educating about indigenous australians

she/they - 19 - aboriginal (indigenous australian) - here to educate about indigenous australians - i follow from @ordinaryfruitpunch (my atla main) - in case it's not obvious i don't tolerate racists, homophobes, transphobes, exclusionists, maps, etc.

[aboriginal-not-native]

Welcome to aboriginal-not-native

i’m an australian aboriginal woman here to educate people about indigenous things australian or otherwise. my main is @ordinaryfruitpunch where i post mostly atla stuff.

if anyone’s got any questions let me know, i’ll do my best to answer them but they have to be respectful.

[newguineatribalart]

Australian Cave Art: Wandjina

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Indigenous australian art by John Kipara Tjakamarra

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Aboriginal Coolamon water vessel

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Indigenous Australian art by Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra

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Australian art by Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri

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Indigenous Australian art by Charlie Mardigan

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Indigenous Australian Art Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula

[probablyasocialecologist]

“In early-colonial Australia, invading colonisers regularly marvelled at the local environment’s park-like aspect, counting themselves multiply blessed that ‘nature’ (including divine providence) should have come to furnish them with ready-made grazing runs. In fact, the Australian landscape’s benign aspect was the cumulative consequence of millennia of Indigenous management, in particular the use of fire to reduce undergrowth and to contain spontaneous conflagrations within local limits. Within a few years of Europeans taking over the country and discontinuing Native fire-management practices, the current cycle of massive bushfire disasters was set in train. The land that settlers seize is already value-added. There is no such thing as wilderness, only depopulation.”

— Patrick Wolfe, Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race

[newguineatribalart]

Indigenous Australian art by Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra

[siancore]

Please go vote for my piece in the National Capital Art Prize for a chance to be People’s Choice. I would really love and appreciate you for it.

[katarascape]

A list of all the Australian plants I know of that are bush food just because:

Bunya Pine

[Image ID: Two large green, very round, pinecones against a white background. Shown in the foreground are some small very spiny-looking green twigs, the ‘leaves’ of a pine cone which are brown and green, and five pale pine nuts. End ID]

Bunya Pine cones. A lot like your American or European pine cones except they’re as big as your head. The nuts taste a bit like chestnuts, can be ground into paste to make bread, boiled, roasted, fermented, eaten raw etc. and have a bit of heft to them so like. Good food. They grow naturally in South East QLD and can be seen in some old gardens and parks.

The species itself is the only surviving member of an extinct prehistoric genus and traditionally the Wakka Wakka people (the custodians of the Bunya Mountains, named for obvious reasons) would host massive festivals with the ripening of the pine cones and people would come from miles around.

Macadamias

[Image ID: A close up picture of Macadamia nuts in their shells, which are warm brown and almost perfectly round. One is split open to show the white nut inside. End ID]

Macadamias are pretty well commercialised, to the point I grew up not even really realising they were a native plant. But my siblings and I have spent whole weekends picking macadamias from a tree in my aunt’s yard and cracking them open on the footpath to eat like possums so.

Lilly pillies

[Image ID: A close up photo of a large bundle of bright pink grape-sized fruits amongst light green, glossy leaves. End ID]

There’s a few varieties of lilly pilly but as far as I know they’re all safe to eat and the ones I’ve had are super tasty. They’re a shrubby kind of tree and are a staple of private gardens and parks alike in Southern QLD and, I can only guess, but probably the Southern states as well. They have a few little seeds inside them and are very attractive to native birds too.

Though I’ve confused them for cheese trees before (which taste like tomatoes, not my favourite) the ones I’ve had have a kind of sweet gingery taste.

Cheese Tree

[Image ID: A close up picture of small pinkish fruits clumped on twigs with dark green, glossy leaves. The fruits are much like a flat pumpkin in shape and texture. End ID]

Only seen one of these before, lived in the yard of one of my aunties. Tastes like tomatoes so I only had one. Also a shrubby kind of tree, large seeds.

Finger Lime

[Image ID: A picture of two elongated limes against a black cloth. One fruit has been split open and the pale green inside is spilling out. The inside is of a texture much like fish eggs, tapioca pearls etc. End ID]

Comes in a few different varieties and colours. The bush itself is kinda like a domestic lime tree but with smaller leaves and many, many spines. Tastes uhh…like limes. Obviously.

It’s common for gardening enthusiasts to have a few plants so you can buy these relatively easily (which is how I got them).

Winter Apple/Berry

[Image ID: A slightly grainy close up picture of round pink berries growing along a plant with long, narrow green leaves. End ID]

My most recent bush food ‘discovery’. I found it growing in my backyard and thought that it was obviously gonna be some introduced english weed or something and was delighted when one of my local museums had a planter box full of it with an information plaque and everything.

Anyway, there is a weed very similar in appearance I’m not game enough to try. But the berry itself, probably not much bigger than your standard garden pea. It’s got a tart kind of taste, I’d liken it a little to passionfruit, and has a very large seed. So like. It hasn’t got a lot of nutritional value but I eat it just because.

I’ve had no luck trying to reproduce it via seed (the internet says it has a funky inhibitor chemical in it? idk why) but it reproduces from cuttings beautifully, just like a succulent.

Anyway, there’s a couple more I know of that I haven’t added yet because this is way too long already but uh. Here :)

[lapinchecanela]

Maorí & Mapuche /   Día Internacional de los Pueblos Indígenas

Fotografía:  de latercera.com (( No borrar los créditos)

[pure]

as a general rule. if what we’re calling ‘cultural appropriation’ sounds like nazi ideology (i.e. ‘white people should only do white people things and black people should only do black people things’) with progressive language, we are performing a very very poor application of what ‘cultural appropriation’ means. this is troublingly popular in the blogosphere right now and i think we all need to be more critical of what it is we may be saying or implying, even unintentionally.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

There is nothing wrong with everyone enjoying each other’s cultures so long as those cultures have been shared. 

Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually. 

If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)

“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”

“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”

“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”

“Cool.”

It’s not hard.

You want to twerk, twerk. I’ve never heard a black person say they didn’t think anybody else should be allowed to twerk. Just that they want us to acknowledge that they invented that shit, not Miley fucking Cyrus.

[queeranarchism]

It really boils down to three simple things:

Consent. Is the culture open to sharing this thing? (& don’t cheat by finding one person who consents while most of the culture disagrees.)

Context. If a culture is open to sharing a thing but it is a thing of great religious significance, take the time to learn what is a respectful way to treat the thing. Probably don’t use it as random decoration or sexualize it unless that’s what it’s for. 

Credit. Give credit and if possible, buy from the original creators so the money goes where the credit should be.

[weirdo-with-a-nametag]

This is really useful to me personally because I’ve definitely caught myself losing sight of what cultural appropriation actually is, and why it matters, so thank you, and everybody else pay attention too

[groudonisbetter]

I don’t know what to fucking say anymore.

I’m tired. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And angry, like, really FUCKING angry.

They were children, they were only kids. And they found 215 of their corpses buried near those goddamn schools. It shouldn’t even be called a school.

As an indigenous person, this is fucking heartbreaking. But it’s not like it’s new. Shit like this has been happening and will continue happen unless we do something about it.

Sign a petition

Support indigenous artists/creators/actors

Educate yourself on residential schools and the generational trauma that we endure

Just PLEASE for the love of god talk about this.

We can’t keep letting shit like this slide. That was only one school where they found those kids. Imagine how many more have mass graves on the premises. This isn’t just “a dark chapter in our country’s history” this was and still is the whole fucking book. There are people in my community who have lived through the horrors of residential schools and many more that live with the trauma it brought.

The link below me is a petition to call for a national day of mourning for the kids who didn’t make it home to their families.

Please sign and share it. Remember these kids and the horrors they went through because we should NEVER forget this atrocity.

Sign the Petition

Call for a National Day of Mourning for the Lost Children of Residential School

[aboriginal-not-native]

The lasting effects of colonisation

So there’s a lot of obvious things that are the result of colonisation that we still see today.

Namely the fact that thousands of Aboriginal people were massacred by white hands, the fact that we were introduced to countless diseases like measles, smallpox, and numerous sexual diseases (3 guesses as to how that happened), and those of us who survived all of that were chased out of our homes, had our children stolen, were treated like slaves, and were forced into white lives, being “raised” in missions run by white churches.

Colonisers have done their best to stamp out our languages (of which there are hundreds), our traditions, our history, and our very presence for tens of thousands of years. I’ve seen the results of white land owners finding our paintings and then removing the very rock they’re on with my own two eyes.

Colonial rule has relied on denial of our claim to the land, of pretending that we’re lesser simply because we didn’t fit their idea of civilisation.

So after all of that, we are still suffering. Still surviving despite coloniser’s best efforts to stamp us out.

I remember seeing this apology on the news when I was a kid. In 2008, well overdue for the crimes against Aboriginals and the many human rights atrocities the colonisers committed.

Among the many crimes committed against us was the Stolen Generations. Families torn apart and children stolen from their families because their ‘white blood’ made them “better” and easier to adapt into white society. Thanks to this, many survivors are untethered from their history, their family and their mob. Children raised in missions faced abuse from their “caretakers”, and were raised to be servants.

Drugs and alcohol were introduced to our communities as a way to avoid paying us monetary wages for our labour. The QATSIF organisation offers scholarships to Aboriginal students funded by these stolen wages.

Colonisers separated us from our lands, introduced us to disease and addiction, stole our children and denied us any opportunity to “better ourselves” the white way. (One of my predecessors, raised in a mission by the church, and of outstanding skill and reputation, especially when compared to white men, applied to ‘purchase’ land no less than six times and was denied every time.)

Those of us who could pass as white are considered more valuable. We’re easier to tolerate. Easier to ‘civilise’. Playing white is the only thing that kept many of us alive and with our families.

Denied wages, denied our birthright of our lands, denied “upstanding jobs” in white society, denied the educations of our ancestors, denied all the opportunities that our colonisers took for granted, it’s no surprise that we’re among the poorest of Australians nowadays. We have died from poverty, died in easily preventable ways because it benefits white Australians just the same way it benefited their predecessors, by keeping us in our “place” and out of their sight and mind.

[theauspolchronicles]

hey!! are there any australian orgs for Aboriginal people i could donate to?

There’s about a million because many are focused on a specific community and there’s a bunch of different issues that they focus on like health services, legal support, domestic violence survivor assistance, inter-generational trauma of the Stolen Generations, LGBTQIA+ specific Indigenous peoples, better education outcomes, etc. A lot are specific to either a state or even a city so there may be some in your community.

Here’s a big link dump for you though:

Legal:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services Qld Limited (Queensland, including Torres Strait)

Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement Incorporated (South Australia)

Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia Incorporated (Western Australia)

Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited (New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory)

North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency Limited (Northern Territory north and south zone)

Tasmanian Aboriginal Community Legal Service (Tasmania)​

Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service Co-operative Limited (Victoria).

The Aboriginal Legal Service

Other subjects:

Children’s Ground

Bridge The Gap Foundation

The Healing Foundation

Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) which I can’t find a website so I think just has a Facebook page

Grandmothers Against Removals (another Facebook page)

Black Rainbow

Pay The Rent

And people will mention many more in the notes. 

[theauspolchronicles]

May 26th is National Sorry Day! If you’d like a tangible real world way to help Indigenous Australians then here are some suggestions of orgs to support!