Winter 2019 - OZ 5 Troy’s Guided Tour of Bunbury

2019 - OZ  5   Troy’s Guided Tour of Bunbury

Troy is an Aboriginal Australian.

Troy With His Didgeridoo and Hans

Webster describes Aboriginal like this:   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aboriginal

I feel a kinship with the people who have lived in Australia for eons. They are not ‘fauna’ as was the pervasive belief before 1967, they are people, humans with feelings, needs and rights like everybody else.

The treatment of the Aborigines in Australia is a sad, dark and mostly unresolved episode in the founding of the country. Most of them could not vote before 1967. 

I don’t have the solution, I don’t even have ideas on how to help each side, but it is a fact that the they were not treated humanely.

Norfolk Island Pine (Monkey Puzzle Tree?)

 The British-based laws of Australia did not accept the Native population as anything more than a Kangaroo or a Wombat. The people were regarded, by law, as being ‘Indigenous’, meaning part of the land.

They were literally called ‘fauna’ even though, technically every studious Australian will say no, they were never fauna. The facts are that the Aboriginal Australians were seriously discriminated against. They were pushed into the Ministry Department with fish and were amalgamated to form the Department of Aborigines and Fisheries (DAF).” 

Date Palm

Aborigines are slowly gaining acceptance in Government circles today but it is still a struggle for them.

All of the Aboriginals living in Australia were Hunter/Gatherers. Sure they had laws, but their laws were developed over a long, long time and are based on their lifestyle. Their culture is very, very different from anybody else’s on Earth mainly because they had no contact with ‘outsiders’ during the last 4000 years.

Most people will tell you that people lived in Australia for at least 50,000 years. I even read numbers of 70,000 years.

Now, with the latest DNA studies the numbers change again. The latest finding tells us an unbelievable 400,000 years of people being in Australia.

Imagine the changes that have occurred during even 50,000 years. Romans are 2000 years old.

Colourful Frangipani

Australian Aborigines did not have a written historical record; they had what is known today as their ‘Dream-times’. Many books have been written about the Dream-times, many movies have been made. 

Troy showed us how he looks at daily life. He listens to the wind. He watched the leaves blow in the trees. He was much attuned to his surroundings. He was not daydreaming but watched his aura, my aura, Carol’s aura. His upbringing, on a reservation, made him into a very sensitive, nature-oriented individual. He lives with Nature as his friend, as his guide. Never is he just idle, he is always aware of the slightest changes around him.

It seems he lives in an altered state-of-being. He walked with us but was wide-eyed, sensitive to our behavior, our way of talking, and our vibes. He spoke clearly, knew what he was talking about, and seemed to have been educated in a different way. 

Walking Along the Edge of the Wetlands

He spoke of his mother respectfully, even lovingly. He was proud of his father, even though he knew little of the man who gave him his genes. He told us stories of how his mother was abducted as a child, forced to attend a Mission school and raped. He used the words “kidnapped” and “raped” when he spoke about his mother’s ordeal when she was away from her family to get a ‘white’ man’s education. 

Those situations are not exclusive to Australia, however. I heard similar stories from Native Americans, who were forced to attend schools.

Great Tailed Grackle

I heard those same stories in Argentina and I am sure there are other places on earth where well-meaning people forced education on to the Native People. Is this the right way, the only way, or the best way, to educate ‘heathens’?  How else could they have been helped to see the light of learning, some folks asked me. I don’t have the answers, but it seems wrong to my feelings, to my way of thinking. WE, the white people, intruded on ‘their’ land. Was there no better way to live harmoniously with each other besides ‘forcing’ the Natives to see it OUR way?

Our tour was emotionally moving. Disturbing in some ways, I felt helpless in many ways, but I at least listened to the gripes uttered by Troy. 

Troy has his family, like all of us. He lives with his daughter; she takes care of him now.

Troy was not a young man as you can see in the pictures. He loves playing the Didgeridoo and is really good at it.  

Troy With His Didgeridoo

Sculpture Looks Like Troy

He showed us some ‘tools’ he brought along, a great digging stick, a very soft kangaroo pelt, his well worn Didgeridoo and yes, a boomerang, possessions he treasures; Small samples of his heritage that are with him at all times. 

Sculpture Looks Different From Different Angles

He was proud of his ‘Aboriginal’ features; he showed us ‘proudly’ that the art installed at the pier in Bunbury is modeled from his face. He loved it that he looked like a typical Aborigine.

Proud was he, too when he showed us ‘his’ art, the art he painted on the walls in the park section of Bunbury.

Some of Troy's Art Showing the Connection Between His People and Koombana Bay and to the Dolphins.
6 Circles Represent the 6 Seasons

Fish Diet Includes Mullet, Herring, Salmon, Crab & Prawn

He makes his living by giving tours to tourists. He has a vision, a wish to install a more elaborate section of his native ‘village’ for tourists to see. He wants ‘others’ to share his experiences of life, he wants to show what it means to be an Australian Aborigine. He loves to talk about the old ways, the “how it was years ago”. He has countless Dream-time stories he would talk about forever, it seems.

Crest On Troy's Shirt

Troy is a gentle man; he is like an ambassador for his culture. A culture of people, a life style, which was and is truly in touch with Mother Earth, with Nature. They lived harmoniously with each other, Mother Nature and the Aborigines, they partnered up for millennia. 

Viewing Platform Being Built

The British Empire ‘only’ settled into Australia in the, let’s say, last 200 years. Compare that with living for at least 50,000 years off the land.

Koombana Bay Will Be Seen From the Viewing Platform

Of course they did not have the internet, they did not fly to the moon, they did not have cars, horses, or the latest medicine, etc.  Yet, they lived a useful life, a happy life for thousands of years…  Until the British came and dropped their criminals off. 

The rest is History.