Koorie Kolumn
Written By Harrison Sellick
Hi! I'm Harrison, a proud Gayiri boy, and as I like to call myself, your local Koorie (well technically I’m a Moorie but that’s a story for another time).
This is Koorie Kolumn, a little idea of mine I’m proud to share with all of you. In Koorie Kolumn, each issue I’ll write a three section article, the three sections will be:
Culture: in this section I’ll talk about one thing from Aboriginal culture
History: in this section I’ll talk about one person, place or event in Aboriginal history
Story: in this section I’ll share with you either a story of my own, one written by another deadly young black fulla or a Dreamtime story
So without further ado, the first Koorie Kolumn:
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Culture: Totems
Today I’ll be telling you about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Totems. So first let's start with the basics. A Totem is an animal, plant or place that is assigned to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to protect. This means no harming or eating that particular animal, plant or place as well as doing all in your power to protect your Totem. There are three major types of Totems which are used across most Indigenous groups: Tribe Totems (a Totem assigned to an entire Tribe), Clan Totems (a Totem assigned to a family or lineage) and Personal Totems (a Totem assigned to a particular individual).
Personally I only know my Clan Totem, it's a Cockatoo, many of my family members imbrued Cockatoos into items and artwork as a show of significance. Totems tie us to the land and its inhabitants, they tie us to sacred sites and to our history. Totems are how we survived upon this land for tens of thousands of years and not only do not damage and destroy the land, but revitalize it.
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History: William Cooper
William Cooper is a little known Indigenous, and quite frankly Australian legend. William Cooper set the foundations of what would become NAIDOC week and the Invasion day protests. He was also the first person IN THE WORLD outside of Germany to stand up against Hitler and the Nazi regime. When news of Kristallnacht (The night of broken glass, a night in which the German populace rioted and destroyed the homes and businesses of German Jewish people while the Nazi regime simply stepped back and encouraged the populace to continue the attacks (unsurprisingly)), reached Australia, William Cooper and his friends marched down Fitzroy road and delivered a letter to the Nazi embassy requesting that the Nazi government cracked down on and stopped crimes like these happening to the Jewish people in Germany. Once again, unsurprisingly, the Nazi regime completely ignored this, but I believe it is important we do not let these acts of defiance against evil be forgotten. In my heart William Cooper will always be a hero, not just for what he did for his people, my people, but what he did for all peoples, even those a world away.
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Story: Never rest below the figs
Today I will share with you some of my own writing. This piece was inspired by the creature known as the Yara-ma-ya-who, a spirit being which traces its origins back to the Indigenous peoples of south east Australia.
As the sun set the kids stopped playing and came to sit around the fire. The fire made a comforting soft crackling noise as a thin stream of smoke rose to the stars.
“Auntie Jess, why don’t we rest under the fig trees?” Asked one of the young boys to their elder.
“Well, one day, very very long ago, there was a boy, not much older than you.”
Some of the adults got up and began gracefully trotting around the fire, their movements echoing the story.
“And one day that boy decided to go hunting by himself on a day where the sun glared down on the earth with the heat of fire. The boy tracked a roo for hours straight, with no water whatsoever”
The children look at one another, curious to see where the tale would go.
“Eventually the boy caught the roo and began heading home, but he was tired and very very exhausted, and carrying the roo only made it worse. The boy decided he would take a rest under a large ancient fig tree before he continued on.”
Auntie Jess paused for a moment and looked around at the children’s faces.
“So the boy put down the roo and sat beneath the tree. He heard a rustle in the canopy and looked up. Looking down at him was a small man with a large head and a mouth as wide as its entire face, its eyes were beady, its body hairless and its skin as red as blood. Before he could even process what he was seeing, the creature dropped from the tree. It pierced its fingers and toes into the boy, draining much of his blood. Then it swallowed him whole and took a nap.”
The children looked at each other with the same terrified expression, something between horror and disgust.
“When the creature woke back up, it vomited the boy up. The boy peered down at his leg, which now bore a patch of blood red skin. In a panic the boy then rose to run away, but the creature grabbed him and swallowed him whole again. The creature repeated this a few times, and every time the boy got smaller, balder and redder, until he looked just like the creature, after which they crawled up into the fig tree together.”
The children were now clutching each other tight in fear, as Auntie Jess chuckled.
“Oh there there children, don’t worry, the creature is not coming for you, but if you do find yourself in its jaws, all you must do is play dead until night falls. The creature will fall asleep and you will be able to escape. But that, children, is why we do not rest underneath the fig trees” Auntie Jess proclaimed, and went to comfort the still scared children.
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