Maintaining History: The Gurindji People's "Truthful Histories"

I am currently researching Indigenous art and came across the most interesting article on the Cultural Survival website. This article explores the concept of historical events and their interactive positioning in modern day Aboriginal Australian lifestyle. Interestingly the aboriginal people in this article the Gurindji, show how maintaining history has a direct influence on and shapes the present. This concept applies to Noongar people as well.

In the non-indigenous world there is a saying that the past affects the future. In non-indigenous societies the past is a separate entity from the present and is waiting to be found by archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists who then place the objects and information into museums as directed by the paradigm of a Western European historical structure. The objects become something that is not a part of the future but a symbol of what once was and is disconnected from the present.

Indigenous Australians say the past is an ongoing present therefore it is also the future. Indigenous Australians talk of the past as the ongoing present and is inclusive of modern day lifestyle. Indigenous Australians do not separate the two.  

The part that interests me is the dichotomy between responses to the past from indigenous and non-indigenous people and how this affects the way in which we think and live. My thought is that if our dichotomy is different yet there is evidence of similarities then why do we not focus on the similarities between us rather then the differences in order to bring about change that is relevant to both parties? A question worth exploring.

This may be a good example of how the third alternative could be utilised.

Interesting!

The article can be found at 

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/australia/maintaining-history-gurindji-peoples-truthful-his#.TxYwggkwVOg.blogger

 Maintaining History: The Gurindji People's "Truthful Histories"

Life is good!