To end the industrial-scale slaughter of kangaroos in Australia, the world’s biggest land-based wildlife killing with a related trade in kangaroo body parts – that many Australians accept as normal behaviour – a change of frame is essential. A positive change is to respect kangaroos as fellow communities, family groups and individuals with beneficial agency in ecosystems and equal right to be here. For some indigenous communities kangaroos are a sacred totem/family relative or ancestor. All Australian native animals, also for trees and plants, for rivers and other natural landforms parallel stories of respect and co-dependence are told in Aboriginal stories.
A door, which has been open for thousands of years, was given focus by Yuin Elder Max Dulumunmun Harrison, who is now in the dreaming, aimed to restore respect and mainstream Australia’s understanding of the kangaroo: an animal that the dominant post-colonial culture treats as a ‘pest’ or a product.
In 2021 Uncle Max, working with kangaroo advocacy groups to educate the public here and abroad, published ‘The Yuin Declaration for Kangaroos’ explaining how kangaroos have helped create (and still do) the Australian land we inhabit, their family nature, and their kinship with his people, also the ‘iconic’ status of the kangaroo in the European culture that nevertheless disrespects and persecutes them. He wrote:
“The kangaroo has inhabited the Australian continent for over 20 million years, living in peace and ecological harmony. The kangaroo co-exists today as they have for millenniums, in balance with the flora fauna and livings being of this land. This ancient iconic native animal, therefore claims sovereign rights above and beyond any human claims of dominion over them.
“Kangaroos are intelligent, sentient beings, living in family groups and have their own songlines, language, culture and dreaming. As they traverse their own dreaming tracks they continue to activate the earths songlines for the survival of all living things.
“We declare that there exists a living ancestral relationship, uniquely bound between indigenous Australians and kangaroos, which shall be preserved historically, spiritually, culturally and environmentally for all times.
“Kangaroos have been acknowledged as the symbol for colonised Australia since 1773. They are observed on the Coat of Arms, and have become the central national icon. The kangaroos abounding power, and soft majestic movement, and gentle elegance has given this landscape its unique character.”
Uncle Max was instrumental in establishing Back to Country, a not-for-profit organisation. Back to Country is an Indigenous-led initiative that invites our people and Second Nations peoples to give back to Country, and, in doing so, to heal Country and heal themselves. It’s a culturally grounded organisation set up in the way we do cultural work but also through the Western knowledge system to bring those two systems together.
To learn more about Back to Country and explore a worldview of respect and mutual responsibility towards the nature around us, AWPC spoke with two educators, Anthony McKnight (Macka) and Peter Hewitt (Pete), from the University of Wollongong (UoW), who served as spokespeople for Back to Country. Anthony McKnight is an Awabakal, Gumaroi, and Yuin cultural man and Associate Professor, working as Curriculum Transformation Lead at the University of Wollongong (UoW). Peter Hewitt is a Jerrinja/Yuin man and Lecturer in Aboriginal Education.
Here are some of the questions and themes from the chat with AWPC’s Maria Taylor. The answers come from Macca and Pete. Questions or topics in bold.
Our culture is all about finding connections – there are many points we can connect to, to reduce the overall influence of the colonial systems that have done all the damage.
An example “the hydrology of the land. How do we bring both knowledge systems together to repair what has been (badly) changed? We, First Nations, took care of the land so we didn’t have to do the repair. Farmers hold knowledge now about that landscape so there are ways we can learn from each other.
Uncle Max taught us how to interpret and read the text of the land, be guided by Country. Some of the work Back to Country does is invite non-Aboriginal people to see the text of the land.
The first stage is teaching people how to look, listen and see. That is a legacy that has been passed down from Grandfather Sun to Uncle Max who is now in the spirit world, who has passed it down to about 100 young men.
You have to listen to what’s around you, slow down, tune in, look, listen and see Country.
We’ve been taught there are four primary carers. There’s Mother Earth, who births every living thing – the trees, the rocks the birds, lizards, us, Mother Earth births everything.
Then you’ve got Father Sky who holds the stories in the sky, holds the oxygen, the atmosphere, holds the water just like Mother Earth holds the water… and is connected to the mother in that giving relationship, the protection that we have damaged, (one example is the ozone layer). That’s Father Sky protecting the mother of all the children or home or however you want to put that.
There is Grandmother Moon who moves the water, feeds the tides. We may get emotional sometimes and not know why we’re crying, but it may all be due to the movement of Grandmother Moon. She also gives us birthing time, so the woman’s cycle is the same as Grandmother Moon’s
And then you’ve got Grandfather Sun who provides all the energy for all those things to grow. Provides us warmth, provides us light, many things. So there are our four primary carers, and they are in relationship with each other and we feel that very strongly, the primary carers are working in unison. We call them our primary carers because they are us and we are them.
We are all in connection, we’re all in relationship, oneness to everything.
But we have to grow up. When you grow up our [human] mothers and fathers and aunties and uncles all have these responsibilities doing nearly everything for us. But part of that responsibility is teaching us how to care for ourselves and our own partner and family. And then in time you’re caring for your own parents or first your grandparents. And a lot of people steeped in western culture are still children when they grow older … they’re still taking, they’re still expecting to be given, but they are not giving back [including] to Mother Earth and Father Sky. So we can put things in the human context to understand what these entities are teaching us but we can’t make the understanding human-centric, all about us. It’s more the spiritual connection, relatedness.
Country is the centre. [hence Back to Country].
We all take our food from Mother Earth. What can bring us all together? It’s our care for Country…. Some people are making the effort but there’s still a lot that are not.
We discuss the idea that Country gives you gifts and you give back…. You can sing to it and dance to it. This is some of the cultural information we can share.
A lot of people would say they love a river, but that’s because it’s a plaything, or just a water source, where it’s just a one-way relationship. Not much that has happened since 1788 is a reciprocated relationship of love.
If we communicate a relationship about place, we’re giving voice to Country. Our old people have been doing that for a very long time and have passed that knowledge on. If you want to take care of yourself, if you’re eating and drinking and breathing with the gifts that Country has given us, then you’ve got to give back. It’s a cultural obligation to give back respectfully. For example a river is a living, breathing entity. A living being that has its own stories, going back thousands of years. Are we relating to that entity in a respectful way as our people did for thousands of years or are we using it as a commodity?
(The teaching method employed by Macca and Pete is to ask questions of the person seeking to learn, AWPC in this case. People are encouraged to understand from their own experience. The lesson here is that everything is connected and all in nature deserves gratitude and respect. These values have echoes in other spiritual teachings such as Buddhism).
That’s right. Listen to the Country (nature) around you, observe, and slow down. The creek behind the university has been teaching us a lot. We ask people here if they would drink out of that creek, and every single person here says, ‘No way.’ Oh, so you know it’s not healthy. However, we expect the birds, fish, and turtles that might be in there to live in unhealthy water, and we do nothing about it. We’re okay, we have tap water – and where does that come from, and what does it impact to get it to the tap? When I turn the tap on, Macca says, I try to be respectful, giving respect to the water that comes from the mountain to the tap. Respect leads to not wasting.
That’s right. Listen to the Country (nature) around you, observe, and slow down. The creek behind the university has been teaching us a lot. We ask people here if they would drink out of that creek, and every single person here says, ‘No way.’ Oh, so you know it’s not healthy. However, we expect the birds, fish, and turtles that might be in there to live in unhealthy water, and we do nothing about it. We’re okay, we have tap water – and where does that come from, and what does it impact to get it to the tap? When I turn the tap on, Macca says, I try to be respectful, giving respect to the water that comes from the mountain to the tap. Respect leads to not wasting.
You call it wildlife, we call it our totems, ancestors relatives…. And the word ‘environment’ doesn’t denote relationships. We use the language of Country as it articulates the oneness between all living entities.
This reminds us that politically and programmatically in modern Australian culture ‘the environment’ and the lives there are always seen as beyond the property fence and our normal sphere of interest. We have to make a special effort to ‘save’ them rather than relate, respect and protect every day.
