Aboriginal Cultural Values and Knowledge - Fire and Water - Bradley J. Moggridge @bradmoggo

Aboriginal Cultural Values and
   Knowledge - Fire and Water
Bradley J. Moggridge

@bradmoggo                 22/04/2020

My Mob
Yaama I Acknowledge this Country, I am - Kamilaroi

Australia seems to only
                        respond to a CRISIS
• 1000km of blue green algae (NWI)
• Mega drought after Millennium drought (Normal)
• Species extinction after extinction (Review EPBC Act)
• Coral bleaching after coral bleaching (What bleaching?)
• Millions of dead fish (NFRS)
• Devastating fire after devastating fire (NBRA + WTSBREP)
When will Australia give over?
“Give Aboriginal people a go” Victor S. 13/4/20

Facebook MEME
From day 1

Culture

• Culture for me is:
     Who I am and my mob
     Respect
     Always learning culture – Traditional Knowledge
     Language
     Family or Kin (Uncle, Brother, Aunty, Sister)
     Connection to Country
     My cultural water (gali) place and My cultural Species

First Scientists

Traditional Knowledge of water and fire is not myth and
legend, folklore or mumbo jumbo

Traditional Knowledge is an ongoing understanding and
long observation of the driest inhabited continent on
earth.

Time to explore and make it happen #STEMoriginal

First Scientists
My old people were the first scientists (before science was a
thing):
• Aims         - To survive and access all available resources
               sustainably
•   Apparatus - Knowledge of connected landscapes (Country, Fire,
               Sky, Species and Water)
•   Methods - Observation, language, song, dreaming, Lore
•   Results    - Still here, sustainable, adapt and mitigate
•   Conclusion - Survival and replication

First Scientists

• Bush foods and medicines (tested and retested –
  macrozamia’s)
• Finding and re-finding water in the driest inhabited
  continent
• With no surface water, knowing groundwater
• When the rivers stopped running – knowledge of deep-
  water holes
• Wetlands are the supermarkets and the kidneys

A highly conventionalised map of the
Western Australian water resources
of the Bindibu [=Pintupi], as carved
into the back of a spear-thrower.
Source: Redrawn from a photograph. Thomson (1962) in Bayly
(1999) page 19 in Moggridge (2005).

First Scientists

• Fish traps are the oldest human engineered structures on
  the planet
• Sea level rise (last ice age), coastal people adapted and
  moved
• Fire (cool mosaic burns) was a key part of the landscape
  (toolbox)
• Right fire for country
• Navigation and hunting by the stars - Astronomy

Robert Szucs/Grasshopper Geography

                                       Something to
                                       consider: We
                                     have always been
                                         here but,
                                         why does
                                       Australia not
                                       celebrate our
                                         Water/Fire
                                        Knowledge?
                                              12

Diversity

We are not all the
same, every mob
is different.
That Difference is:
Language, Lore,
Landscapes,
Cultural Practice,
Capacity, Status
and Governance.

Cultural Value of Fire
Fire is in the Lore of the land, its in the songs,
dances, Dreaming stories and art
Aboriginal people have watched their Country
burn, colonial style. Where is their fire voice?
Think of Traditional Fire Knowledge:
  • How the old people used fire
  • Protect and promote species
  • Replicate fires over the landscape (right time, right
    place, right fire) seasonal
  • Fire is a form of medicine, country needs it

Fire Resources

• ABC Australian Story - Fighting Fire With Fire
    Two elders from Cape York entrusted Victor Steffensen with the ancient
     knowledge of cultural burning. Could this method of fire management used
     by generations of Indigenous people be the answer to Australia's bushfire
     threat?
     https://iview.abc.net.au/show/australian-story/series/2020/video/NC2002Q009S00

• Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation
    An Indigenous led network and aims to re-invigorate the use of cultural
     burning by facilitating cultural learning pathways to fire and land
     management. https://www.firesticks.org.au/

Indigenous Responses
                                      to 19/20 Fires
•   Williamson. B., F. Markham and JK. Weir (2020) Aboriginal peoples and the
    response to the 2019–2020 bushfires (CAEPR ANU)
       https://caepr.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/aboriginal-peoples-and-response-2019-
       2020-bushfires

•   Cavanagh. V. 2020 - Friday essay: This grandmother tree connects me to
    Country. I cried when I saw her burned.
       https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-this-grandmother-tree-connects-me-to-country-i-
       cried-when-i-saw-her-burned-129782 The Conversation

•   Williamson. B., J. Weir and V. Cavanagh (2020) Strength from perpetual grief:
    how Aboriginal people experience the bushfire crisis.
       https://theconversation.com/strength-from-perpetual-grief-how-aboriginal-people-
       experience-the-bushfire-crisis-129448 The Conversation

Cultural Value of Water

Water is protected by Lore, its in the songs,
dances, Dreaming stories and art

Think of Traditional Water Knowledge:
  •   how the old people knew water
  •   tell our stories our way about water
  •   Find and re-find water in a dry landscape
  •   Value and protect that water
  •   validate the knowledge

Where is our water voice?
Australia is still the driest inhabited continent on earth and yet one
of the oldest surviving cultures, has no water voice
Our voice is absent, due to:
  •   Being impacted by decisions that exclude us (No Treaty)
  •   Being an after thought or out of scope (beyond the Welcome/RAP)
  •   Hearing of what we don’t have (review after review)
  •   Non-Aboriginal voices telling our stories (no disrespect) (#fishkills)
  •   Not seen as experts only story tellers of myth and legend
  •   Always up the black of reports, policy, plans, legislation
  •   No national strategy (science/water/fire) or centre of excellence
  •   Government cycles deleting our programs

Indigenous Led Water
                                                 Resources
• Special Edition AJEM Indigenous Water
  Management (Prof Sue Jackson and #me)
  https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tjem20/26/3?nav=tocList

    Indigenous co-led and authors
    NSW Case Study, AWA’s, Snowy River, Ngarrindjeri
       Values, Fitzroy River, eWater Indigenous Partnerships
    1st abstract written in Language
   #fillingthespace
    Still to come a Special Edition… AJWR + River as 1st Author

Cultural Species are Water
                            Dependent
Brolga
Burralga
Grus rubicundus

Wedge Tailed Eagle
Maliyan
Aquila audax

My Methodology

• Shift the research paradigm away from Kamilaroi peoples
  being the researched to becoming the researchers
• My knowledge (still learning) is about how I relate with people
  and country
• This differs to western thinking – gained and owned individually
• Fill the void in water management with Kamilaroi Water
  Science
• Be a voice for the Mob

Water Quality Resources

2018 ANZ Water Quality Guidelines:

  Cultural and Spiritual Values Guidelines
  http://www.waterquality.gov.au/anz-guidelines/guideline-
  values/derive/cultural-values

  Indigenous Principles for Water Quality

                                                             (CRICOS) #00212K
  http://www.waterquality.gov.au/anz-guidelines/guideline-
  values/derive/cultural-values/principles

Yanaay            (I’m outer here)

Bradley J. Moggridge
PhD Candidate
University of Canberra, Centre for Applied Water Science
email: bradley.moggridge@canberra.edu.au