traditional knowledge conference 2008 te tatau pounamu

Preventing the Effects of the“Colonial Dome of Thinking” as it Continues toAssimilate Aboriginal KnowledgeJim EverettPura-lia MeenamattaTasmanian Aboriginal LeaderI am very honoured to be here. I have not spoken at a conference outside of Australia for probably 20years and the last one I spoke at, where I was a keynote, was in Tasmania. I was the only Aboriginalspeaker amongst a heap of archaeologists and anthropologists. So, I feel in great company today. Thankyou.I am not a stranger here in New Zealand. I was here in 1965–66 working around the coast on an oiltanker, delivering oil all around the coast. Then we did a trip up through the Persian Gulf and on theway back we pulled into Darwin. I signed off in Darwin but I had a great look around the coast of NewZealand during 65 and 66 and I remember a really wonderful Christmas at Dunedin.One of the things I noticed on the way over here, in the airport at the Melbourne end. I went into theinternational news agency. I thought I would go and check which Aboriginal authors are in there. I wentfirstly to the Australiana section. I hunted through and hunted through. Not one Aboriginal writer!There were a couple of non-Aboriginal writers who write about Aborigines but there were noAboriginal writers. I was amazed. I went through the whole bookshop looking around and I could notfind one Aboriginal author in the international news agency, either under the Australiana or anywhereelse in that bookshop—which is telling about the Australia that we live in.I want to cast some thoughts about where I am going with this by reading a poem that I wrote in2000 when I was driving along the road with my cousin Buck Brown, who is an Aboriginal heritageofficer. It is simply called “On The Road With Buck”. It turned round this discussion as we weredriving along. I was writing as we were going. We kept pulling up and having a yarn and then fixing upthe writing a bit and then away we would go. This is the poem that came out. I think it is relevant tosome of the things that we deal with in Australia.One day I was driving with Buck Brown along the coastand we was talking about white co’s on our landuntil the talk got real intense and I wouldn’t want to boastbut we worked it all out from the start right to the end.Now it’s easy enough to see, well it is to you and me,why white fellows do their thing wrong way round.Their Old Men made a structure with God being Heso that men had all the power on the ground.Then they made their people’s minds fit the Christian mouldand they made a lot of boats to sail the seasso they set to sail the seas in search of land and goldto plunder other lands and never pay the fees.So they did an’ found the gold, an’ took our lands on the wayfor that’s the evil sort of system we now knowand they came with hungry death and blooded silver as their payto rape our Mother for a new nation to build and grow.93