Mungo memories - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 19: Re-imagining Australia
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Jenny Bowler
WITH MUCH ANTICIPATION, in September 2006 I travelled with family and friends to Mildura, then 110 kilometres down the slippery, corrugated track to Mungo, for the opening of the Mungo Festival. A tapestry of people had arrived from across the country: Aboriginal elders, scientists, pastoralists, international tourists, government representatives, artists, musicians, interested folk, both black and white. The festival was designed to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of World Heritage listing, a recognition of over forty thousand years of human occupation. It was a big call. Although much has been done to return balance to the land and the original occupants of this open-air museum, the icy weather, cultural differences, complicated logistics and not enough ceremony created a wipeout. There we all stood, staring at each other, enclosed in a compound erected for the evening concert, sheltering under domestic marquees not far from the original homestead. Tension divided this day of celebrations. Sad and angry, I wandered off into the salt bush, tears streaming down my face, confused by my depth of feeling about this polished event, now muddied and the opportunity lost. We are yet to find the meeting ground where our cultures can come together. People splintered off into their social groups.
My family, half of us there for the occasion, retreated to a restaurant in Mildura. One of my brothers blew in for the night, driving the four hours from Griffith to see the rest of us. It wasn't long before Dad announced he was going to bed: ‘I have a talk to give in the morning.' I was sitting next to my brother. I saw his muscles tighten, body shaking, he replied, ‘You always have some other bloody thing to do!' They both stood, the fiery son facing the retiring father. My youngest brother ushered them out of the room. Old age has softened our father, so he was able to concede and we all adjourned to the café tables outside.
He delivered his talk the next day – the dean's lecture at La Trobe University in Mildura. He'd come a long way. I was proud and relieved; his science was now palatable – even fascinating. Mungo Man and Woman had lived at a time of great change in the climate. The earth was heading into the depths of an ice age, the land becoming colder and drier. People began settling closer to the lakes where they could find staple food supplies, fish and mussels. The fossilised remains of these meals have been found around the camp-fires still visible at Mungo. We heard his personal story in this land of discovery: the study of climatic history, human evidence in the landscape, the story of ancient Australia.
Not long after returning to Melbourne, he found a box of postcards from his father to his mother. Love letters full of longing, written in France on the Somme in 1916. It was a moment of deep reflection, what went unspoken between his father and himself a poignant reminder of the ‘large gaps between fathers, sons and daughters'. Late is better than never, and he invited us to spend more time with him.
Mungo also does this to people: it exposes the painful chasms and invites communion; the spirit is palpable. Even hardened politicians are touched. At the ‘Living Together' conversation held in Mildura, former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer said of Mungo: ‘It's cleansing, the static and acid of modern day living drop away. Being able to be uplifted in a meditative manner in all the forces I don't necessarily understand, come together on the lunette of Lake Mungo.' The eastern lunette known as The Walls of China is formed and changed by the westerly winds blowing, exposing the secrets of antiquity. In other parts of Australia the spirits may indeed have left the land, the grief and loss overwhelming; Mungo defies this and shines like a beacon for many people.
The Mungo Festival ran from September and continued into the new year, bringing together many diverse people and events. In April 2007, a conference on human origins attracted international scientists from Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia, to synthesise evidence of early human occupation. Later in the year, the Hands Across the Desert project united Aboriginal communities from the Western Desert with those at Mungo, and they shared knowledge on cultural tourism and development. Then a youth festival involved hundreds of students from local schools. Research of international significance continues under the joint management of the Three Traditional Tribal Groups (3TTGs) and New South Wales National Parks, with many Aboriginal rangers being trained in the scientific methods of observing and documenting found artefacts.
SCIENCE HAS OPEND A DOORWAY and the ancient remains tell a story – of a culture which has survived at least 1,680 generations.
Mungo is a sacred place. When you visit, your perception of reality expands. You can literally walk in the footsteps of ancient people, feel and sense the potent legacy of our Indigenous communities. Hopefully a ‘keeping place' will soon be funded and due respect given to the ancestral remains of Mungo Woman and Mungo Man. Their story and journey, from ancient Australia to the present, is as dynamic as and more real than any creation myth. Local park ranger Gary Pappin, a descendant of the Mutthi Mutthi tribe, said traditional elders believe Mungo Woman has returned to connect people to their history, to unite warring tribes and educate more recent arrivals. The bones of Noel Pearson's quest for a ‘radical centre' may lie here. This crucible offers a place where all Australians can learn, listen and share a common humanity.
My daughter's multicultural school recently prepared for a concert with an Australian history theme. Her teacher explained that her class would perform Click Go the Shears and the first-grade girls would need big skirts. ‘We'll be going right back to Captain Cook,' the teacher said. I asked ‘What about before that?' After a moment's silence, the teacher replied with a rather confused, ‘No'. Not long before my daughter had asked her grandfather for a fossil to take to school for ‘show and tell'. He didn't have any. It's a shame: artefacts from ancient Aboriginal Australia might put recent history in perspective.
Dad's days of collecting artefacts are over. At seventy-eight, he periodically travels across the Tanami Desert to spend time sharing his knowledge of the land with the remote community of Mulan in Western Australia, in the hope that they too can bridge the traditional stories with the science of their unique environment – on the edge of a freshwater lake in a desert – to develop tourism, much like Mungo. In the moments that remain between trips, projects and trying to capture his life's work on paper, he fits in time for family, to build shaky bridges while we can. I've come to terms with the painful realisation that his extraordinary spirit is not found in these moments. It's out there, exploring the rhythms of the land and listening to the echoes of an ancient culture and this haunting, ancient terrain has also become a part of me. It sits deep inside, a reminder that there are mysteries and layers yet to be fathomed, including my relationship to the spirit of my father, and to the passion that led him into a world beyond science and his personal history to contact with the first Australians. ♦