Module 12; Section One. Late last year a prominent judge, in reply to a query ab

Question

Module 12; Section One. Late last year a prominent judge, in reply to a query about judicial recognition of Aboriginal knowledge, replied: "We must have written evidence." I have never been so exasperated in my life. This is a person who dresses up in a black nightshirt over his everyday clothes, and a funny wig that doesn't fit properly on his head, who wants written evidence of our culture? During our last session the story of the Kai'mia was told. During the subsequent tutorial the law and lessons of the story were discussed. However, now we can continue that story into today. A couple of years ago the Kai'mia story was given to the Councils of the Georges River then a geophysicist from another university read it and suddenly realized that within that story was mention of something that came within his discipline. The story of an earthquake, a tsunami and aftershocks which changed the path of the Georges River or the River of Kai'mia, and he set about proving or disproving those aspects of the story. Then, he discovered he could date that story, and came up with a date of 16,000 years. The story of the Boora Birra, Sow and Pigs Reef, a story of another tsunami, talks about a time when the River of Eels flowed down to the sea at the bottom of a deep valley, where there was a waterfall, beneath which was a deep hole, within which the ancestral spirit of the Great Parra'dowee lived. Some Navy divers on exercise, found the waterfall, and the deep hole, which is now filled with silt, in exactly the position given in the story A vulcanologist learned of the story of Talara'tingi, the first Flannel Flower, where the story mentions a time "when children learned to walk without having seen the sun." As a climatologist I had a very biased view of sunlight, and assumed that the story told about a time when clouds covered the sky for several years. The volcanologist had a different view, and asked me to take him to the place of the story. There he discovered an ash layer in the rock layers. It was not stormy weather, as I had assumed that caused the clouds, but apparently an ash cloud from a volcano that covered the skies of the Southern Hemisphere for over three years The ash layer was dated at 74,000 years. The evidence of our occupation of This Land is written on the rocks. The clues to where the evidence lies is given in our stories. Stories which the Eu s considered were little better

Explanation / Answer

This is a story from the D'harawal Dreaming Stories by Frances Bodgin.These stories were used as teaching aids to engrain the lessons of laws of nature and clans andto live in harmony and peace with the environment in Koori children since ancient times.This story teaches the lesson that mere physical strength and craftiness cannot make a person wise.To be wise one has to be humble, respect the elders and surroundings and shouldn't take the bounties of nature for granted.The all powerful,the almighty Kannabi ,the warrior who never saw defeat in his life time,was defeated at the hands of a frail old woman ,the story teller, because of his pride and arrogance and when Kannabi the warrior acknowledged his vices he became wise.

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