Good evening everyone. As a Torres Strait Islander Elder on Aboriginal land, I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land where we are all gathered, the Jagera and Turrbal peoples, and pay respects to their Elders past and present.
May I also greet you all in my people’s language, Kalaw Kawaw Ya.
Kapu kubil bathaynga mura ngithamulpa.
Good evening to you all.
Ubilnga matha kedha ngitha ngurpemin ngoeymun igililmaynu a.
I would like you to learn our cultural way of life.
Pudhamin mura ngalpalpa ngulaygoepa yananab
So that each and every one of you understand.
My name is Aunty Rose Elu. My people are from the beautiful island of Saibai in the top western Torres Strait Islands. When I was young my chief father gathered his children around him and told us stories. One of the stories my father told his children was about the migration of my people from Saibai to the country of the Angamuthy and Yadaykhenu on Queensland’s northern peninsula area, commonly known as the Cape York Peninsula. In the late-1940s, my people needed to migrate to seek safety from the threat of tsunami and malaria. We believe that God spoke into the hearts of our Elders and led them to the First Peoples of the peninsula, including to the Angamuthy and Yadaykhenu peoples. My father and other Saibai Elders understood that moving to another people’s territory meant seeking their consent. So, my father, along with other Elders, sailed to the peninsula one night to do this, bravely breaching Queensland legislation that controlled the movement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They were met on the beach by the peninsula’s First Peoples who were waiting to welcome an unknown arrival. Somehow God had spoken into their hearts, directing them to the beach to wait for and welcome our Elders. Even though the Queensland government had drawn up boundaries without the consent of the peninsula’s traditional custodians, my father knew that he had to seek permission from these custodians and respect their protocols before we migrated. They welcomed my people graciously and we live together harmoniously to this day.
Before building what was to become our new home, my father went to the peninsula’s First Peoples to seek their counsel about the best trees for building and for their consent to cut some down. They showed him some trees between two hills. My father then set about building a house by hand for my family of twelve. This involved moving a lot of very heavy timber. By the time Mum and we ten siblings came, my father and his brothers had built a seven-bedroom home with a wraparound verandah. I have vivid memories of being welcomed by the Angamuthy and Yadaykhenu peoples. As an Elder, I now gather my grandchildren and grandnieces and grandnephews around me and tell them stories. This is one I like to tell them.
When I was about six or seven, my father and uncles set sail in a small dinghy from Seisia to Thursday Island. We were near Seisia when our boat capsized. Because I couldn’t swim yet, my father and uncles passed me from one to another to get me to shore safely. They then carried me to the village in Seisia where my adopted Aboriginal grandparents rubbed my legs with goanna oil to strengthen them. It was common for my adopted Aboriginal family to lovingly care for us all with bush medicine when we were sick or injured. God calls us to respect one another. This, in part at least, involves respecting people’s territories, traditions and protocols, seeking counsel and consent and caring for one another. When respect is fostered, harmony presides. When respect is denied, harm is caused.
However, harm can be healed through full reconciliation. The etymology of the term ‘reconciliation’ stems from the Latin re, which means ‘back’, and conciliare, which means ‘bring together’. The Uluru Statement From the Heart says this:
“Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs.”
“This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.”
The Statement goes on to say that:
“With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.”
The Uluru Statement was signed by 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives in May 2017. These representatives were appointed by Indigenous communities after six months of consultation across the country. The signatories invite the Australian people’s support in two endeavours: constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians as the First Peoples of these lands through the creation of a permanent Voice to Parliament and the creation of a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making, also known as treaty, and truth-telling about our shared history.
I like that the Yolŋu word makarrata, which means ‘coming together after a struggle’, has a similar meaning to the English word ‘reconciliation’, which means ‘bring back together’.
Torres Strait Islander peoples perceive and experience sovereignty in a different way to people from Western contexts. For us, sovereignty is about how we nurture the land, sea and sky, recognising that the land, sea and sky sustain us in everyday life. Thus, sovereignty is about belonging, a belonging that is preserved through maintaining a sacred balance.
My gently spoken mother was a nurturer who cared about this sacred balance. She modelled, rather than talked about, her cultural knowledge, including in the way she only harvested what she needed and what she could replenish. She always put the ashes from a cooking fire into the garden, knowing that wood ash contains nutrients that benefit plant growth. When she harvested from our gardens, she always dug the soil back in. When we ate fish, she showed us how to bury the bones into the garden. These practices were undertaken to put life back into the soil.
Our cultural foods include bisi (casava), wapi (fish) and urugubaw (sweet potato). We like to cook our foods in woerabaw ikay (coconut milk) in an amay (earth oven). We drink ariu nguki (rainwater) and woerabaw nguki (coconut water). Everything we eat and drink traditionally is pure and alive. Nothing is refined or processed.
Our people are buried in the earth — in their resting places. I was recently talking to a close family member on Saibai. We spoke about how the high tides, which are caused by a damaged climate, are distressingly washing away our ancestors’ resting places.
The malu, or ocean, vitalises us. When the wind blows, we receive the ocean spray on our faces. It’s energising, especially on humid days. The ocean is sacred to us. As part of my baptism as a baby, my mum removed my clothing and nappy and held me up in the sea breeze to be sprayed, to first be blessed, by the ocean. She then took me to the church for the service.
For meaningful reconciliation with First Peoples to happen, we need to connect our stories. We also need to unite the unique strengths of our knowledges and ways. I believe we can do all this with a successful referendum next month.
I remember voting in the 1967 referendum when over 90 percent of voters voted ‘yes’ in what became a watershed moment in our shared history, especially in the way it united all of us. The 1967 referendum helped lead to the dismantling of state-based assimilationist policies that included stealing children from their loving families and controlling people’s movements. This year’s referendum about recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution through a Voice to Parliament will build upon the 1967 referendum’s remarkable legacy. So I will again be writing ‘yes’, from my heart, on this year’s referendum ballot paper. And I look forward to contributing my views from my people’s grassroots and seashores to the Voice so that Parliament and the Government can better listen to our ways and our ancient wisdom, including about how to cherish the land, sea and sky.