[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Chrissy Mack from Radio Northern Beaches and you've just tuned in to the Listen and Chat with Chrissy Mack podcast. This is the space where we pull no punches, sometimes a little controversial, sometimes downright outrageous and sometimes just packed full of information that is interesting to know. My colleague and fellow presenter Michael Lester is talking to Dr Richard Boone about Welcome to Country.
[00:00:25] Welcome again my listeners. I'm Michael Lester and our program here today is Community Voices. I was rather struck, well maybe even upset on Anzac Day to witness the news and reports and footage of some of the Anzac Day dawn ceremonies around the country, which seemed to elicit from some elements of the crowd very strong boos when it came to the Welcome to Country ceremonies that were going on at this event.
[00:00:51] There were strong reactions to that of course politically, but they were quite present at a number of these dawn ceremonies. This attitude toward our fellow Indigenous Australians makes me wonder about what underpins this sort of attitude. There are claims that this is some sort of a modern invention that's invoked and used by modern progressives who want to stir things up,
[00:01:15] make us feel bad and really just a bit of a scam. People say, well, it was just a modern invention from the 70s, 80s or whatever. To discuss these issues and try to get to the bottom of what the Welcome to Country ceremony is all about and the closely related but different acknowledgement of traditional landowners ceremony, I'm delighted to welcome to our program Richard Broome. Richard is the Emeritus Professor of Australian Indigenous History at La Trobe University.
[00:01:43] He's an immediate former past president of the Royal Historical Society, still very active with that society and its publications. He's a fellow of the academies, of course. He's published well over a dozen books and won prizes and awards for his work in these various domains of Australian history and particularly Indigenous history. Thank you very much, Richard, for joining us here on Radio Northern Beaches. My great pleasure to be here, Michael.
[00:02:07] Richard, before we try to come to grips with what the Welcome to Country really is and its origins and significance, I wonder if we could just start with how you see these modern reactions that seem to be taking place, like these boos. What do you think these signify and underpin this sort of reaction? I think they're very unfortunate, as you reacted to. I think they signify really a fearfulness about inclusion and diversity.
[00:02:38] And I think it's quite misplaced because Aboriginal people are extremely accepting of non-Aboriginal Australians, wanting to include them into the great deep history of our country, which stretches back 2,000 generations, which is quite amazing. And they're always offering to share this deep heritage with us,
[00:03:05] which adds another wonderful layer to the human story in Australia, which on the non-Indigenous side has been unfolding since 1788. So I think to include this is just adding to the richness of our story. But some people seem anxious about this, fearful, and I think that's where the booing comes from. Now, your work as a historian and other people who research these things,
[00:03:34] anthropologists, historians and social scientists of various sorts, know clearly and well from the evidence as well as from the research that, in fact, these claims that this ceremony is some sort of modern invention by Ernie Dingo and Richard Wally and the 1976 Perth Festival then seem to develop a life of its own to date. It's very much a misleading claim in the sense that your work establishes, doesn't it,
[00:04:00] that the Welcome to Country has a millennia-long history as a particular form and protocol within the Indigenous communities around Australia. So what is the nature of this Welcome to Country procedure ceremony that we know about in the traditional practice? Well, of course, it's obviously changing and has local resonances.
[00:04:25] But as we know, Australia in deep time before European arrivals was composed of many different communities with different languages and distinct local cultures. And when they interacted, they had a series of protocols, like diplomatic relations really, to ensure that there were peaceful interactions unless there was to be a grievance settled.
[00:04:54] So that when strangers came together, they had these protocols which were to order relations and keep the peace. Now, in Victoria, where I now live and practice my history, William Thomas, who was one of the Aboriginal assistant protectors of the Aboriginal protected that ran from 1839 to 1850,
[00:05:18] and then he continued to be the guardian of Aborigines till his death in 1864, wrote quite a lot about Aboriginal people, both in his official weekly and monthly journals to his superiors, but also he published other things. Now, he described what he was called the Tandiram ceremony.
[00:05:40] And this was a ceremony which governed the meeting of two groups that didn't know each other. He said usually there was an intermediary to handle the relations, and the group came and sat down, and the host communities then gathered bushes and branches from trees and shrubs and placed them on the ground,
[00:06:09] and the visitors sat on that in their family groups. And on the first day, the hosts brought the food and the water to sustain these people. So there was a slow coming together of these two groups, and then relations would flow from that, whether they be trade or whether they be other relations bound into marriage or whatever. So it was organised,
[00:06:37] and he saw this in 1845 in just outside Melbourne, where 200 strangers came into the Yarra River camp. So that we know elsewhere in Australia, these happened all the time. Aboriginal people were pretty good at diplomacy because they lived in areas where the clans owned the land, owned the stories,
[00:07:02] but they always had to interact with others because of trade, intermarriage, other reasons. And so they developed a long-standing set of protocols. So we know this was 1845, but these would have gone back generations. We'll never know how long they go back, and no doubt they changed over time. Yes, well, the fascinating thing is to think about the indigenous cultures, which, as you say,
[00:07:31] we don't really know exactly how many mobs and tribes there were around the country, but there were certainly a few hundred of them in their own clearly delineated traditional owner land for which they had the stories and lived and worked on. It makes you wonder about these ceremonies and what role and why they were needed. In this culture at the time, from what we know, why were people moving around? What were some of the reasons that there might have been strangers wandering across another mob's ground,
[00:08:01] and why would these strangers be wandering across? And presumably, these strangers are only visiting and passing through, are they? They're not strangers that are being welcomed to establish and take up camp there, are they? No, these were temporary visits and temporary arrangements. I'm pretty sure in 1845, the reason was that 200 people came because by then the white fellas had been on the banks of the era for almost 10 years,
[00:08:28] and they had a whole town developing with food supplies and whatever. So Aboriginal people were attracted out of curiosity to see what these white fellas had, you know, sharp blades, different sorts of foods they wore, different sorts of attire, clothing, etc. So they came out of curiosity and also to get access to some of the things. In a sense, Melbourne was like a great waterhole,
[00:08:57] you know, they had plentiful things. But in traditional times, people didn't interact so much, but they did if there was to be trading going on. But often it was with immediate neighbours who you knew, you knew their dialect, and you often intermarried with them. But there were occasions where more distant groups who were seen to be strangers would meet, and therefore there had to be protocols
[00:09:26] that would handle any potential trouble. Because Aboriginal people believe that strangers should be feared. I suppose they're quite human in that sense. And so they had these mechanisms to ensure that things would go peacefully. Yeah, in fact, as I understand it, these traditional ceremonies, Welcome to Country, were effectively an exercise in the stranger seeking permission
[00:09:55] to move across and between these different lands to which he was a stranger or she was a stranger, both safely and appropriately so that they showed respect for the traditional landowners and that they could pass in safety. But I believe, too, there might have been elements of what reciprocity and exchange involved, too, or not? Oh, yeah. Well, they're always... Aboriginal people were always making things and they made things
[00:10:23] mostly to give away and the gift is a very powerful thing. It creates reciprocal obligations. It creates connections. And, of course, you wanted to get on well, certainly with your neighbours, because at times your economic living area went beyond your own clan-owning area of country. So, especially in times of drought or different foods,
[00:10:51] you could go into neighbours' country with their understanding. So, if you built up reciprocal relations... And, of course, in Victoria, in central Victoria, there was a group called themselves the Kulin and there were five main cultural language groups and they were all intermarrying groups because if you were from a clan whose totem was, for instance, in Victoria Bunjil, the eagle, the great creator,
[00:11:20] you had to marry a wah woman. So, you had to marry outside your clan. And that was, of course, very important because it created the relationships across these clan lands into the neighbouring lands, which gave you much more flexibility with food gathering if that was needed. One might talk about the differences between the form and protocols nature of the ceremony that is undertaken these days
[00:11:49] in the name of welcome to country and what we might know or don't know about the form and nature of these ceremonies in the past. I think you've made the point that, well, on the one hand, presumably, they might have varied quite a lot between one moment and another in terms of the nature of the ceremonies. But, presumably, over time, like in any culture, there's been adaptation and change over time. So, obviously, from deep history through colonial times and into modern times,
[00:12:19] the nature and form of these things has probably evolved and changed, has it? And in what ways? Well, they certainly have. Like, in Victoria today, amongst the Wurundjeri people centred on Melbourne, they usually have a smoking ceremony. So, they still offer the boughs off from trees from the country, but they will often put them on a small fire and have a smoking ceremony through which
[00:12:47] people walk to purify. Now, in the description that Thomas gives in 1845, he talked about people carrying burning staves of bark, which was to purify, but now it's put onto a fire which people walk around and bring the smoke onto themselves as they do. So, you know, this is a variation, but it's essentially the same sorts of thing. And this happens
[00:13:16] in all cultures with all traditions and that they evolve over time due to circumstances. Well, yeah, despite all the pressures on the indigenous people and their culture post-colonial times to forget and leave behind their traditions, the indigenous people have a very living tradition, don't they, and culture of survival and adaptation. You know, they're still here as they say after all that always were and always will be
[00:13:46] in some sense. Yes, that's certainly true. And it's all focused on family and kinship relations. The typical question someone asks another when they first meet is, well, what mob are you from? So, that's where the focus of their identity lies. On that point about the way that they might have changed and be different to the modern one, the modern protocols and form,
[00:14:15] what about music and dance? What role do we know or do they play or don't they in the traditional forms and or the modern forms? Well, of course, Thomas doesn't mention that but I'm sure it happened or I'm sure it happened that evening. The group would arrive in the day and there'd be certain ceremonies and protocols but then there would be a corroboree at night where there would be an exchange of dances and songs or at least a performance of dances and songs
[00:14:44] and that still happens today in welcome to country ceremonies in Melbourne that are big ones. Say, at the opening of the football or something like that there would be a dance or two by some dancers with clapsticks and singing. So, I think this is because there's many descriptions in Melbourne in the 1840s of corroboree that Europeans attended and I think
[00:15:14] that Aboriginal people were very willing at least when it wasn't a secret sacred ceremony for Europeans to come because they were showing country, they were showing culture to these ignorant new fellas who didn't know this. So there was an openness to exchange culture and ideas from Indigenous people. Well, of course, too, just to make a pretty evident point perhaps that the word country to Indigenous people has a very different meaning to country for us.
[00:15:44] We tend to think of our country as Australia and welcome to country might be presumed to be some sort of a welcome to Australia but in fact, as we've said, it's very much a welcome to Indigenous country which is the very particular bit of land involved with the particular mob and the elders and traditional custodians of that land. Here on Committee Voices Radio Northern Beaches, I'm in discussion with Richard Broome. He's Emeritus Professor of Australian Indigenous History at La Trobe University and we're talking about the nature origins
[00:16:14] and significance and role contemporary of welcome to country ceremonies and protocols in contemporary Australia. So as you say, the modes of expression have changed a long time. A lot of the common belief around these days among white people is that really it was all an invention as I mentioned earlier in 1976 by Ernie Dingo and Richard Wally when they developed a very modern
[00:16:43] formalised form. Some as I say see it as an invention, some see it as an interpretation. How do you see what happened at that time and its significance of what they did? Well, I think it was a revival I would say as language is being revived by many groups today and all traditions are revived and sometimes reinvented. For instance,
[00:17:13] the Scottish Tartans were basically gone when Queen Victoria came to the throne and she wanted to visit Scotland and she said she wanted to visit the chieftains of the Scottish clans and most of them the whole system had fallen into repair and there were not leaving a lot of tartans so British manufacturers started to produce tartans so in this sense that's a reinvention
[00:17:42] or reinvigoration or reinterpretation of an older tradition of the wearing of the tartan and it's now been embraced and it's just got bigger and bigger since the time of Queen Victoria so all cultures do this with their cultural ways and they're constantly reinterpreting because if they're not reinterpreted and revived and reinvigorated they die that's the nature of cultures
[00:18:12] so you know I think what they did was they they revived something that has become very important but it does in on Aboriginal terms hark back to ancient times but in terms of the Europeans response to this the whole acceptance of welcomes to country and the whole acceptance of giving an acknowledgement of the traditional owners is a showing
[00:18:42] of respect which was rarely given to Aboriginal people before the 1960s and 70s the 1970s really the start of greater respect greater knowledge of and greater listening to Aboriginal people and so I think on our side non-Indigenous side we've learned that respect is important like when you go to someone else's house or someone else's country you
[00:19:11] show respect to them by listening and and and by acknowledging where they've come from and where they've been so I think that's what an acknowledgement of country is it's showing a much belated respect on the part of Europeans for Aboriginal culture connection to land and it's an offer of reconciliation I think there might often be some confusion in some people's minds between welcome to country ceremonies
[00:19:41] that we've been discussing and acknowledgement of traditional owner ceremonies which on my understanding is a much more recent show and ceremony of respect for traditional land owners than the millennial long welcome to country tradition it might be something that arose well only in the last part of the last century really the 20th century mid 20th century as a sign of respect and mainly and certainly not necessarily
[00:20:11] conducted by the traditional land owners themselves but by white people acknowledging the traditional owners what is the acknowledgement of traditional owners ceremony and how is it different to welcome to country well welcome to country is given by the traditional owners of the land on which you find yourself and they are welcoming you as you might welcome a visitor into your home and so
[00:20:41] they're extending their regard for you to you they're welcome to you but an acknowledgement is given by two groups firstly it's given by non-indigenous Australians to show respect but it's also given by indigenous people who are not from the local area so you might be at a meeting where there's an indigenous person from the other side of the country the west or in Queensland but they're
[00:21:10] there as a member of the meeting they might be the only indigenous person but they can't welcome you to the country for instance of Sydney because they're not of that place but they can acknowledge the traditional owners so that's the basic difference a welcome is only given by someone from that local cultural group yes and in other words presumably the conveners the non-indigenous conveners of an event couldn't themselves stand up and do a welcome to country
[00:21:40] it basically has to be tied to some traditional owner or elder of the very land upon which the event is happening to be of any legitimacy this acknowledgement though of traditional ownership it's as you've said I think of a different nature and significance but underlying it it's showing respect and is it acknowledgement for the sovereignty never ceded to the land well certainly
[00:22:09] Australia's got to come to terms with the fact that we were not invited to come here in 1788 we didn't do any land holders who were recognised in international law as being land holders because they were present on the land and they used the land but that was never done so we need to understand that we need to acknowledge that as a country many people
[00:22:39] do but there are people perhaps the boos at those semranies that don't have still not come to terms with the fact that there was not really a settlement but more an invasion now it was at various levels of violence or peacefulness but it still was an unrequested presence on the land so we need to acknowledge through acknowledgement of country
[00:23:09] that traditional owners have connections to the land which go way way back and we need to respect that particularly as I said at the start of this talk that they're often extremely willing and welcoming to say we've got this deep connection to country we're happy to share it with you we're happy to talk about it how to better relate to this country
[00:23:38] right as we wrap up here in our discussion on community voices radio northern beaches with richard broome we're talking about the whole history origin purpose and significance including in contemporary times of indigenous welcome to country and also acknowledgement of country ceremonies richard these ceremonies have become well pretty widespread and are used in all sorts of settings even corporates and miners I think who are
[00:24:08] taking land directly and people in agriculture and the suburbs one might wonder to what extent these are forms of tokenism because you've characterized these ceremonies as a support and recognition and a move to reconciliation is there any evidence that this is tokenism particularly in the operation that so many events around the place well it may for some be tokenism but I
[00:24:38] think it's got the potential to be a deep reconciling act and that's certainly what we need in this country reconciliation between within and between all groups but it has the ability to do this and I think we can make it not tokenistic by just not being formulaic don't get a set of words from your organisation and read them out you wouldn't do that with your
[00:25:08] people coming to your front door that you're welcoming for a dinner party you would say words from the heart and that means you just do a little bit of homework learn who the local traditional owners are in the area you're speaking show them respect don't don't just read it out speak it as if you mean it that you're well you're respectful and and that's all that we should be doing with all
[00:25:37] human interaction be respectful and use the right terminology refer to them by their traditional names if you don't and use aboriginal people don't use older colonial words but if you know the group whose land you're on use their name when you're showing respect to them keep it brief it doesn't have to be long winded and subsequent speakers speakers
[00:26:07] speakers if it's been done at the start they don't have to do it so I think some people get a bit annoyed when it's done too much but I think it should be done at important meetings it should be done we certainly do it at the Royal Historical Society when I ran meetings as president because I think that's a respectful thing to do and for too long history groups right across the country only were concerned with the history of white pioneers
[00:26:37] and we need to be better at acknowledging the different groups within Australia today So do you think going forward that there is it is always an appropriate thing to do to ask oneself whether it's appropriate to do one of these ceremonies at your event and in a particular location rather than having a discriminately is there room for
[00:27:07] discrimination in how this is done and where and when well certainly there is every staff meeting at work doesn't have to have such an acknowledgement but if it's a significant group like a significant committee or council meeting or board meeting that's held once it's particularly
[00:27:36] necessary and Richard as the last question not least in the light of the booing at these Anzac Day dawn ceremonies this year and also in the wake of the failed voice referendum do you hold up much hope that these ceremonies of welcome and acknowledgement have got a vital future going forward and will continue to be taken up or is there
[00:28:06] some sort of potential backlash generally to some of this I was taught as a boy and I was taught in the scouting movement to show respect to others and so I hope that they will continue on and on because we should all show respect to other people who have a different culture to us who come from different places and that's basic human goodness so I hope
[00:28:36] they have a very strong future and I hope those who booed start to reflect on what they of traditional
[00:29:05] owners here on Community Voices Radio and Northern Beaches Thanks Richard My pleasure Don't forget to follow like and share stay safe and I'll catch you next time