ROBERT EGGINGTON – Director, Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation
“Some people would go as far as saying language is the most basic foundation of culture and that without language culture doesn’t exist. Language is also one of the very first aspects of our culture that they destroyed in the sense of prohibiting Aboriginal people from speaking language, thereforth breaking down those cultural foundations and, you know, the spirtual core of our life.”
FOCUS QUESTIONS:
What if you couldn't communicate in your own language?
How can language be used to exclude and marginalise?
These questions may be used as forum questions, print journal questions or simply for discussion.
How would you feel if you couldn’t communicate in your own language? Brainstorming/discussion.
What is the significance of your name? How would you feel if you suddenly had to change it?
What would be some of the day-to-day challenges of not being allowed to speak your own language?
View the short film from __Twelve Canoes__ about indigenous language.
How did the different Aboriginal languages come to be, according to myth?
Explain how Aboriginal languages are different from English.
What is the significance of Aboriginal language to Aborigines?
Why do you think it might be difficult for Aborigines to suddenly start speaking English?
Read the poem, “I Lost My Talk”by Mi’kmaw / Canadian poet, Rita Joe.
1/ What does the speaker mean when she says, “I lost my talk”?
2/ Why do you think the speaker lost her talk?
3/ Identify and explain the tone of the first two stanzas, using evidence.
4/ How does the Twelve Canoes short film help us understand Stanza 2 of this poem?
5/ Why does the speaker create a “scrambled ballad” about her world? What does this mean?
6/ Identify the tone of the last stanza. Has it changed? What does the speaker mean when she says, “Let me find my talk,/ So I can teach you about me.”?
7/ How do the verbs ‘snatched’ and ‘took’ compare/ contrast with the verbs “offer”, “ask” and the adverb ‘gently’? What differences is the poet pointing out through these words choices?
8/ What is the impact of the use of second person pronouns throughout the poem?
9/ What do we learn in this poem about the relationship between language, culture and identity?
Watch "Dreams of Whiteness" from Australian Film and Sound Archive (link above) before studying this poem.
Questions for Discussion
How do you respond to this clip? What do you think has shaped your response?
Define the word assumption
What assumptions about Aborigines and Aboriginal ways of living underpin this clip?
How does the language of the clip highlight these assumptions? (consider choice of words such as 'rescued', 'abandoned', 'dream', 'fairytale' )
Compare/ contrast the newsreel with the poem set out below in terms of the perspectives presented.
"A Letter to my Mother" by Eva Johnson
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now
White fulla bin take me from you, I don’t know why
Give me to Missionary to be God’s child.
Give me new language, give me new name
All time I cry, they say—‘that shame’
I go to the city down south, real cold
I forget all them stories, my Mother you told
Gone is my spirit, my dreaming, my name
Gone to these people, our country to claim
They gave me white mother, she give me new name
All time I cry, she say—‘that shame’
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time
I grow as Woman now, not Piccaninny no more
I need you to teach me your wisdom, your lore
I am your Spirit, I’ll stay alive
But in white fulla way, you won’t survive
I’ll fight for Your land, for your Sacred sites
To sing and to dance with the Brolga in flight
To continue to live in your own tradition
A culture for me was replaced by a mission
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now.
One day your dancing, your dreaming, your song
Will take my your Spirit back where I belong
My Mother, the earth, the land—I demand
Protection from aliens who rule, who command
For they do not know where our dreaming began
Our destiny lies in the laws of White Man
Two Women we stand, our story untold
But now as our spiritual bondage unfold
We will silence this Burden, this longing, this pain
When I hear you my Mother give me my Name
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now.
1/ Identify and explain the powerful feelings communicated in this poem.
2/Make a list of everything that the speaker loses when she is taken away from her family.
3/ What do you think the speaker lost through losing her language?
4/ Why does the speaker want to know the name given to her by her mother?
5/ What is the impact of the repetition in the poem?
6/ Despite the speaker writing to her mother in the alien tongue English, the poet captures the voice of the Aboriginal woman yearning for her mother. How do you think she achieves this?
7/ What are some of the similarities and differences between the two poems?
View the Sauk Language Department's youtube video, Kimachipena: Let's Come Together (link above)
1. What do you think is the purpose of this video?
2. Who is the intended audience?
3. What perspective about the significance of language is presented in the clip?
4. What is the impact of having the voiceover in Sauk and the written text in English?
5. How do the experiences represented in the clip compare/ contrast with the experiences of native peoples from other cultures?
6. What do you think is the symbolism of the people with posters standing silent?
ROBERT EGGINGTON – Director, Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation
“Some people would go as far as saying language is the most basic foundation of culture and that without language culture doesn’t exist. Language is also one of the very first aspects of our culture that they destroyed in the sense of prohibiting Aboriginal people from speaking language, thereforth breaking down those cultural foundations and, you know, the spirtual core of our life.”
FOCUS QUESTIONS:
What if you couldn't communicate in your own language?
How can language be used to exclude and marginalise?
How can language be used to protest?
RESOURCES
1. Dreams of whiteness from Australian Film and Sound Archive
2. Poem, A Letter to my Mother, by Eva Johnson
3. Poem, "I lost my talk" by Canadian poet, Rita Joe
4. Twelve Canoes website, section on language.
5. This child, Zita from Australian Film and Sound Archive.
6. Kimachipena: Let's Come Together
ACTIVITIESSubjective Response
These questions may be used as forum questions, print journal questions or simply for discussion.
How would you feel if you couldn’t communicate in your own language? Brainstorming/discussion.
What is the significance of your name? How would you feel if you suddenly had to change it?
What would be some of the day-to-day challenges of not being allowed to speak your own language?
View the short film from __Twelve Canoes__ about indigenous language.
How did the different Aboriginal languages come to be, according to myth?
Explain how Aboriginal languages are different from English.
What is the significance of Aboriginal language to Aborigines?
Why do you think it might be difficult for Aborigines to suddenly start speaking English?
Read the poem, “I Lost My Talk”by Mi’kmaw / Canadian poet, Rita Joe.
1/ What does the speaker mean when she says, “I lost my talk”?
2/ Why do you think the speaker lost her talk?
3/ Identify and explain the tone of the first two stanzas, using evidence.
4/ How does the Twelve Canoes short film help us understand Stanza 2 of this poem?
5/ Why does the speaker create a “scrambled ballad” about her world? What does this mean?
6/ Identify the tone of the last stanza. Has it changed? What does the speaker mean when she says, “Let me find my talk,/ So I can teach you about me.”?
7/ How do the verbs ‘snatched’ and ‘took’ compare/ contrast with the verbs “offer”, “ask” and the adverb ‘gently’? What differences is the poet pointing out through these words choices?
8/ What is the impact of the use of second person pronouns throughout the poem?
9/ What do we learn in this poem about the relationship between language, culture and identity?
Watch "Dreams of Whiteness" from Australian Film and Sound Archive (link above) before studying this poem.
Questions for Discussion
How do you respond to this clip? What do you think has shaped your response?
Define the word assumption
What assumptions about Aborigines and Aboriginal ways of living underpin this clip?
How does the language of the clip highlight these assumptions? (consider choice of words such as 'rescued', 'abandoned', 'dream', 'fairytale' )
Compare/ contrast the newsreel with the poem set out below in terms of the perspectives presented.
"A Letter to my Mother" by Eva Johnson
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now
White fulla bin take me from you, I don’t know why
Give me to Missionary to be God’s child.
Give me new language, give me new name
All time I cry, they say—‘that shame’
I go to the city down south, real cold
I forget all them stories, my Mother you told
Gone is my spirit, my dreaming, my name
Gone to these people, our country to claim
They gave me white mother, she give me new name
All time I cry, she say—‘that shame’
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time
I grow as Woman now, not Piccaninny no more
I need you to teach me your wisdom, your lore
I am your Spirit, I’ll stay alive
But in white fulla way, you won’t survive
I’ll fight for Your land, for your Sacred sites
To sing and to dance with the Brolga in flight
To continue to live in your own tradition
A culture for me was replaced by a mission
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now.
One day your dancing, your dreaming, your song
Will take my your Spirit back where I belong
My Mother, the earth, the land—I demand
Protection from aliens who rule, who command
For they do not know where our dreaming began
Our destiny lies in the laws of White Man
Two Women we stand, our story untold
But now as our spiritual bondage unfold
We will silence this Burden, this longing, this pain
When I hear you my Mother give me my Name
I not see you long time now, I not see you long time now.
1/ Identify and explain the powerful feelings communicated in this poem.
2/Make a list of everything that the speaker loses when she is taken away from her family.
3/ What do you think the speaker lost through losing her language?
4/ Why does the speaker want to know the name given to her by her mother?
5/ What is the impact of the repetition in the poem?
6/ Despite the speaker writing to her mother in the alien tongue English, the poet captures the voice of the Aboriginal woman yearning for her mother. How do you think she achieves this?
7/ What are some of the similarities and differences between the two poems?
View the Sauk Language Department's youtube video, Kimachipena: Let's Come Together (link above)
1. What do you think is the purpose of this video?
2. Who is the intended audience?
3. What perspective about the significance of language is presented in the clip?
4. What is the impact of having the voiceover in Sauk and the written text in English?
5. How do the experiences represented in the clip compare/ contrast with the experiences of native peoples from other cultures?
6. What do you think is the symbolism of the people with posters standing silent?