked closely with the local communities and artists in Victoria to get inspiration for the designs she used in etching the panels. Which is why you often see an underlay of strings in the background which represent fishing nets. And that is what she has done throughout the whole work, so it reflects her journey in learning about this country from elders, and her very close look at the landscape, which is why there are elements within the work that reflect the plant life and people’s connection to the country. There is also this engagement of hers with the Aboriginal community here, in Victoria, as well as her engagement with items in the museum.

The ‘colonisation' of Australia by Europeans has caused a lot of problem for the local Aborigines. It drastically reduced their population, damaged ancient family ties, and removed thousands of Aboriginal people from the land they had lived on for centuries. In many cases, the loss of land can mean more than just physical displacement. Because land is so much connected to history and spirituality, the loss of it can lead to a loss of identity. This paper will examine the works of Tim Rowse and Jeremy Beckett as well as other symbols of identity that are available to modern Aborigines in post colonial Australia.

Chapter one, “Fieldwork among the Maisin”, describes how anthropologist John Barker, author of Ancestral Lines, goes to Uiaku New Guinea to study the Maisin people. His specific goals were to study how a people can maintain a cultural identify in a modernizing world and how they can live without destroying their environment. Barker first arrived in New Guinea in 1982 where he examined “how the Maisin make a living, organize social interactions, conceptualize the spiritual world, and meet the opportunities and tragedies of life” (Barker 2016:2). He studied the tapa cloth, a fabric made from bark, that the Maisin use as a connection to their ancestral past and to help define their culture. Barker discovered that the Maisin have faith in traditional methods and do what they can to preserve that lifestyle. Barker‘s work went

The Indigenous Australian imagination perceives the way of the world and all that exists as not the result of a singular force or mind, but, rather, the result of powerful totemic ancestral beings who once roamed the land. This ontological tradition, known as “The Dreaming”, serves as an infinite link between past and present, people and place, and both the natural and spiritual world. “The Dreaming,” then, asserts that all of humanity and nature in its entirety is alive and connected. In his ethnographic account titled, Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self, Fred Myers examines the importance of The Dreaming to Pintupi society and its centrality in the constitution of their lived world. Descriptions of what happened in The Dreaming underlie Pintupi social relationships and constructions of “country.” It is through this mythological construct that the Pintupi Aboriginal people mediate their relationships with the land and negotiate aspects of personhood and identity.