Part III. Indigeneity: Authentication and Reconciliation

On-site events and their interpretation disclose the significance (ultimacy) of indigeneity for alternates. In this section I will discuss numerous performances and narratives (other than Rainbow Dreaming) which invoke, appeal to or solicit indigeneity/Aboriginality. Two broad themes are covered in separate sections: 1) indigeneity as a source of authentication; and 2) the commitment to reconciliation with Aborigines. Within this broad sweep, instances of romanticism and the commitment to solidarity are uncovered. The panorama of examples I use conveys an awareness of a humanised (indigenised) landscape, and a desire among non-Aborigines to inhabit that place, a desire for em-place-ment.22

Sanctified Land, Authenticated Experience

Acknowledging the indigenous inhabitants (to degrees real or imagined) of a place is a desired means of sanctifying space and authenticating experience. For instance, the collective invocation of the Yorta-Yorta on the night of the Toc III fire walk sacralised the collective performances there. This kind of sacralisation is frequently encountered in ConFest mythos. In 1981, Glenlyon was, for one commentator, an apt location for an event as it had been used as 'a tribal gathering place' for millennia: 'Once an Aboriginal meeting place and spa, more recently a village race track and now a ConFest site' (Robinson 1981:12). Later, ConFesters at Mt Oak 1987/88 were informed that on the Murrumbucca Creek leading up to the Snowy Mountains there was a path once used by Aboriginal people who gathered to feast on bogong moths, and that 'if we remember that every step we take is on sacred ground, we will be part of rekindling the dreaming' (DTENEA Dec 1987:4).23

I will discuss two on-site occasions where indigeneity has been marshaled to perform a validating function

The Water Corroboree

At the first ConFest on the Cotter River (1976), a sense of spontaneous community and a palpable sensation of inevitable social transformation was enervated through a series of gatherings culminating in what became known as 'the water corroboree'. According to first hand reports, the event occasioned a sense of communion (between humans and with nature). I want to draw attention to the most detailed recollection of the moment I have found, according to which the presence of 'spirit' seems to have been validated by two authorities. One was an Aborigine, the other an esotericist, both of whom held communication with otherwise unseen forces:
On the second last day of the festival, Dec 13th, some Aborigines, probably from the Berri area, had been brought to the site. Early the next morning, I saw one of them, a middle aged man hugging a half drunk flagon of wine. For some reason he looked at me penetratingly - not like one who is drunk. And said fiercely: 'Don't you mess with the Spirit of Cotter!' I said nothing, almost forgot the incident. (Rawlins 1982:31)
Rawlins then describes 'the water corroboree', nearly 2000 people in thigh-high water forming circles within circles, OMing then chanting 'all we are saying is give peace a chance', followed by a 'celibate orgasm' of water thrashing. He continues:
[T]he two hours or so we were all sharing in the water had been and remains today one of the most whole, fully-alive, totally transcendental experiences of my life. And, of course, the half-drunk Aborigine had somehow known that that benign Nature Spirit was giving us the extra energy we all felt during the festival. Far from 'messing with' Him, we all received His Benediction'. (Rawlins 1982:38)
If this wasn't enough validation, the authentic spiritual experience was confirmed by the Rev John King, once President of the Theosophical Society, and a clairvoyant, numerologist and healer who founded the Healing Church of St. Raphael. The Reverend, who 'stayed in a nearby motel and wore ecclesiastical garb in the midst of his naked "parishioners"', informed Rawlins that, in reference to 'the Spirit of the Cotter', 'He was manifesting very strongly while you were all thrashing about in the water' (ibid.:39).

The remark of a 'half drunk' Aboriginal man, endorsed in turn by a past President of the Theosophical Society,24 indigenised the site and thereby authenticated the experience. It thus provided the validational scaffold Rawlins required to construct a meaningful interpretation of a transcendent experience.

'The Sacred Mound'

The imagined Aboriginality of a raised area (known as 'the sacred site', 'the sacred mound' or just 'the mound') which became the Fire Circle at Birdlands not only legitimated the events transpiring there, but, as a consequence, seemed to accord participants with a chthonic status of their own. Awareness grew a few weeks prior to New Year on a pre-festival trip. Cockatoo, a retired geologist, and the researcher walked over to investigate a raised area with a barren, hardened surface and riddled with rabbit boroughs. Quietly excited about the area, Cockatoo was unsure whether the 'NSW authorities' knew about it. They probably didn't, he mused, since it was private land and the area in question was not fenced-off. Such mounds, he speculated, were used as cooking, ceremonial and/or burial sites, and may have been retreated to in times of flood as 'an island of survival' which could be occupied for six months of the year. He suggested that, 'according to the work we've done in Victoria, mounds [otherwise known as 'middens'] started to appear 3000 years ago'. Though there was no tell-tale sign of ash - which, he suggested, you would need to locate with a magnifying glass - 'there is', he told me later:
sign of nodules of fired clay ... which is the only evidence I found to say it was occupied by human action. And there's some tiny little white flakes that could be bone. But you'd have to look under a microscope to identify that. There is sand under this clay layer, so the Aborigines have built up this 4 or 5 feet of sand over an area of 200 feet by 50 feet probably - an oval shape, 5 feet high. So there's a lot of sand there, and it's taken them a long long time to build it up. So it's quite a significant area, in terms of ceremony. If they were having corroborees they wouldn't have them on the mound they'd have them back in the trees a bit. So it's quite significant. So I referred to it as a sacred site ... It's [now] fenced off and we're going to respect it. And treat it properly.
Cockatoo was of little doubt that the place was 'significant' - despite the lack of scientific evidence or corroboration from Aborigines themselves. As a consequence, he announced 'we are going to erect a large flag over it declaring that it's a sacred site'. Whose 'sacred site?' I inquired. He responded:
It could be a white man's sacred site, as well as an Aboriginal one. So we can behave as if it's our sacred site also, and have gatherings, workshops on it, sit on it, talk, conference, you can dance on it ... [But, he cautions] I wouldn't disturb the surface. No camping on it.
Rumours about the area abounded, and an embellished folk mythology arose intimating the raised area's primordiality. According to one commentator (attributing the find to someone else), Cypress 'found some bone sort of implements that he knows to be Aboriginal, of a certain thing, and that if you find these ... on an area you should only use it for pleasure, you should never use it for [commerce] ... It's only to be used for pleasure, like for dancing'.

The place rapidly acquired the characteristics of a sacred site, areas normally 'hedged about with interdictions' (Maddock 1991:215). Indeed, restrictions were applied. A line of blue tape 'fenced' the area off from campers,25 and a large 'flag' with the words 'Sacred Site' painted across it flew from trees nearby.26 At the beginning of the festival, campers adjacent the site were instructed of the site's sacrality, a fact relayed by them to new arrivals. For instance, when I arrived at Birdlands I passed such a campsite and was informed by an awe struck young man that we had the privilege of being close to a 'sacred site'.

The mound eventually became a safe fire zone (in a fire danger period) for the Fire Circle. Indeed, the mound's elevation coupled with its perceived primordiality (perhaps '3000 years old') made it the ideal gathering place. The recognition/invention of the place's significance set up a context whereby those who came into 'contact' with it, who passed across its perimeter (and who were made aware of its apparent status) would themselves likely become 'significant'. Its sacrality, its putative 'energy', was literally transmitted to those who would gather there. And many sought to become attuned to the place's 'power', its memories, to tap into its chthonic energy,27 to be immersed in its sacrality.

It was thus invested with meanings that are the contemporary currency of alternative lifestylers. Such interpretations and effects are likely to arise in the context of:

a colourful amalgam of spiritual ecologists, modern-day Luddites, anti-rationalists, geomancers, nature-lovers and New Age mystics [who have] re-discovered humanity's spiritual roots through recognition of the sacral aspects of places of nature and a ritualistic approach to them. (Kolig 1996:374)
Of course, the sacrality of the landscape is magnified as it is perceived to have been occupied. The Birdlands folk theory is a demonstrable reflection of sentiments circulating in the alternative sector, where there is a strong desire to both acknowledge prior occupation and to enjoy the spiritual replenishment that may derive from contact with such places (cf. Tacey 1996). It is consistent with the 'Spirit of Cotter' hermeneutic and corresponds somewhat with what Robinson, in a report on Glenlyon I, called 'the spirit of Australia':
[T]he spirit of Australia moves within us ... We are coming together and realising our common spiritual heritage: this land with its millennia of continuous habitation by spiritually enlightened people. We cannot help but hear the voice of our land when it calls for help, screams for mercy from the devastation wreaked upon it by a vengeful and spiritually bankrupt society. We hear its voice and we awaken to its call. We recognise ourselves as spiritual beings and we realise that our destiny is tied to the spirit of this land, Australia. (Robinson 1981:12)
This parallels the attitude candidly stated in the DTEQLD newsletter (1988:27): 'what is most urgently needed in this country is that non-Aboriginal people should also have the opportunity of having a spiritual relationship to the land'.

In these examples, I have documented two events which occasioned the sacralising effect of putative indigeneity. In the first, we saw how, in one commentator's account, even fleeting, 'half-drunk' Aboriginality is enough to substantiate an authentic experience. The second demonstrates the inspiriting effect of such sacralisation on a wider scale.



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Footnotes
Maps
Chronology
Appendices
Glossary of Acronyms and Abbreviations
References: A-L
References: M-Z
Chapter Seven Contents
Thesis Contents