THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ABORIGINAL LANGUAGES AND CULTURES The triangularity between language and culture, educational engagement and community cultural health and wellbeing A literature based research study for the New South Wales context DR SHAYNE T. WILLIAMS © 2011 Aboriginal Affairs & Dr Shayne T. Williams Aboriginal Affairs Office of Communities New South Wales Department of Education and Communities Level 13, Tower B Centennial Plaza 280 Elizabeth St Surry Hills NSW 2010 Ph: (02) 9219 0700 Email: [email protected] This monograph reports on research commissioned by Aboriginal Affairs, Office of Communities, New South Wales Department of Education and Communities. The views, opinions and conclusions expressed within this report are entirely those of the author. These views, opinions and conclusions should not be read as those of the New South Wales Minister for Aboriginal Affairs or those of Aboriginal Affairs. TABLE OF CONTENTS Key Cultural Terminologies ................................................................... i Author Profile .................................................................................... iii Cultural Forward ................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements .............................................................................. v Executive Summary ............................................................................ vi Principal Findings ............................................................................................. vii Principal Recommendations for New South Wales ............................................... x Chapter 1 - The Research Study ........................................................... 1 1.1 The Research in Theory ................................................................................. 1 1.2 The Research in Practice ............................................................................... 8 Chapter 2 - Language and Culture ...................................................... 14 2.1 The Dynamics of Language and Culture ...................................................... 14 2.2 Indigenous Ways of Knowing Language, Culture and Identity ...................... 28 Chapter 3 – Language, Culture and Protection .................................... 48 3.1 The World’s Indigenous Languages and Cultures ........................................ 48 3.2 Protecting Indigenous Languages and Cultures ........................................... 59 Chapter 4 - Educational Engagement ................................................. 93 4.1 Positioning Indigenous Languages and Cultures within Education .............. 93 4.2 Advancing Indigenous Languages and Cultures through Education .......... 113 Chapter 5 – Cultural Health and Wellbeing ....................................... 134 5.1 Language, Culture and Community ........................................................... 134 5.2 Community and Education........................................................................ 141 Cumulative References Bibliography ................................................ 149 Key Cultural Terminologies In Australia the term ‘Aboriginal’ or ‘Aborigine’ was Aboriginal originally applied by the colonising British as a non- culture specific generic descriptor of us the First Nations peoples of the Australian continent. Under its coloniser application the term ‘Aboriginal’ or ‘Aborigine’ portrayed us as ‘natives’, but with an inferred meaning that defined us as ‘primitive’ and/or ‘savage’. All four terms were used interchangeably within everyday colonial dialogue. In its contemporary Indigenous use ‘Aboriginal’ is an emancipated identity founded on cultural pride. This identity unifies all of the individual Indigenous cultural nations of the Australian continent, with the exception of the peoples of the Torres Strait, who maintain their own unifying identity as Torres Strait Islanders. Under this unifying context our unique status as First Nations peoples is recognised and celebrated, our relatedness as spirit peoples is affirmed, and our shared history as Australia’s subjugated cultures asserted. In this report the word Aboriginal is used as a culturally collective proper noun for the First Peoples of New South Wales. Indigenous As with the term ‘Aboriginal’ the word ‘Indigenous’ is similarly a non-culture specific descriptor of us, but unlike ‘Aboriginal’ or ‘Aborigine’ has not carried within Australia the same historically loaded undertone of ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’. The contemporary popular use of ‘Indigenous’ emerged out of global Indigenous social, political and academic liberatory discourse and activism. Under this movement ‘Indigenous’ proactively champions our rights and status as First Nations peoples, honours our being as spirit peoples, and bonds us together in our struggle for cultural autonomy. In this report the word Indigenous is used as a culturally collective proper noun for the First Peoples of the world and of Australia, beyond New South Wales. In the Australian context the word Indigenous is used as an expression of respect for the spiritual ties that bind the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and the Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia together as this nation’s First Peoples. i Languages & Throughout this report the words language and culture Cultures consistently appear in the plural form in order to assert, (plural) emphasise and affirm the existence of our distinct cultural nationhood’s. It is an ongoing common misconception that because we use the collective proper nouns ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Aboriginal’ that we are all of one culture. The world of Indigenous and Aboriginal being is diverse and comprised of many individual cultural nationhood’s and languages. Country ‘Country’ is a term that we Indigenous peoples, particularly here in Australia, use as a single word expression to denote our spiritual inter-being with the land, the sea, the sky, and all life and geologic forms therein. Country, in its cultural context, infers far more than just the physical life world, it simultaneously acknowledges and respects the presence of the Spirit Elders who created the physical life world and whose spirit remains omnipresent within the physical life world. The concept of ‘country’ therefore embodies our Indigenous psycho-spiritual mind enmeshing culture, identity and land together so powerfully that one is inseparable from the other. ii Author Profile It is a long standing Indigenous protocol, both nationally and internationally, that Indigenous authors, as a matter of cultural respect, culturally identify themselves to all prospective Indigenous readers. Accordingly, I offer the following profile of myself as author of this report. My name is Shayne Thomas Williams. I come from the former Aboriginal Reserve at La Perouse, or as we say Lapa, which is located in the south- eastern region of Sydney in NSW. My family have lived in this community for generations, indeed my grandmother Emma-Jane Foot was born on the beach at Lapa in 1884. My parents are Thomas ‘Tom’ Henry Williams, OBE and Iris ‘Boronia’ Williams (nee Callaghan). Through my paternal Grandmother Dolly Williams (nee Anderson) I am Dharawal (Sydney and the Illawarra region NSW). Through my paternal Grandfather Thomas Henry Williams I am Gomilaroi (North-West region NSW). I am similarly Dharawal through my maternal Grandmother Emma- Jane Callaghan (nee Foot) and Dhungutti (Mid North Coast, NSW) through my maternal Grandfather Athol Callaghan. I also maintain a strong cultural affiliation with the Ngurelban/Bangerang peoples (Mid-North region VIC) through my paternal Great Grandfather Hughie Anderson. In 1989 I completed a Certificate of Business Studies at Tranby Aboriginal Cooperative College in Glebe (NSW). After finishing my studies at Tranby I undertook tertiary study at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Through UTS I gained an Associate Diploma in Adult Education (1993), a Bachelor of Education in Adult Education (1996) and a Masters of Education in Adult Education (1999). I then took a break from study for a few years before returning to complete my doctoral thesis in Indigenous education. This led to me being conferred as a Doctor of Philosophy in October 2007 by Deakin University (VIC). Throughout my career I have consciously chosen to refer to myself as an Indigenous academic. I have done so in order to proudly affirm my sense of spiritual kinship with all Indigenous peoples, both nationally and internationally, as we are all allies in our struggle for cultural liberation. As an Indigenous academic, and as a strong Aboriginal community person, I am wholly committed to the core principles of Indigenous empowerment, self-determination and cultural sovereignty. As such, I openly assert our right to academic autonomy over our ontology’s, our epistemology’s and our axiology’s, which underpin, contextualise and spiritualise our distinct systems of knowledge. I see this as fundamental to the emancipation of our cultural curricula and our cultural pedagogies for the cultural education of our young people. I see that this is the cultural business of all of us. iii Cultural Forward It was with great pleasure and cultural humility that I accepted Aboriginal Affairs invitation to undertake, as the principal researcher, the ‘Aboriginal Languages Project’ which is the basis of this report. As I intimated in my profile, as an Indigenous academic I have spent the vast majority of my professional