Even before I started searching for books I knew it had to be about the outback and the native people of the country. Of late I’ve been reading quite a few Native American books and recently watched “Bury my heart at wounded knee”, so I was already primed to know more about the Aborigines of Australia. I also saw the movie "Rabbit proof fence" but couldn't find the book it was based on. So I am glad I made an exception when I picked up Harvey Arden’s “Dreamkeepers”. Arden is not an Australian author but his book was about Australia and I decided to read this one for OBOC.
This book was very different in its style and in its grace and more importantly in its respectful tone. The author decided to step away from the limelight and not interpret or summarize anything he learned from the Aborigines. Instead he lets them do the talking which i found to be very very refreshing. Every other book that deals with Native people anywhere always has a lens – be it anthropological, historical, mystical or spiritual.
This book is of, by, for the aborigines. Harvey Arden has been very respectful of local traditions and has let natives do all the talking and just acted as a scribe for whatever was permitted. As Daisy Utemorrah said to him “Just stop by and say hello to us, that's all we ask” – he did just that and let them drive the conversation and captured it as accurately as possible.
In his quest for dreamtime stories, he realizes that those are not his stories for him to take, publish and make money from. Just because you ask someone the time, it doesn't mean you have a right to their watch is the analogy that was used.
The book offered some amazing insights into the minds of the aborginal people and their culture, customs and aspirations ...how they've reconciled christianity with their Wandjina spirits, the white man's law to their own law , dreamtime to today's real time. I was also intrigued by how each tribe had its own dreamtime and how even today depiction of dreamtime in art is symbolic to not give away anything and how business was classified as "man's business" and "woman's business".
Arden also shared his book "wisdom keepers" about Native Americans with the Aborginals he met, and it was fascinating to see how they quickly identified themselves with Native Americans. When Arden couldn't resist his "touristy desire" to see the Aboriginal Jack Rogers all painted up, he is told that painting up is only for ceremony. That takes him back to the conversation he had with a Lakota leader when he asked him to wear his "war bonnet"
White man always gets everything wrong. He calls us savages, but he's the savage. See, he calls this headdress a war bonnet. Sure, we used it in war, but most of the time it was for ceremony. Every feather stands for a good deed, and I have thirty-six in mine. It's not about war; it's about who we are. When we sing songs he calls them war songs. But they're not war songs , they're prayers to god. We have drums, so White Man calls them war drums; but they're not for war, they're for talking to God. there's no such thing as a war drum. He sees how our warriors paint their faces, so he calls it war paint. But it's not for war, it's to make it so God can see our faces clearly if we have to die.
The narrative also gave a glimpse of stark realities facing the aborginals as they have been relegated to outbacks, living off pensions and succumbing to grog. At the same time the conversation with Reg Birch, the Aborginal commissioner was very uplifting as he outlined his vision for the nations of Aborginals. I especially liked his long term vision of having a separate seat in the UN for native people.
Being uprooted from the land of their ancestors in the name of development - this is an issue that indigenous people all over the world have faced and are still facing, and reading this book took me back often to the Adivasis of India and their struggle against the Sardar Sarovar Dam in India.
Many a time Arden was consumed with "gadia guilt" for taking away something which was not his from the aborginals, but as his guide Mike pointed out, "What you're doin' is important. You're seeing through all the crap to these people's dignity. That's well worth doin' to my mind."
This book is a great testimony to the lives and struggles of a community coming out of repression into a life of dignity
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