The stanza that struck me most in Bill Neidjie’s writing is “White European can’t say, ‘Oh, that Aborigine no good.’ Might be that Aborigine alright. Man can’t growl at Aborigine, Aborigine can’t growl at white European. Because both ways. Might be both good men, might be both no good. You never know” (Pg. 21). This resonated most with me because of the parallels with our discussion of the quote from Ceremony that states “We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place” (pg. 122). I believe it was mentioned during our discussion that it is a part of Navajo tradition to believe that both good and evil will always exist in this world and will balance one another. I think it’s especially interesting for Neidjie to say that both good and evil can any population or demographic. So, I guess my question for the week would be something along the lines of how can these arguments or claims be applied to current issues, both domestic and international?
The poem “Gagudju Man” was very interesting and relates in a lot of ways to Ceremony. Bill Neidjie talks about how he never damaged the earth and that he looks after it. His people even perform ceremonies. He references a man who broke the law at a sacred ceremony and was turned into a lizard because he spoiled the ceremony. He talks about not knowing the European way however the Aborigine burn in order to create new life. He says that they use coal to roast their food while the white people use an oven from a university that he didn’t know existed. The poems then shift to when the first people (Europeans) came to them and that they made a school in order to teach the Aborigine. His people began losing everything and dying. Neidjie then says on page 21 that “Man can’t growl at Aborigine, / Aborigine can’t growl at white European. / Because both ways. / Might be both good men, / might be both no good. / You never know.” Neidjie then talks about the land and that money cannot buy it because it is sacred to them and that they need the earth to live and compared it to being family. He says that there is something under the ground that you don’t know and if you touch it you might get cyclone, heavy rain, or flood and not just where you touch it at but in other places. You might kill someone in another country. I assume he is referring to fossil fuel exploration and its impacts on the environment. Later on, he talks about how the land need to stay the same because as soon as bitumen gets on the land nothing will grow. A general theme that I got from this reading was that we need to look after the earth. The quote that I included to me seems like he is saying to set aside differences and not judge people before understanding their intentions.
We are all responsible for damages inflicted to earth. A general theme in “Gagudju Man” is that we need to respect the earth and take responsibility for our actions. Referencing back to the beginning of the semester: how do you think Thoreau or Schumacher would react to this poem?
The poems written by Bill Neidjie were very powerful to me for several reasons. The first being that it is against his cultural law to write these laws regarding the land down. The second being that he was the last one living in his specific aboriginal culture. The third reason I found these poems so powerful is the universal applications of these laws. My favorite line is, “nobody can tell you, you got to feel it for yourself.” I found this quote to mean that in order for us to understand the planet we live on and all of its complexities, we must personally connect to the land. We must understand its pain, both that we cause and that others cause.
My question is, how do those of us who live in urban areas “feel” the land for ourselves? Can poetry be a gateway to connecting with the land for those who cannot do it directly?
So far, Octavia E. Butler in Parable of the Sower has challenged the ways in which I have been taught to view the world. There seems to be a strategy used to encourage the reader to think about how their notions of God have been conceived, which has led me to my predicament. However, before all of my own convoluted thoughts are spilled pertaining to my own religious debates, let us take a look at the significance of Lauren Olamina’s dreams in the first chapter of the book.
Butler’s fictional narrative begins with Lauren describing her unique experience with one of her recurring dreams, which occur during difficult times in her life, and during times she describes as, “when I try to be my father’s daughter” (3). She goes on to describe how she partakes in what could be considered fake emotions or acts of pretending to agree with her father’s religious ideologies. Yet, her dream reminds her that her father’s religion is fundamentally flawed, and how her acts of pretending to accept his religion are false. Then she fully enters the dream.
She begins by levitating in a hesitative manner and aims to go towards an open doorway. She is then levitating in the air free of any object and propels herself towards the doorway with what seems to be pleasant emotions and radiance emanating from within. Then she slowly goes off course straight towards the wall, which is described as what I can imagine hell would look like; plenty of flames, the unknown and the inability to escape. Then the second part of the dream begins. Although I may have put ideas into your head going into the analysis of a quote, there seem to be much deeper interpretations available. The description of Lauren missing the doorway and entering the wall is as follows, “I drift into it. It blazes up around me. I thrash and scramble and try to swim back out of it, grabbing handfuls of air and fire, kicking, burning! Darkness” (4).
What do you interpret the meaning of Lauren entering the wall of flames to be?
The first thing that strikes me about Bill Neidjie’s writing and his poems is his passion for being alive. I really like his poem in the intro under the post script that starts with “I belong to this Earth”, it sets the tone for the following poems. The poem Land is very good at getting the point across that we need this Earth in order to survive and thrive. We are of this Earth, we belong here, and humans have degraded the environment so bad that it might not last for future generations. Neidije also refers to his childhood a lot in the poems, “I was lying down, I look star. It make me remember when I was young” (Page 44). I like this quote because it refers to these raw human feelings we get from our interactions with nature. Also he is saying how it reminds him of being young, happy little memories like this probably helped Neidjie stay “grounded”. The fact that his writings are in poem form makes me appreciate the message he is trying to get across even more. Simple, shorter phrases like these poems may help get the message out to people who may not be very skilled readers.
Question: Why do you think Bill Neidjie uses almost a “cave-man” tone in his poems? Such as “Fish, he listen. He say”.
I have personally read Octavia Butler’s novels before so I was excited to see “Parable of the Sower” on the course syllabus. As I have been reading about Lauren and her family it is interesting to see how Butler writes about such a traumatic time in America, clearly caused by environmental degradation and economic crisis and intertwines a story of young religious discoverance into the mix. As Lauren is trying to uncover the mystery of her country’s past history and how it got to such a turbulent state, she also questions her father’s religious views and what she has been taught her whole life. On pages 24 and 25 she writes about how what she believes to be “God” is much different than her family’s views of God. She also frequently questions how a God that her father so passionately believes in could let such horrible things happen to people and the land.
We have frequently in class discussed religion in relation to the environment and policy, my question is; is religion a forward way of thinking through environmental issues or should it be left on the backburner, for people to rely on for spiritual and emotional support only?
Throughout his poems Bill Neidjie made sure not to let the reader forget that his people’s story is theirs and that he is only telling it in English for the reader to listen, understand, and to hopefully make a positive change on what is happening while there is still time; “I speak English for you, / so you can listen, / so you know, / you will understand. / If I put my language in same place, / you won’t understand” (32). Neidjie critiques many toxic European actions in this poem, through the suffering of the land and the loss of his people; “Now Aborigine losing it, / losing everything. / Nearly all dead my people, / my old people gone” (20). Sharing these pieces of information, Neidjie recognized the importance of spreading awareness, so much so that he broke tradition and wrote down some of the traditional knowledge he had gained throughout his life. These experiences however should not impose victimization on the Kakadu people, as their struggles do not define them, but show the resistance and empowerment that their traditional knowledge holds, as Neidjie has shown through the vast amounts of anecdotes of how their livelihoods are interdependent on the land, physically, mentally, and spiritually. I view Neidjie’s poems as a form of resistance to those that have exterminated his people’s language through their environmental racism and colonizing powers, a call to action as he emphasizes the severity of time and urgency to acknowledge these atrocities done to them and the need to do something about it, and a remembrance to his people and the deep rooted, powerful relationship to the land that they had. This poem was meant for everyone to hear, especially future generations, for they will become stewards of the land and hopefully keep in mind his people’s knowledge through this task; “I give you this story, / this proper, true story. / People can listen. / I’m telling this while you’ve got time, / time for you to make something, / you know / history / book” (16). Traditional knowledge has historically been looked down upon by western cultures, the need for traditional ways of knowing and modern ways of knowing to merge and bring about not only environmental protection but equitable social change as well is urgent. Besides listening to traditional knowledge narratives, which is vital, what are other ways in which we can bring about this coexistence and merging, especially in a way that recognizes where these traditional forms of knowing come from and avoid appropriation?
“We got to look after,
Can’t waste anything.
We always used what we got,
Old people and me.
If man leave one or two barrmundi behind
He go bad.
Trouble,
Big fight.
He can’t waste anything.
My culture’s hard,
But got to keep him.
If you waste him anything now,
Next year you can’t get as much
Because you already waste.” (pg 27, Law).
This specific stanza under the section titled “Law” is significant for several reasons. First, it emphasizes the relationship the Aborigines have with the land. An understanding of the earth’s resources and management methods is embedded in their culture and transcends generations of usage. “My culture’s hard, but got to keep him. If you waste him anything now, Next year you can’t get as much because you already waste.” This quote embodies the sustainable development goal of managing resources to meet present needs without compromising the needs of future generations. This value is passed on within the tribe, being careful not to disregard any advice from elders and the traditional practices of land use. Overall this quote resembles the need for human populations to intimately and organically get to know the land on which they depend and utilize its resources respectfully. The traditional practices that are passed down the generations has been unchanging within the Aboriginal tribe, and is taught to the younger generations to be the respected and upheld without fault. In this way, I believe the tribe was able to manage their resources and practice cultural restraint within their environment in order to establish livelihoods of sustenance.
How does the management style of the Aborigines embody “Law”? What is the significance of the fact that their law is unchanging and unfaltering? What does this say about the way they interact with their environment?
Bill Neidjie poems highlight the differences between Native American thinking and European thinking. In the poem “Land” the contrast is between the people who want ecological health and the people who want money. Bill Neidjie states “Millions no good for us we need this earth to live because well be dead, we’ll become earth”(30). This statement highlights how greedy people who only want money are because they are the ones killing people through the destruction of the environment. Native Americans see other living animals as their brothers and sisters. The realization of this link between all living things is a major theme from the book “Ceremony” as well. This profound insight into the function of nature had either been missed or completely ignored by European philosophers. The interconnectedness of everything has always been seen as a Native American idea and Bill Neidjie mentions in this poem that he is writing it in English so the Europeans may understand their point of view. This is good for the education of those who wish to learn traditional Native American values. It is also good so that we can better understand the sacredness of the environment not just to Native Americans but to all of us. The “Land” poem also describes the environmental impact that is being dealt on fish regarding the size. The young people should not accept that small fish and other degraded environmental features are normal. Bill Neidjie says they are extremely abnormal and in an environment that was treated with respect fish would be ten times the normal size. Even though this poem is written in English and is very profound what potential impact can something like this have on the established value system? This is profound to me, however, the average person’s interest may be a different level.
When reading Bill Neidjie’s poems I can not help but think of the sacrifices that he made of writing down and publishing them. He says “Anyway, got to be made that book. There’s still time. No man can growl at me for telling this story, because it will be too late. I’ll be dead” (17), for me that stanza is very raw and unfiltered. It demonstrated how against this people would be but how important publishing the history of this people was too him. Then on a different note I also took away from his writing the importance of respecting the land and remembering that we are not in control of it but it helps us and we need to help the land in turn. The stanza “This earth I never damage. I look after. Fire is nothing, just clean up. When you burn, new grass coming up. That mean good animal soon. Might be goose, long-neck turtle, goanna, possum. Burn him off, new grass coming ups new life all over.” (18) The idea of taking something so destructive like fire and realizing the positives that it bring to humans can also bring to nature. That fire is not just destructive but can create new grow in forests and help the ecosystem. Both of these idea open up the idea of not truly understanding and seeing the bigger picture behind things. How can people learn to find a way to look at the bigger picture and dig deeper with out living in a narrow mind set?
“Him got to always ask question.
He want that place.
That’s why we frightened.
I worry about that place.
Secret place.
That got painting there, inside cave.
It got to be looked after because
my father, grandad all look after.
Now me,
I got to do same.
If that painting get rubbed off
there might be big trouble.
That important story.
It for all round this area.
That biggest story,
biggest place”
In Nedjie’s peom titled Land, he talks of a sacred place that holds the story of his people. The story that is father and grandfather protected. This is very countercultural to America, where there is no place that is sacred and much of our collective history is constantly being rewritten and weaponized to best fit the person wielding it. But one of my favorite quotes says that “when nothing is sacred, everything is sacred.” In light of this, what is the benefit of having a sacred place like this, as well as sharing a common historical story? How would this help us? Would it ever be conceivably possible?
Gagujdu man and Ceremony exemplify several similar themes. One that I noticed while reading Ceremony was the connection to the land in a way where one feels the land, instead of knowing it though the means of a map or directions. When Tayo is on the search for the cattle, he knows that they are following the South, “the direction was lodged deep in their bones” (188). Tayo seems to carry an inner compass that leads him the way he needs to go, knowing confidently which way the land was leading him, “He followed the wagon road to Laguna, going by memory and the edges of old ruts” (169). Bill Neidjie’s poem Land describes this connection as well, “I feel it with my body, with my blood. Feeling all these trees, all this country” he notes that “You can look. But feeling… that make you”. The connection with the Earth is also noted with the constant reminder that we return to earth when we die, which is repeated throughout Gagudju Man. He relates to this returning to the same way that a tree will return, “Tree the same as me. When he get old he’ll die. He’ll be dead and burn. He’ll leave his ashes behind. Tree become earth.” This is not only symbolic, but a true revealing of how much we share with other beings on the planet- we all contract the same fate, and return to the Earth in some way. No matter what species, what skin color, what culture or language, we die and become the Earth that has nourished us in life. This connects with the feeling of the land, because I think the modern human has become lost, and does not know any longer the land it came from and the land it will return to, and so is not experiencing the Earth as a part of themselves throughout life. The connection to earth is what connects us to non-human and human beings, and without this intuitive feeling, we have lost that connection, which has caused us to imagine divides between us and others.
Question: In Gagudju Man and Ceremony, an overall significant theme is one of keeping stories of reconnection with the Earth alive. The reason they wrote the poems and the novel are to not let the most important story of connection get lost in the modernity of disconnect. What stories should we revive in order to keep our species’ place on earth? How can we be a species that is worth staying on Earth?
“White European can’t say,
‘Oh, that Aborigine no good’.
Might be that Aborigine alright.
Man can’t growl at Aborigine,
Aborigine can’t growl at white European.
Because both ways,
Might be both good men,
might be both no good.
You never know.
So you should get understand yourself.
No matter Aborigine or white European.” -Bill Nedjie
This poem really stuck out to me. As we were reading Ceremony we discussed whose fault is it? The white Europeans for taking native peoples land? or the Native Americans who put spells on the Europeans?
I feel that both Bill Nedjie and Silko are trying to bring to their readers attention that instead of focusing on the blame of others we should focus on ourselves, and our own stories, and to understand ourselves. If I have understood this correctly than I find it to be extremely powerful. It is powerful to me that those who lost something so important to themselves can think about those who took it from them as potentially good people. This also says a lot about our culture in America and the way we often discuss colonizers in Sustainable Development as these “horrible” people. (not to undermine what they did as right) But it seems that what both of these authors are pointing at is no matter who you are or where you come from, what matters most is the story you understand and tell yourself. Are you good or are you bad?
We see a lot of naked people in this Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Naked women, victims of violence, naked children, victims of neglect and the same. Naked buildings, with no walls, overrun by harsher denizens in this post-urban society. Naked seems to be what poverty makes you, or your assets. Naked is vulnerability, naked is easily hurt, and naked is that society. I devoured this book with intent alert and growing dread; this is nearly the exact scenario I envision when I think about the potential paths of our society’s future. It’s not a big cataclysm of nuclear proportions that turned Butler’s world into what it currently is. It’s just the continual degradation of ignored environmental impacts and a continuation of fruitless politics. Like a lobster in a pot of water set to boil, the communities keep going without raising the mayday alarm because this change seemed to be slow enough going to become the new normal. Don’t fear monger, with talks of emergency prep, don’t spread alarming words because then we’d have to face the reality that we’re really staring off into the abyss now.
So this is my question: Do you believe the world portrayed in Parable of the Sower is a glimpse into our own future?
In the end of Ceremony it is Tayo’s sense of place that finally brings him inter peace when he connects how the the first atomic bomb is connected to the mountains and to the jungles of the pacific. When he is finally able to piece together all of these things it says “From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them,” (228). In the poems Bill Neidjie also wrote about a sense of place but also the destruction of that place. There is a common theme of destruction throughout these two writing and how it related to indigenous people. My question is are non indigenous people inherently destructive to the land because of a lack of place based thinking? Does the lack of land based traditions translate into a lack of respect for the land or is it just based on a different culture that values different things?
“We want goose, we want fish.
Other men want money.
Him can make million dollars,
but only last one year.
Next year him want another million.
Forever and ever him make million dollars.
Him die.
Million no good for us.
We need this earth to live because
we’ll be dead,
we’ll become earth.”
This quote taken from his poem, “Land” really stood out to me because of his comparison of what he values to what other people value. This shows a lot of cultural strength as he is so connected to his land and culture that he believes undoubtedly in his interconnectedness with the earth. His critique of the men who want money here is essentially that their greed or consumption habits are consuming their whole lives. In the end, they keep making money yes, but they keep needing this money and making money becomes their lives and then they die. I also really liked the idea in his culture that when we die we become the earth. This is a refreshing and beautiful idea because it really ingrains in their culture the importance of the earth. These feelings of connectedness and oneness with the earth truly cultivates a caring and meaningful relationship between people and the land they live on.
My question is, if our culture’s principles pushed us to have relationships with nature or taught us to consider ourselves one with nature, would our consumption habits change?
I was really excited to start reading Parable of the Sower because of its dystopian plot. I often wonder what our world will look like if we continue down our current road of destruction. The first few chapters of the book took some getting used to. It was strange to read passages about people being shot, raped, or overdosing without much emotion attached to it. Despite this desensitization, life in this society seems to be dictated by fear of impending violence. A passage that really struck me was when Lauren and the other community kids went shooting and saw a dog that had been feeding on a family (pg 40-46). The way they just brushed off finding the corpses, then didn’t think twice about shooting the dogs really illustrated to me how different this society is from our own, but also how quickly our societies could reach this point. My question is, do you think this mindset is already occurring in parts of our society? And what can we do to prevent the desensitization of violence especially in our country where we see violence every day on the news?
A few times in Parable of the Sower the main character, Lauren, describes instances where the people around her are surprised about what is happening around them or what Lauren predicts will happen in the future. For example on page 26, Lauren talks about how we pretend acceptance of change is enough, but for her there seems to be a need for something more, maybe action. She goes on to say “…why can’t I do what others have done-ignore the obvious. Live a normal life. It’s hard enough to do just that in this world.” Later on she even gets in trouble for talking about the terrifying potential of the future (which we realize is actually realistic, as even her father talks about preparing for it) (56-67). On pages 56 and 57 she says “… it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things //could// change”.
I hear a lot of people talking about how surprised they are at the current state of politics whether it be who the president is, or when white nationalists rally. My question is who gets to be surprised and why? What would it mean to step into the shoes of those who already know, and live in that fear that Lauren got in trouble for giving to someone else? How does all of this relate to slow violence?
In Parable of the sower, Lauren has a “disorder” of hyper empathy in which she feels all the pain of people around her. As she rides through unprotected towns and describes the people she sees with a mix of pity and disgust.
Do yall think that this disorder of her’s is going to the be the key to resolving the turmoil in the world? that radical empathy is the way to helping to heal the world.
Bill Neidjie’s poem “Law” directly pertains to the goals of sustainable development as a whole. I found it very compelling when Neidjie talks about how he tells children to cover up the holes that they have dug while looking for yams; he tells them that leaving a hole in the ground kills the yams, and in return the lack of yams would kill them. He tells them to fight for their country because soon he will die and return to the Earth. I think that this part in particular really helps us understand that every little thing we do to our environment is going to have some impact on some part of our ecosystem, and unless we take precautionary measures to make sure our ecosystems are working fine, we might lose them altogether.
Where is Neidjie talking about when he says the “Secret place?”
Right away in Neidjie’s poem “I Give You This Story” he discusses the incredible impact colonizers have had upon indigenous cultures. Not only did they come in and claim land that was not theirs, but they also wrote the history of the land and conveniently left out the indigenous peoples. He writes, “No history written for us when white European start here. Should be more than that. Should be written way Aborigine was live.” This is a phenomenon among colonized nations across the globe and has had an incredible impact on cultural, environmental, and social growth/development. White colonizers writing history erases not only the indigenous culture, but also indigenous knowledge. Such knowledge is pertinent to the understanding of the lands which colonizers wish/wished to control. What kind of ecological damage and/or mistakes could have been avoided had colonizers truly collaborated with indigenous groups? What other systemic and/or social issues (contemporary/historical) could have been avoided had there been more collaboration between indigenous groups and colonizers?
In the poem about law, a particular stanza stands out to me. “you hang onto this story they say. So i hang on. I tell kids. When they get yam, leave hole. I say who leave that hole? Cover him up! They say we forget. I tell them you leaving hole. You killing yam. You killing yourself.” I like this section because it shows how people used to be connected to the land, but now, land is something to be conquered with technology or clear cut to build houses. My question is this: at what point did people stop trying to live in harmony with the land? What pushed people from living in harmony with it to trying to conquer it?
I did not know what to expect from this book, but I certainly didn’t expect a brutal dystopian near-future story. I felt myself getting a little sick reading some of the descriptions of things Lauren saw outside her neighbourhood walls. Based on all the arsonists, rapists, and dead druggies laying around outside, I am willing to bet that her father’s description of Los Angeles as “a carcass covered with too many maggots” (pg. 9) is probably an accurate description for what it is like there. I can’t even begin to fathom why Laura’s little 12-year-old brother would want to go live there.
In Bill Neidjie’s poem “Law”, he contrasts the law of his people, to the one that the Europeans brought. “Not like white European law, always changing. If you don’t like it, you can change. Aboriginal law never change. Old people tell us, ‘You got to keep it.’ It always stays” (pg. 22). I suspect that he is implying that the Aboriginal law is the law of nature. I think this because instead of giving us specifics of Aboriginal law, Neidjie talks about nature and our connection to it:
“Creek, plain, hill.
That plain can change.
Wet season, him mud.
You get lily,
you get fish.
But, he dry up …
that’s alright.
Then people can get long-neck turtle.
Sarne for animal.
People look for food,
animal look for food.
Lizard look,
bird look,
anyone look.
We all same.
Each billabong can be dry …
no fish, turtle, nothing.
He want new water,
then fish and turtle,
make him new one.
New rain corning up,
That rain make everything again.
Plenty fish, turtle, lily.
Rain for us, for anybody.
Rain give us everything new.
Yarn, fish, everything.” (pg. 23)
There is certainly a lot that these Europeans could learn from Aboriginal culture, and hopefully since he has written down these stories, they will be able to.
I think Bill Neidjie’s collection of poems pairs well with the beginning of Parable of the Sower because they both depict societies that have drastically changed over a relatively short amount of time (50 years or so). Bill talks about how his family lived differently back in the day “My father, my mother, my grandfather all used to hunt there, use ironwood spear. No clothes then” (pg. 17), and how food could be found at every Billabong, even in the dry season. But now, almost everyone is gone, and that is why he wrote the stories down. We see a little insight into the past world of Parable of the Sower through a memory of Lauren’s grandma. They were looking at the stars together and her grandma said “We couldn’t see so many stars when I was little” because the light pollution would blot them all out. It is assumed that is set in the real world where conditions are so bad that water is hella expensive.
My question of the week: What do you even do to help people when in situations as bad as the one in the Parable of the Sower? Alternatively, what would you try to do to make your circumstances better if you were lucky enough to live in one of these neighbourhoods in the Parable of the Sower?
Bill Neidjie’s book of poetry follows a theme of human, nature interconnection that establishes the idea that people are more than in nature, but we are a part of nature and we are kin to it. In his poem, “He Can’t Move His Country”, Neidjie aims to include the use of fire in aborigine life and how aborigine practices of “cleaning” nature benefits the people and the nature without viewing one as more powerful of deserving. It is safe to say that this view of interconnectedness is closely related to the systems view in sustainable development with the addition of more spirituality and kinship with the natural world. Through his poems, Neidjie uses the examples of blood and bone being the same in all living things and this relation is what connects all. I think to think of Neidjie’s view like this, all living things on Earth are interconnected and can be seen as gears to a system or machine. The only difference with humans is that we have the ability to “grease” the gears in order to maintain a smooth system that operates as a mutualistic system.
– In what ways does Neidjie’s view of nature differentiate from Thoreau’s and how do those views show themselves through each individuals actions?
– Practices such as slash-and-burn are used in both Western society and in Aboriginal communities. How does the same practice still have differences between the two societies and why do those differences exist? I.e. what caused Western culture to view slash-and-burn as beneficial to the person and Aboriginal groups see it as beneficial to the system?
In Silko, Neidjie, and Butler’s work, there are common themes of identity through familial, empathetic, and kinship-based relations with the land and one another. All of these can be models for how we identify and interact with one another and the environment as we move forward with sustainable development initiatives. In particular, Lauren, in the Parable of the Sower, quite literally feels her empathy through her hyper-empathetic disease. She feels the hurt and pain of others. If we are able to at least internalize the pain of other people and the environment, will we be able to redefine our relationships with the land? Or have we become so separated and disconnected from the environment through consumerism and capitalist practices? If this is possible, how is it already being done in majorly-capitalist countries?
The readings from Ceremony this week almost serve as a summary and way to compile all the themes covered in the book into a concise, conscious thought. The way Tayo described the mountain on page 204 as outlasting the influence of the white man’s attempts to claim the landscape for their own, much like the Native American struggle to preserve their own cultural identity amidst the pressures of other cultures. This is also illustrated by his relief and comfort in the night sky, or more specifically, what it symbolized for him and his people; tradition and heritage. The night sky also reminds him that no matter what happens below it, no matter how the surface of the Earth may change, it will always be present, being forever beyond the reach of the influence of anything, and so he finds solace in his own identity, something that can never be taken from him.
The Gagudju Man reading is many ways demonstrated a similar message as Ceremony; that is, heritage and tradition are of the utmost importance when defining ones identity as such should be passed down so that the culture can be preserved. Storytelling is again a major influence on the way he pass along stories and lessons, as can be seen through the use of poems in the reading. This adds another facet to the message, perpetuating cultural traditions much in the same way its done through dance, song, and other displays of heritage.
How one truly preserve one’s cultural identity while at the same time being a member of the global society? How does heritage affect how someone might go about doing this?
Bill Neidjie’s poem spoke to me in a profoundly spiritual way, and sparked connections to other classic SD authors such as Silko, Thoreau, and Schumacher. Neidjie’s indigenous ideologies or discourse is very similar to Native American discourse. Both Aboriginal and Native American cultures depend on ceremony and story telling from the elders to the young to preserve their culture and way of life. They both have stories passed in ceremony that teach lessons. When I read about the story of the frill neck lizard, I thought of the Indian witchery that happened in Silko’s novel. Because that lizard disturbed a ceremony he was given a frill neck, that was the law and so it stayed that way. The first aspect I noticed while reading Gagudju Man was his personification of the land and animals just like Silko’s Ceremony. This creates empathy and connection between the human and natural communities, cultivating the respect and stewardship of the land and animals. This is reinforced in many sections of his poem including, “Million no good for us. We need this earth to live because we’ll be dead, we’ll become earth”. This reminded me of Schumacher’s quote about how man forgets in a battle against nature, we will find ourselves on the losing side. Both Schumacher and Neidjie articulate in different ways the idea that the division of man vs nature will result in the downfall of the human race. Neidjie continues with “Language is different, like skin. Skin can be different, but blood same. Blood and bone, all same. Man can’t split himself”. Thoreau had a similar idea that the sun looks the same from a poor and rich mans house. Both authors articulating the idea that no matter race, class, gender that we are all the same.
My questions are what witchery in the past caused our western society to believe that our species is better / more important than our surrounding land and animal communities? Is this the same witchery that causes bigotry with in our species?
In Octavia Butler’s book “Parable of the Sower” the main character talks about the role that religion plays in her world. As a preacher’s daughter religion obviously plays a big role in her life, but it is interesting to see how her views differ from her father’s and her neighbors. Her father believes in the literal acceptance of everything that is written in the Bible, as do many of his followers. Many of the kids are not very religious at all, but continue to go along with it to make their parents happy. Seems like in times of disaster people fall back on religion as a way to hold out hope in the world. When the world looks bleak it must help to have faith in something bigger than you. My question is how do you think religion will change in the future? As climate change continues to affect the world in more extreme ways do you think our society will become more attached to religious ideas or do you think we will stray away from those and focus on more scientific ideas?
This unit has been particularly inspiring and gratifying due to the representation of diversity in ecologically minded philosophy. Bill Neidjie doesn’t write his poems with the huge vocabulary or the traditional eloquence that we generally think of when we are taught about poets. Instead he writes with the rugged strength of the hard dirt, the constant sound of the pounding rain, and the voice of someone who is connected to nature. How can we work together to make more native, minority, and non-traditional voices heard?
Neidjie’s main points in his poems seem to be the obsession with money over nature, and the absence seeing ourselves in nature. How do we connect ourselves to nature not just on hikes or while vacationing, but in our daily lives? Can nature and economy exist together like Thoreau believed and alluded to?
“Language is different,
like skin.
Skin can be different,
but blood same.
Blood and bone,
all same.
Man can’t split himself.” (21)
This quote struck me because the whole time that I was reading Neidjie’s work I struggled to connect with the non-traditional grammar and structure. In cultures across the world, a person’s inability to speak/write a language correctly often causes native-speakers to view them as inferior. I think that if the general English-speaking public read Neidjie’s writing, it might take some time to convince them to look beyond the superficial aspect of the poem’s structure and see that the emotions and thoughts tied to the poetry are just as recognizable as if they had been written in perfect English. Why might Neidjie have chosen to write the poem in this way, with a certain rawness, versus having a translator or editor transcribe it in perfect English? Does this writing style add an important message or aspect that would be lost in perfect English?
It is terrifying how the relatively recent introduction of colonizers into Australia, which has cultivated a strong and spiritually harmonious behavior for humans to live by, has so rapidly massacred culture, land, and people in the name of wealth, power, and control over resources. Nature, the environment, and man are not disconnected in the cultural identity and values of Aboriginal folks. Their embedded appreciation and understanding of natural systems and man’s respectful coexistence with them are the only way to preserve one’s way of being. Although transcribed for English readers, the story he tells and the accounts of their lives meshed with invading Europeans is compelling and clearly represents the ill-treatment of globalization and colonialism onto the lives of indigenous communities. “This earth I never damage…” Neidjie opens with the imperative necessity for archiving in some form the story and cultural identity of the Gagudju (and all aboriginal clans). Before invaders came to Australia, the land was tended efficiently and sustainably with clear gratitude and appreciation from people. People took from the land, and like the practice of yam harvesting and the necessity of recovering holes, it showed how the provisions they take are followed by tending the land to reduce further environmental harm (snakes, and return of harvest). In the section “Land”, he delves into the relationship between man and nature further explaining how the unity between living things cannot be separated and doing so only leads to destruction and a disconnection from nature. “Tree. He watching you… he can’t speak…. If you feel sore, headache, sore body that mean somebody killing tree or grass. You feel because your body in that tree or earth… your body…you feel it” (40-41). The health of the environment and the well-being of man are interconnected and the Australian terrain, as well as aboriginal culture and land practices, became threatened and sickened with the appearance of colonists. Australian natives lived as one with the land, feeling and sharing the benefits of earth for sustenance and a source for spirituality. When colonists came into the land, intentions for venture and exploitation were thrust upon the land and folks without consent or consideration of the aboriginal clans across Australia. Western lifestyles focus on the capitalist notion of dominating and generating wealth, and the constant listening of money rather than listening to the land is clearly shown by different practices of aboriginal folks compared to globalizing nations. “Now aborigine losing it, losing everything. Nearly all dead my people, my old people gone” (20). This represents how when colonizers came into aboriginal lands, they pushed their development practices and western values onto the differing societies, and in time has killed the traditional culture as well as the state of the environment. The traditional way of life has been lost and only few are holding onto these practices that have always put the health of the land and their shared home first. “When I die, I become skeleton…I don’t want coffin, just cave…got to put bones back where they belong…his spirit, will stay with him” (50). The remains of life after death and one’s final impact on earth is spiritually assessed in aboriginal culture. Just as man and nature are one, the return of men to nature by clean burial is emphasized and it shows the beauty in appreciating one’s physical being and continuing the respect and co-existence with the land. Commodities and conveniences created by western development is equally destructive to the land as well as people because it disconnects them from nature and only moves towards exploitation and oppression of marginalized folks and the land they have historically subsisted and connected with.
In Parable of the Sower, the religion Lauren Oya Olamina starts is centered around the concept and process of change. As some people may have realized, despite being written in the 90s, there are a lot of parallels between the political, ecological, and social climate in the book (set in the no longer distant year of 2024), and our current political, ecological, and social climate. Climate change continues to be a large, looming threat, and race relations in the US are still incredibly tense. The US government still seems to be largely focused on using the market economy as a solution to these issues. In a sense, there has been a lack of change in these themes from the time when this was written, until now.
That being said, I wonder what Lauren would think of this particular time of what would be her history? What would the third act of Butlers “Earthseed” trilogy have looked like and how would she have been influenced by the lack of change from the 90s to now?
In Bill Neidjie’s poem “Law”, he describes law as a give in take in relationships with members of his surrounding community. Unlike European law which constantly changes, this law is set in stone and has inevitable, predictable consequences. I would sum this up as a few principals:
1. What you do to others will be done to you, and this doesn’t just apply to humans. Neidjie makes his case several times stating words such as this:
“When they get yam, leave hole. I say
‘Who leave that hole?
Cover him up!’
They say
‘We forget.’
I tell them
‘You leaving hole.
You killing yam.
You killing yourself.”
He also makes this point through when he talks about how hurting a tree hurts ourselves, we all have “blood and bone”. We are all made up of the same substance and apart of one thing.
2. Do not waste anything.
3. These lessons are geared towards youth, so youth, don’t ignore the elderly because they are full of wisdom. This also coincides with the European corruption that has manifested through education, technology, and violence and has destroyed his people. He still accredits the individuality however of all people and states that no matter who you are, white or aboriginal, you are still connected and also not defined solely by your culture.
Thinking about the idea of schools destroying culture and livelihood is so tricky. Is there a way to implicate quality, well-rounded education while also retaining strong sense of culture and community? How can we redefine quality education to do so?
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler discusses the state of government in the wake of environmental crisis, describing politicians as practically useless. She writes, on page 20, “politicians have been promising to return us to the glory, wealth, and order of the twentieth century ever since I can remember.” This political tactic is similar to our current president’s promises to make the United States “great again.” Is holding on to the past hindering us from changing as a nation, as demonstrated in Parable of the Sower? What is Butler’s message about the United States’ inability to let go of the unattainable and idealized past and how it inhibits our progress?
In Parable of the Sower, civilians are depicted to have a unique desensitization to violence. Dead bodies litter the streets and people burn buildings and no one looks twice. Is the United States today similarly desensitized to violence, specifically in regard to mass shootings? Through our current government structure and numbness to violence and death, is our society setting itself up to become like the one in Parable of the Sower? Are we already there?
I found the poem “He cant Move his Country” particularly moving. On page 20, Neidjie says,
“First people come to us,
they started and run our life … quick.
They bring drink.
First they should ask about fish, cave, dreaming,
but
they rush in.
They make school. Teach.”
Neigjie says first they should ask, but instead they teach. This is a recurrent theme in development discourse in general and is even present in aspects of sustainable development. Many development centered NGO’s and transnational aid agencies hold education as a core goal. I am not arguing that access to education is not important, however I question why these organizations and agencies almost always teach before they ask. Is it because they see a westernized education as the only way to participate in the “modern world”? Or is it because they have found that it is easier to convince people to participate in the “modern world” once they have been “educated”? At what level is this education simply indoctrination? Instead of learning about the fish, caves and dreaming, they taught about Christianity, capitalism and other western values. They made little to no attempt to educate themselves about the aboriginal way of life, but made every attempt to ensure they learned about ours. How can we, even now, attempt to “educate” without being willing to learn?
“Look up at the stars. I tell kids, ‘See them stars. They been there million years. They always be there…I look at moon. It tell me story, like stars. Moon, moon is man. He said, ‘These people will die, but they’ll come back like I do. They’ll come back to be earth again.’” (Gagudju Man, Death, 46-48)
In Gagudju Man, Bill Neidjie’s poems describe aboriginal traditions and customs with the influence and impact of western colonization in Australia. The appreciation and dedication to living with the land, without being over dominating and with minimal extraction practices, they clearly hold different views on natural and human relations. As time has continuously suppressed the aboriginal folks and likewise the feasibility of maintaining their traditions and lifestyle, the knowledge and stories of these respectful people has lessened. Storytelling and the passing of tradition has been choked by the influence of colonialist ideals and indigenous folks have faced firsthand the destruction of their land and their culture. The quote I chose above from the chapter titled Death contains part of how they view the death of man. As the physical body passes, it becomes a part of the earth in which it came from which is a beautiful representation on how we give our bodies back to the land after it has given us all it could offer during our time living off of it. He goes on to say how your time on earth can’t be valued by the money and wealth you generate, and that in the end what remains is you and nature. Outside things cannot be a part of your afterlife. This push to realize your story and relationship with the world around you is supported by Neidjie’s ideals of maintaining the passing of stories to keep the traditions alive. Without coming from a deep cultural background or with a lack of connection to a personal tradition or culture to associate to, how can we convey these same values and visions of our actions on earth through our own words and stories while being respectful and mindful of the way we are using Neidjie’s work?
In these poems are several elements of survival and ceremony, ritual and natural law, and themes of love and of home. Contrasting from the modern idea of “home” and “comfort” Neidjie says “Other men want money. Him can make million dollars, but only last one year. Next year him want another million. Forever and ever him make million dollars. Him die. Million no good for us. We need this earth to live because we’ll be dead, we’ll become earth. This ground and earth, like brother and mother” (pg 30-31). Later on, similarly, he says, “You can get million dollar, but not worth it. Million dollar, he just go ‘poof’. Couple of weeks, you got nothing. This ground never move. I’ll be buried here” (Neidjie pg 49). Through this, he shows that having capital and an accumulation of objects with only simply monetary value truly gives you nothing in the end. You will always have the land, and will one day become it. This is all that matters. It reminds me of when, in Ceremony, Tayo goes to Old Betonie’s place, and Betonie explains why he lives there, on the outskirts, next to the dump: “‘They don’t understand. We know these hills, and we are comfortable here.’ There was something about the way the old man said the word ‘comfortable’. It had a different meaning–not the comfort of big houses or rich food or even clean streets, but the comfort of belonging with the land, and the peace of being with these hills” (Silko pg 117). This speaks to the indigenous way of finding peace with the land–all other desires become unnecessary.
What does it take to restore this sense? Are our desires simply a way of coping with the world around us, or are our things truly what we want? How do we lessen the power of our non-living objects?
Bill Neidjie’s writing and Octavia Butler’s novel share the theme of plant, people relationships with roots in the present world issues. The pieces of Bill Niedjie’s work we focused on was activism rooted in poems warning the detriment of mining in the Northern Territories of Australia, aboriginal land. A quote from Niedjie’s poem that stands out to me is ‘Don’t dig up bones of the ancestors… disasters will ensue.” This is speaking to the fossil fuel reserves on this aboriginal land and the climate disaster that will be an effect of their extraction and use.
Octavia Butler’s parable of the sower rings the same warning cry. The title itself stems from a bible story of spreading God’s word. The understanding that this word will not be understood by all, some will dismiss, some will be listen but soon be distracted by their worldly concerns.
Both authors write to the current difficulty of cohesive respect and concern for the environmental state. It feels as if these authors are “preaching to the choir” and resonating deeply within the audience, but not penetrating to those who may have a change of heart with these written pieces. Is there any further responsibility of activist writers to reach the crowd in which their work is intended for? Who is the work intended for?
Gagudju Man by Bill Neidjie highlights the implications of the colonization of knowledge and writing. Global literature is almost entirely written or translated to English, which silences other languages and removes the voice of non-English speakers. Although Neidjie’s poems are written in English, the words are rather simple and the grammar is imperfect. In this way, reading Gagudju Man requires readers to meet him halfway between our cultures. He criticizes Western/English imposition of education in Aborigine cultures, which are not educated enough to decide to fight against it before its too late.
“If you feel sore,
Headache, sore body,
That mean somebody killing tree or grass.
You feel
Because your body in that tree or earth”
One of the main themes in these poems is our connection with nature–we are nature, part of it, in it. As we kill nature, we kill ourselves.
My questions are, how do we eliminate the colonization of knowledge or change it in a way that is more inclusive? How do we inspire a shift in Western realization of our dependence on nature? Will we only realize this when we (people with control? money? power?) are forced to confront the effects of climate change, as Aborigine groups are closer to the environment due to their subsistence nature?
SD 3800 Voices in Sustainable Development 
The stanza that struck me most in Bill Neidjie’s writing is “White European can’t say, ‘Oh, that Aborigine no good.’ Might be that Aborigine alright. Man can’t growl at Aborigine, Aborigine can’t growl at white European. Because both ways. Might be both good men, might be both no good. You never know” (Pg. 21). This resonated most with me because of the parallels with our discussion of the quote from Ceremony that states “We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place” (pg. 122). I believe it was mentioned during our discussion that it is a part of Navajo tradition to believe that both good and evil will always exist in this world and will balance one another. I think it’s especially interesting for Neidjie to say that both good and evil can any population or demographic. So, I guess my question for the week would be something along the lines of how can these arguments or claims be applied to current issues, both domestic and international?
The poem “Gagudju Man” was very interesting and relates in a lot of ways to Ceremony. Bill Neidjie talks about how he never damaged the earth and that he looks after it. His people even perform ceremonies. He references a man who broke the law at a sacred ceremony and was turned into a lizard because he spoiled the ceremony. He talks about not knowing the European way however the Aborigine burn in order to create new life. He says that they use coal to roast their food while the white people use an oven from a university that he didn’t know existed. The poems then shift to when the first people (Europeans) came to them and that they made a school in order to teach the Aborigine. His people began losing everything and dying. Neidjie then says on page 21 that “Man can’t growl at Aborigine, / Aborigine can’t growl at white European. / Because both ways. / Might be both good men, / might be both no good. / You never know.” Neidjie then talks about the land and that money cannot buy it because it is sacred to them and that they need the earth to live and compared it to being family. He says that there is something under the ground that you don’t know and if you touch it you might get cyclone, heavy rain, or flood and not just where you touch it at but in other places. You might kill someone in another country. I assume he is referring to fossil fuel exploration and its impacts on the environment. Later on, he talks about how the land need to stay the same because as soon as bitumen gets on the land nothing will grow. A general theme that I got from this reading was that we need to look after the earth. The quote that I included to me seems like he is saying to set aside differences and not judge people before understanding their intentions.
We are all responsible for damages inflicted to earth. A general theme in “Gagudju Man” is that we need to respect the earth and take responsibility for our actions. Referencing back to the beginning of the semester: how do you think Thoreau or Schumacher would react to this poem?
The poems written by Bill Neidjie were very powerful to me for several reasons. The first being that it is against his cultural law to write these laws regarding the land down. The second being that he was the last one living in his specific aboriginal culture. The third reason I found these poems so powerful is the universal applications of these laws. My favorite line is, “nobody can tell you, you got to feel it for yourself.” I found this quote to mean that in order for us to understand the planet we live on and all of its complexities, we must personally connect to the land. We must understand its pain, both that we cause and that others cause.
My question is, how do those of us who live in urban areas “feel” the land for ourselves? Can poetry be a gateway to connecting with the land for those who cannot do it directly?
So far, Octavia E. Butler in Parable of the Sower has challenged the ways in which I have been taught to view the world. There seems to be a strategy used to encourage the reader to think about how their notions of God have been conceived, which has led me to my predicament. However, before all of my own convoluted thoughts are spilled pertaining to my own religious debates, let us take a look at the significance of Lauren Olamina’s dreams in the first chapter of the book.
Butler’s fictional narrative begins with Lauren describing her unique experience with one of her recurring dreams, which occur during difficult times in her life, and during times she describes as, “when I try to be my father’s daughter” (3). She goes on to describe how she partakes in what could be considered fake emotions or acts of pretending to agree with her father’s religious ideologies. Yet, her dream reminds her that her father’s religion is fundamentally flawed, and how her acts of pretending to accept his religion are false. Then she fully enters the dream.
She begins by levitating in a hesitative manner and aims to go towards an open doorway. She is then levitating in the air free of any object and propels herself towards the doorway with what seems to be pleasant emotions and radiance emanating from within. Then she slowly goes off course straight towards the wall, which is described as what I can imagine hell would look like; plenty of flames, the unknown and the inability to escape. Then the second part of the dream begins. Although I may have put ideas into your head going into the analysis of a quote, there seem to be much deeper interpretations available. The description of Lauren missing the doorway and entering the wall is as follows, “I drift into it. It blazes up around me. I thrash and scramble and try to swim back out of it, grabbing handfuls of air and fire, kicking, burning! Darkness” (4).
What do you interpret the meaning of Lauren entering the wall of flames to be?
The first thing that strikes me about Bill Neidjie’s writing and his poems is his passion for being alive. I really like his poem in the intro under the post script that starts with “I belong to this Earth”, it sets the tone for the following poems. The poem Land is very good at getting the point across that we need this Earth in order to survive and thrive. We are of this Earth, we belong here, and humans have degraded the environment so bad that it might not last for future generations. Neidije also refers to his childhood a lot in the poems, “I was lying down, I look star. It make me remember when I was young” (Page 44). I like this quote because it refers to these raw human feelings we get from our interactions with nature. Also he is saying how it reminds him of being young, happy little memories like this probably helped Neidjie stay “grounded”. The fact that his writings are in poem form makes me appreciate the message he is trying to get across even more. Simple, shorter phrases like these poems may help get the message out to people who may not be very skilled readers.
Question: Why do you think Bill Neidjie uses almost a “cave-man” tone in his poems? Such as “Fish, he listen. He say”.
I have personally read Octavia Butler’s novels before so I was excited to see “Parable of the Sower” on the course syllabus. As I have been reading about Lauren and her family it is interesting to see how Butler writes about such a traumatic time in America, clearly caused by environmental degradation and economic crisis and intertwines a story of young religious discoverance into the mix. As Lauren is trying to uncover the mystery of her country’s past history and how it got to such a turbulent state, she also questions her father’s religious views and what she has been taught her whole life. On pages 24 and 25 she writes about how what she believes to be “God” is much different than her family’s views of God. She also frequently questions how a God that her father so passionately believes in could let such horrible things happen to people and the land.
We have frequently in class discussed religion in relation to the environment and policy, my question is; is religion a forward way of thinking through environmental issues or should it be left on the backburner, for people to rely on for spiritual and emotional support only?
Throughout his poems Bill Neidjie made sure not to let the reader forget that his people’s story is theirs and that he is only telling it in English for the reader to listen, understand, and to hopefully make a positive change on what is happening while there is still time; “I speak English for you, / so you can listen, / so you know, / you will understand. / If I put my language in same place, / you won’t understand” (32). Neidjie critiques many toxic European actions in this poem, through the suffering of the land and the loss of his people; “Now Aborigine losing it, / losing everything. / Nearly all dead my people, / my old people gone” (20). Sharing these pieces of information, Neidjie recognized the importance of spreading awareness, so much so that he broke tradition and wrote down some of the traditional knowledge he had gained throughout his life. These experiences however should not impose victimization on the Kakadu people, as their struggles do not define them, but show the resistance and empowerment that their traditional knowledge holds, as Neidjie has shown through the vast amounts of anecdotes of how their livelihoods are interdependent on the land, physically, mentally, and spiritually. I view Neidjie’s poems as a form of resistance to those that have exterminated his people’s language through their environmental racism and colonizing powers, a call to action as he emphasizes the severity of time and urgency to acknowledge these atrocities done to them and the need to do something about it, and a remembrance to his people and the deep rooted, powerful relationship to the land that they had. This poem was meant for everyone to hear, especially future generations, for they will become stewards of the land and hopefully keep in mind his people’s knowledge through this task; “I give you this story, / this proper, true story. / People can listen. / I’m telling this while you’ve got time, / time for you to make something, / you know / history / book” (16). Traditional knowledge has historically been looked down upon by western cultures, the need for traditional ways of knowing and modern ways of knowing to merge and bring about not only environmental protection but equitable social change as well is urgent. Besides listening to traditional knowledge narratives, which is vital, what are other ways in which we can bring about this coexistence and merging, especially in a way that recognizes where these traditional forms of knowing come from and avoid appropriation?
“We got to look after,
Can’t waste anything.
We always used what we got,
Old people and me.
If man leave one or two barrmundi behind
He go bad.
Trouble,
Big fight.
He can’t waste anything.
My culture’s hard,
But got to keep him.
If you waste him anything now,
Next year you can’t get as much
Because you already waste.” (pg 27, Law).
This specific stanza under the section titled “Law” is significant for several reasons. First, it emphasizes the relationship the Aborigines have with the land. An understanding of the earth’s resources and management methods is embedded in their culture and transcends generations of usage. “My culture’s hard, but got to keep him. If you waste him anything now, Next year you can’t get as much because you already waste.” This quote embodies the sustainable development goal of managing resources to meet present needs without compromising the needs of future generations. This value is passed on within the tribe, being careful not to disregard any advice from elders and the traditional practices of land use. Overall this quote resembles the need for human populations to intimately and organically get to know the land on which they depend and utilize its resources respectfully. The traditional practices that are passed down the generations has been unchanging within the Aboriginal tribe, and is taught to the younger generations to be the respected and upheld without fault. In this way, I believe the tribe was able to manage their resources and practice cultural restraint within their environment in order to establish livelihoods of sustenance.
How does the management style of the Aborigines embody “Law”? What is the significance of the fact that their law is unchanging and unfaltering? What does this say about the way they interact with their environment?
Bill Neidjie poems highlight the differences between Native American thinking and European thinking. In the poem “Land” the contrast is between the people who want ecological health and the people who want money. Bill Neidjie states “Millions no good for us we need this earth to live because well be dead, we’ll become earth”(30). This statement highlights how greedy people who only want money are because they are the ones killing people through the destruction of the environment. Native Americans see other living animals as their brothers and sisters. The realization of this link between all living things is a major theme from the book “Ceremony” as well. This profound insight into the function of nature had either been missed or completely ignored by European philosophers. The interconnectedness of everything has always been seen as a Native American idea and Bill Neidjie mentions in this poem that he is writing it in English so the Europeans may understand their point of view. This is good for the education of those who wish to learn traditional Native American values. It is also good so that we can better understand the sacredness of the environment not just to Native Americans but to all of us. The “Land” poem also describes the environmental impact that is being dealt on fish regarding the size. The young people should not accept that small fish and other degraded environmental features are normal. Bill Neidjie says they are extremely abnormal and in an environment that was treated with respect fish would be ten times the normal size. Even though this poem is written in English and is very profound what potential impact can something like this have on the established value system? This is profound to me, however, the average person’s interest may be a different level.
When reading Bill Neidjie’s poems I can not help but think of the sacrifices that he made of writing down and publishing them. He says “Anyway, got to be made that book. There’s still time. No man can growl at me for telling this story, because it will be too late. I’ll be dead” (17), for me that stanza is very raw and unfiltered. It demonstrated how against this people would be but how important publishing the history of this people was too him. Then on a different note I also took away from his writing the importance of respecting the land and remembering that we are not in control of it but it helps us and we need to help the land in turn. The stanza “This earth I never damage. I look after. Fire is nothing, just clean up. When you burn, new grass coming up. That mean good animal soon. Might be goose, long-neck turtle, goanna, possum. Burn him off, new grass coming ups new life all over.” (18) The idea of taking something so destructive like fire and realizing the positives that it bring to humans can also bring to nature. That fire is not just destructive but can create new grow in forests and help the ecosystem. Both of these idea open up the idea of not truly understanding and seeing the bigger picture behind things. How can people learn to find a way to look at the bigger picture and dig deeper with out living in a narrow mind set?
“Him got to always ask question.
He want that place.
That’s why we frightened.
I worry about that place.
Secret place.
That got painting there, inside cave.
It got to be looked after because
my father, grandad all look after.
Now me,
I got to do same.
If that painting get rubbed off
there might be big trouble.
That important story.
It for all round this area.
That biggest story,
biggest place”
In Nedjie’s peom titled Land, he talks of a sacred place that holds the story of his people. The story that is father and grandfather protected. This is very countercultural to America, where there is no place that is sacred and much of our collective history is constantly being rewritten and weaponized to best fit the person wielding it. But one of my favorite quotes says that “when nothing is sacred, everything is sacred.” In light of this, what is the benefit of having a sacred place like this, as well as sharing a common historical story? How would this help us? Would it ever be conceivably possible?
Gagujdu man and Ceremony exemplify several similar themes. One that I noticed while reading Ceremony was the connection to the land in a way where one feels the land, instead of knowing it though the means of a map or directions. When Tayo is on the search for the cattle, he knows that they are following the South, “the direction was lodged deep in their bones” (188). Tayo seems to carry an inner compass that leads him the way he needs to go, knowing confidently which way the land was leading him, “He followed the wagon road to Laguna, going by memory and the edges of old ruts” (169). Bill Neidjie’s poem Land describes this connection as well, “I feel it with my body, with my blood. Feeling all these trees, all this country” he notes that “You can look. But feeling… that make you”. The connection with the Earth is also noted with the constant reminder that we return to earth when we die, which is repeated throughout Gagudju Man. He relates to this returning to the same way that a tree will return, “Tree the same as me. When he get old he’ll die. He’ll be dead and burn. He’ll leave his ashes behind. Tree become earth.” This is not only symbolic, but a true revealing of how much we share with other beings on the planet- we all contract the same fate, and return to the Earth in some way. No matter what species, what skin color, what culture or language, we die and become the Earth that has nourished us in life. This connects with the feeling of the land, because I think the modern human has become lost, and does not know any longer the land it came from and the land it will return to, and so is not experiencing the Earth as a part of themselves throughout life. The connection to earth is what connects us to non-human and human beings, and without this intuitive feeling, we have lost that connection, which has caused us to imagine divides between us and others.
Question: In Gagudju Man and Ceremony, an overall significant theme is one of keeping stories of reconnection with the Earth alive. The reason they wrote the poems and the novel are to not let the most important story of connection get lost in the modernity of disconnect. What stories should we revive in order to keep our species’ place on earth? How can we be a species that is worth staying on Earth?
“White European can’t say,
‘Oh, that Aborigine no good’.
Might be that Aborigine alright.
Man can’t growl at Aborigine,
Aborigine can’t growl at white European.
Because both ways,
Might be both good men,
might be both no good.
You never know.
So you should get understand yourself.
No matter Aborigine or white European.” -Bill Nedjie
This poem really stuck out to me. As we were reading Ceremony we discussed whose fault is it? The white Europeans for taking native peoples land? or the Native Americans who put spells on the Europeans?
I feel that both Bill Nedjie and Silko are trying to bring to their readers attention that instead of focusing on the blame of others we should focus on ourselves, and our own stories, and to understand ourselves. If I have understood this correctly than I find it to be extremely powerful. It is powerful to me that those who lost something so important to themselves can think about those who took it from them as potentially good people. This also says a lot about our culture in America and the way we often discuss colonizers in Sustainable Development as these “horrible” people. (not to undermine what they did as right) But it seems that what both of these authors are pointing at is no matter who you are or where you come from, what matters most is the story you understand and tell yourself. Are you good or are you bad?
We see a lot of naked people in this Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Naked women, victims of violence, naked children, victims of neglect and the same. Naked buildings, with no walls, overrun by harsher denizens in this post-urban society. Naked seems to be what poverty makes you, or your assets. Naked is vulnerability, naked is easily hurt, and naked is that society. I devoured this book with intent alert and growing dread; this is nearly the exact scenario I envision when I think about the potential paths of our society’s future. It’s not a big cataclysm of nuclear proportions that turned Butler’s world into what it currently is. It’s just the continual degradation of ignored environmental impacts and a continuation of fruitless politics. Like a lobster in a pot of water set to boil, the communities keep going without raising the mayday alarm because this change seemed to be slow enough going to become the new normal. Don’t fear monger, with talks of emergency prep, don’t spread alarming words because then we’d have to face the reality that we’re really staring off into the abyss now.
So this is my question: Do you believe the world portrayed in Parable of the Sower is a glimpse into our own future?
In the end of Ceremony it is Tayo’s sense of place that finally brings him inter peace when he connects how the the first atomic bomb is connected to the mountains and to the jungles of the pacific. When he is finally able to piece together all of these things it says “From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them,” (228). In the poems Bill Neidjie also wrote about a sense of place but also the destruction of that place. There is a common theme of destruction throughout these two writing and how it related to indigenous people. My question is are non indigenous people inherently destructive to the land because of a lack of place based thinking? Does the lack of land based traditions translate into a lack of respect for the land or is it just based on a different culture that values different things?
“We want goose, we want fish.
Other men want money.
Him can make million dollars,
but only last one year.
Next year him want another million.
Forever and ever him make million dollars.
Him die.
Million no good for us.
We need this earth to live because
we’ll be dead,
we’ll become earth.”
This quote taken from his poem, “Land” really stood out to me because of his comparison of what he values to what other people value. This shows a lot of cultural strength as he is so connected to his land and culture that he believes undoubtedly in his interconnectedness with the earth. His critique of the men who want money here is essentially that their greed or consumption habits are consuming their whole lives. In the end, they keep making money yes, but they keep needing this money and making money becomes their lives and then they die. I also really liked the idea in his culture that when we die we become the earth. This is a refreshing and beautiful idea because it really ingrains in their culture the importance of the earth. These feelings of connectedness and oneness with the earth truly cultivates a caring and meaningful relationship between people and the land they live on.
My question is, if our culture’s principles pushed us to have relationships with nature or taught us to consider ourselves one with nature, would our consumption habits change?
I was really excited to start reading Parable of the Sower because of its dystopian plot. I often wonder what our world will look like if we continue down our current road of destruction. The first few chapters of the book took some getting used to. It was strange to read passages about people being shot, raped, or overdosing without much emotion attached to it. Despite this desensitization, life in this society seems to be dictated by fear of impending violence. A passage that really struck me was when Lauren and the other community kids went shooting and saw a dog that had been feeding on a family (pg 40-46). The way they just brushed off finding the corpses, then didn’t think twice about shooting the dogs really illustrated to me how different this society is from our own, but also how quickly our societies could reach this point. My question is, do you think this mindset is already occurring in parts of our society? And what can we do to prevent the desensitization of violence especially in our country where we see violence every day on the news?
A few times in Parable of the Sower the main character, Lauren, describes instances where the people around her are surprised about what is happening around them or what Lauren predicts will happen in the future. For example on page 26, Lauren talks about how we pretend acceptance of change is enough, but for her there seems to be a need for something more, maybe action. She goes on to say “…why can’t I do what others have done-ignore the obvious. Live a normal life. It’s hard enough to do just that in this world.” Later on she even gets in trouble for talking about the terrifying potential of the future (which we realize is actually realistic, as even her father talks about preparing for it) (56-67). On pages 56 and 57 she says “… it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things //could// change”.
I hear a lot of people talking about how surprised they are at the current state of politics whether it be who the president is, or when white nationalists rally. My question is who gets to be surprised and why? What would it mean to step into the shoes of those who already know, and live in that fear that Lauren got in trouble for giving to someone else? How does all of this relate to slow violence?
In Parable of the sower, Lauren has a “disorder” of hyper empathy in which she feels all the pain of people around her. As she rides through unprotected towns and describes the people she sees with a mix of pity and disgust.
Do yall think that this disorder of her’s is going to the be the key to resolving the turmoil in the world? that radical empathy is the way to helping to heal the world.
Bill Neidjie’s poem “Law” directly pertains to the goals of sustainable development as a whole. I found it very compelling when Neidjie talks about how he tells children to cover up the holes that they have dug while looking for yams; he tells them that leaving a hole in the ground kills the yams, and in return the lack of yams would kill them. He tells them to fight for their country because soon he will die and return to the Earth. I think that this part in particular really helps us understand that every little thing we do to our environment is going to have some impact on some part of our ecosystem, and unless we take precautionary measures to make sure our ecosystems are working fine, we might lose them altogether.
Where is Neidjie talking about when he says the “Secret place?”
Right away in Neidjie’s poem “I Give You This Story” he discusses the incredible impact colonizers have had upon indigenous cultures. Not only did they come in and claim land that was not theirs, but they also wrote the history of the land and conveniently left out the indigenous peoples. He writes, “No history written for us when white European start here. Should be more than that. Should be written way Aborigine was live.” This is a phenomenon among colonized nations across the globe and has had an incredible impact on cultural, environmental, and social growth/development. White colonizers writing history erases not only the indigenous culture, but also indigenous knowledge. Such knowledge is pertinent to the understanding of the lands which colonizers wish/wished to control. What kind of ecological damage and/or mistakes could have been avoided had colonizers truly collaborated with indigenous groups? What other systemic and/or social issues (contemporary/historical) could have been avoided had there been more collaboration between indigenous groups and colonizers?
In the poem about law, a particular stanza stands out to me. “you hang onto this story they say. So i hang on. I tell kids. When they get yam, leave hole. I say who leave that hole? Cover him up! They say we forget. I tell them you leaving hole. You killing yam. You killing yourself.” I like this section because it shows how people used to be connected to the land, but now, land is something to be conquered with technology or clear cut to build houses. My question is this: at what point did people stop trying to live in harmony with the land? What pushed people from living in harmony with it to trying to conquer it?
I did not know what to expect from this book, but I certainly didn’t expect a brutal dystopian near-future story. I felt myself getting a little sick reading some of the descriptions of things Lauren saw outside her neighbourhood walls. Based on all the arsonists, rapists, and dead druggies laying around outside, I am willing to bet that her father’s description of Los Angeles as “a carcass covered with too many maggots” (pg. 9) is probably an accurate description for what it is like there. I can’t even begin to fathom why Laura’s little 12-year-old brother would want to go live there.
In Bill Neidjie’s poem “Law”, he contrasts the law of his people, to the one that the Europeans brought. “Not like white European law, always changing. If you don’t like it, you can change. Aboriginal law never change. Old people tell us, ‘You got to keep it.’ It always stays” (pg. 22). I suspect that he is implying that the Aboriginal law is the law of nature. I think this because instead of giving us specifics of Aboriginal law, Neidjie talks about nature and our connection to it:
“Creek, plain, hill.
That plain can change.
Wet season, him mud.
You get lily,
you get fish.
But, he dry up …
that’s alright.
Then people can get long-neck turtle.
Sarne for animal.
People look for food,
animal look for food.
Lizard look,
bird look,
anyone look.
We all same.
Each billabong can be dry …
no fish, turtle, nothing.
He want new water,
then fish and turtle,
make him new one.
New rain corning up,
That rain make everything again.
Plenty fish, turtle, lily.
Rain for us, for anybody.
Rain give us everything new.
Yarn, fish, everything.” (pg. 23)
There is certainly a lot that these Europeans could learn from Aboriginal culture, and hopefully since he has written down these stories, they will be able to.
I think Bill Neidjie’s collection of poems pairs well with the beginning of Parable of the Sower because they both depict societies that have drastically changed over a relatively short amount of time (50 years or so). Bill talks about how his family lived differently back in the day “My father, my mother, my grandfather all used to hunt there, use ironwood spear. No clothes then” (pg. 17), and how food could be found at every Billabong, even in the dry season. But now, almost everyone is gone, and that is why he wrote the stories down. We see a little insight into the past world of Parable of the Sower through a memory of Lauren’s grandma. They were looking at the stars together and her grandma said “We couldn’t see so many stars when I was little” because the light pollution would blot them all out. It is assumed that is set in the real world where conditions are so bad that water is hella expensive.
My question of the week: What do you even do to help people when in situations as bad as the one in the Parable of the Sower? Alternatively, what would you try to do to make your circumstances better if you were lucky enough to live in one of these neighbourhoods in the Parable of the Sower?
Bill Neidjie’s book of poetry follows a theme of human, nature interconnection that establishes the idea that people are more than in nature, but we are a part of nature and we are kin to it. In his poem, “He Can’t Move His Country”, Neidjie aims to include the use of fire in aborigine life and how aborigine practices of “cleaning” nature benefits the people and the nature without viewing one as more powerful of deserving. It is safe to say that this view of interconnectedness is closely related to the systems view in sustainable development with the addition of more spirituality and kinship with the natural world. Through his poems, Neidjie uses the examples of blood and bone being the same in all living things and this relation is what connects all. I think to think of Neidjie’s view like this, all living things on Earth are interconnected and can be seen as gears to a system or machine. The only difference with humans is that we have the ability to “grease” the gears in order to maintain a smooth system that operates as a mutualistic system.
– In what ways does Neidjie’s view of nature differentiate from Thoreau’s and how do those views show themselves through each individuals actions?
– Practices such as slash-and-burn are used in both Western society and in Aboriginal communities. How does the same practice still have differences between the two societies and why do those differences exist? I.e. what caused Western culture to view slash-and-burn as beneficial to the person and Aboriginal groups see it as beneficial to the system?
In Silko, Neidjie, and Butler’s work, there are common themes of identity through familial, empathetic, and kinship-based relations with the land and one another. All of these can be models for how we identify and interact with one another and the environment as we move forward with sustainable development initiatives. In particular, Lauren, in the Parable of the Sower, quite literally feels her empathy through her hyper-empathetic disease. She feels the hurt and pain of others. If we are able to at least internalize the pain of other people and the environment, will we be able to redefine our relationships with the land? Or have we become so separated and disconnected from the environment through consumerism and capitalist practices? If this is possible, how is it already being done in majorly-capitalist countries?
The readings from Ceremony this week almost serve as a summary and way to compile all the themes covered in the book into a concise, conscious thought. The way Tayo described the mountain on page 204 as outlasting the influence of the white man’s attempts to claim the landscape for their own, much like the Native American struggle to preserve their own cultural identity amidst the pressures of other cultures. This is also illustrated by his relief and comfort in the night sky, or more specifically, what it symbolized for him and his people; tradition and heritage. The night sky also reminds him that no matter what happens below it, no matter how the surface of the Earth may change, it will always be present, being forever beyond the reach of the influence of anything, and so he finds solace in his own identity, something that can never be taken from him.
The Gagudju Man reading is many ways demonstrated a similar message as Ceremony; that is, heritage and tradition are of the utmost importance when defining ones identity as such should be passed down so that the culture can be preserved. Storytelling is again a major influence on the way he pass along stories and lessons, as can be seen through the use of poems in the reading. This adds another facet to the message, perpetuating cultural traditions much in the same way its done through dance, song, and other displays of heritage.
How one truly preserve one’s cultural identity while at the same time being a member of the global society? How does heritage affect how someone might go about doing this?
Bill Neidjie’s poem spoke to me in a profoundly spiritual way, and sparked connections to other classic SD authors such as Silko, Thoreau, and Schumacher. Neidjie’s indigenous ideologies or discourse is very similar to Native American discourse. Both Aboriginal and Native American cultures depend on ceremony and story telling from the elders to the young to preserve their culture and way of life. They both have stories passed in ceremony that teach lessons. When I read about the story of the frill neck lizard, I thought of the Indian witchery that happened in Silko’s novel. Because that lizard disturbed a ceremony he was given a frill neck, that was the law and so it stayed that way. The first aspect I noticed while reading Gagudju Man was his personification of the land and animals just like Silko’s Ceremony. This creates empathy and connection between the human and natural communities, cultivating the respect and stewardship of the land and animals. This is reinforced in many sections of his poem including, “Million no good for us. We need this earth to live because we’ll be dead, we’ll become earth”. This reminded me of Schumacher’s quote about how man forgets in a battle against nature, we will find ourselves on the losing side. Both Schumacher and Neidjie articulate in different ways the idea that the division of man vs nature will result in the downfall of the human race. Neidjie continues with “Language is different, like skin. Skin can be different, but blood same. Blood and bone, all same. Man can’t split himself”. Thoreau had a similar idea that the sun looks the same from a poor and rich mans house. Both authors articulating the idea that no matter race, class, gender that we are all the same.
My questions are what witchery in the past caused our western society to believe that our species is better / more important than our surrounding land and animal communities? Is this the same witchery that causes bigotry with in our species?
In Octavia Butler’s book “Parable of the Sower” the main character talks about the role that religion plays in her world. As a preacher’s daughter religion obviously plays a big role in her life, but it is interesting to see how her views differ from her father’s and her neighbors. Her father believes in the literal acceptance of everything that is written in the Bible, as do many of his followers. Many of the kids are not very religious at all, but continue to go along with it to make their parents happy. Seems like in times of disaster people fall back on religion as a way to hold out hope in the world. When the world looks bleak it must help to have faith in something bigger than you. My question is how do you think religion will change in the future? As climate change continues to affect the world in more extreme ways do you think our society will become more attached to religious ideas or do you think we will stray away from those and focus on more scientific ideas?
This unit has been particularly inspiring and gratifying due to the representation of diversity in ecologically minded philosophy. Bill Neidjie doesn’t write his poems with the huge vocabulary or the traditional eloquence that we generally think of when we are taught about poets. Instead he writes with the rugged strength of the hard dirt, the constant sound of the pounding rain, and the voice of someone who is connected to nature. How can we work together to make more native, minority, and non-traditional voices heard?
Neidjie’s main points in his poems seem to be the obsession with money over nature, and the absence seeing ourselves in nature. How do we connect ourselves to nature not just on hikes or while vacationing, but in our daily lives? Can nature and economy exist together like Thoreau believed and alluded to?
“Language is different,
like skin.
Skin can be different,
but blood same.
Blood and bone,
all same.
Man can’t split himself.” (21)
This quote struck me because the whole time that I was reading Neidjie’s work I struggled to connect with the non-traditional grammar and structure. In cultures across the world, a person’s inability to speak/write a language correctly often causes native-speakers to view them as inferior. I think that if the general English-speaking public read Neidjie’s writing, it might take some time to convince them to look beyond the superficial aspect of the poem’s structure and see that the emotions and thoughts tied to the poetry are just as recognizable as if they had been written in perfect English. Why might Neidjie have chosen to write the poem in this way, with a certain rawness, versus having a translator or editor transcribe it in perfect English? Does this writing style add an important message or aspect that would be lost in perfect English?
It is terrifying how the relatively recent introduction of colonizers into Australia, which has cultivated a strong and spiritually harmonious behavior for humans to live by, has so rapidly massacred culture, land, and people in the name of wealth, power, and control over resources. Nature, the environment, and man are not disconnected in the cultural identity and values of Aboriginal folks. Their embedded appreciation and understanding of natural systems and man’s respectful coexistence with them are the only way to preserve one’s way of being. Although transcribed for English readers, the story he tells and the accounts of their lives meshed with invading Europeans is compelling and clearly represents the ill-treatment of globalization and colonialism onto the lives of indigenous communities. “This earth I never damage…” Neidjie opens with the imperative necessity for archiving in some form the story and cultural identity of the Gagudju (and all aboriginal clans). Before invaders came to Australia, the land was tended efficiently and sustainably with clear gratitude and appreciation from people. People took from the land, and like the practice of yam harvesting and the necessity of recovering holes, it showed how the provisions they take are followed by tending the land to reduce further environmental harm (snakes, and return of harvest). In the section “Land”, he delves into the relationship between man and nature further explaining how the unity between living things cannot be separated and doing so only leads to destruction and a disconnection from nature. “Tree. He watching you… he can’t speak…. If you feel sore, headache, sore body that mean somebody killing tree or grass. You feel because your body in that tree or earth… your body…you feel it” (40-41). The health of the environment and the well-being of man are interconnected and the Australian terrain, as well as aboriginal culture and land practices, became threatened and sickened with the appearance of colonists. Australian natives lived as one with the land, feeling and sharing the benefits of earth for sustenance and a source for spirituality. When colonists came into the land, intentions for venture and exploitation were thrust upon the land and folks without consent or consideration of the aboriginal clans across Australia. Western lifestyles focus on the capitalist notion of dominating and generating wealth, and the constant listening of money rather than listening to the land is clearly shown by different practices of aboriginal folks compared to globalizing nations. “Now aborigine losing it, losing everything. Nearly all dead my people, my old people gone” (20). This represents how when colonizers came into aboriginal lands, they pushed their development practices and western values onto the differing societies, and in time has killed the traditional culture as well as the state of the environment. The traditional way of life has been lost and only few are holding onto these practices that have always put the health of the land and their shared home first. “When I die, I become skeleton…I don’t want coffin, just cave…got to put bones back where they belong…his spirit, will stay with him” (50). The remains of life after death and one’s final impact on earth is spiritually assessed in aboriginal culture. Just as man and nature are one, the return of men to nature by clean burial is emphasized and it shows the beauty in appreciating one’s physical being and continuing the respect and co-existence with the land. Commodities and conveniences created by western development is equally destructive to the land as well as people because it disconnects them from nature and only moves towards exploitation and oppression of marginalized folks and the land they have historically subsisted and connected with.
In Parable of the Sower, the religion Lauren Oya Olamina starts is centered around the concept and process of change. As some people may have realized, despite being written in the 90s, there are a lot of parallels between the political, ecological, and social climate in the book (set in the no longer distant year of 2024), and our current political, ecological, and social climate. Climate change continues to be a large, looming threat, and race relations in the US are still incredibly tense. The US government still seems to be largely focused on using the market economy as a solution to these issues. In a sense, there has been a lack of change in these themes from the time when this was written, until now.
That being said, I wonder what Lauren would think of this particular time of what would be her history? What would the third act of Butlers “Earthseed” trilogy have looked like and how would she have been influenced by the lack of change from the 90s to now?
In Bill Neidjie’s poem “Law”, he describes law as a give in take in relationships with members of his surrounding community. Unlike European law which constantly changes, this law is set in stone and has inevitable, predictable consequences. I would sum this up as a few principals:
1. What you do to others will be done to you, and this doesn’t just apply to humans. Neidjie makes his case several times stating words such as this:
“When they get yam, leave hole. I say
‘Who leave that hole?
Cover him up!’
They say
‘We forget.’
I tell them
‘You leaving hole.
You killing yam.
You killing yourself.”
He also makes this point through when he talks about how hurting a tree hurts ourselves, we all have “blood and bone”. We are all made up of the same substance and apart of one thing.
2. Do not waste anything.
3. These lessons are geared towards youth, so youth, don’t ignore the elderly because they are full of wisdom. This also coincides with the European corruption that has manifested through education, technology, and violence and has destroyed his people. He still accredits the individuality however of all people and states that no matter who you are, white or aboriginal, you are still connected and also not defined solely by your culture.
Thinking about the idea of schools destroying culture and livelihood is so tricky. Is there a way to implicate quality, well-rounded education while also retaining strong sense of culture and community? How can we redefine quality education to do so?
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler discusses the state of government in the wake of environmental crisis, describing politicians as practically useless. She writes, on page 20, “politicians have been promising to return us to the glory, wealth, and order of the twentieth century ever since I can remember.” This political tactic is similar to our current president’s promises to make the United States “great again.” Is holding on to the past hindering us from changing as a nation, as demonstrated in Parable of the Sower? What is Butler’s message about the United States’ inability to let go of the unattainable and idealized past and how it inhibits our progress?
In Parable of the Sower, civilians are depicted to have a unique desensitization to violence. Dead bodies litter the streets and people burn buildings and no one looks twice. Is the United States today similarly desensitized to violence, specifically in regard to mass shootings? Through our current government structure and numbness to violence and death, is our society setting itself up to become like the one in Parable of the Sower? Are we already there?
I found the poem “He cant Move his Country” particularly moving. On page 20, Neidjie says,
“First people come to us,
they started and run our life … quick.
They bring drink.
First they should ask about fish, cave, dreaming,
but
they rush in.
They make school. Teach.”
Neigjie says first they should ask, but instead they teach. This is a recurrent theme in development discourse in general and is even present in aspects of sustainable development. Many development centered NGO’s and transnational aid agencies hold education as a core goal. I am not arguing that access to education is not important, however I question why these organizations and agencies almost always teach before they ask. Is it because they see a westernized education as the only way to participate in the “modern world”? Or is it because they have found that it is easier to convince people to participate in the “modern world” once they have been “educated”? At what level is this education simply indoctrination? Instead of learning about the fish, caves and dreaming, they taught about Christianity, capitalism and other western values. They made little to no attempt to educate themselves about the aboriginal way of life, but made every attempt to ensure they learned about ours. How can we, even now, attempt to “educate” without being willing to learn?
“Look up at the stars. I tell kids, ‘See them stars. They been there million years. They always be there…I look at moon. It tell me story, like stars. Moon, moon is man. He said, ‘These people will die, but they’ll come back like I do. They’ll come back to be earth again.’” (Gagudju Man, Death, 46-48)
In Gagudju Man, Bill Neidjie’s poems describe aboriginal traditions and customs with the influence and impact of western colonization in Australia. The appreciation and dedication to living with the land, without being over dominating and with minimal extraction practices, they clearly hold different views on natural and human relations. As time has continuously suppressed the aboriginal folks and likewise the feasibility of maintaining their traditions and lifestyle, the knowledge and stories of these respectful people has lessened. Storytelling and the passing of tradition has been choked by the influence of colonialist ideals and indigenous folks have faced firsthand the destruction of their land and their culture. The quote I chose above from the chapter titled Death contains part of how they view the death of man. As the physical body passes, it becomes a part of the earth in which it came from which is a beautiful representation on how we give our bodies back to the land after it has given us all it could offer during our time living off of it. He goes on to say how your time on earth can’t be valued by the money and wealth you generate, and that in the end what remains is you and nature. Outside things cannot be a part of your afterlife. This push to realize your story and relationship with the world around you is supported by Neidjie’s ideals of maintaining the passing of stories to keep the traditions alive. Without coming from a deep cultural background or with a lack of connection to a personal tradition or culture to associate to, how can we convey these same values and visions of our actions on earth through our own words and stories while being respectful and mindful of the way we are using Neidjie’s work?
In these poems are several elements of survival and ceremony, ritual and natural law, and themes of love and of home. Contrasting from the modern idea of “home” and “comfort” Neidjie says “Other men want money. Him can make million dollars, but only last one year. Next year him want another million. Forever and ever him make million dollars. Him die. Million no good for us. We need this earth to live because we’ll be dead, we’ll become earth. This ground and earth, like brother and mother” (pg 30-31). Later on, similarly, he says, “You can get million dollar, but not worth it. Million dollar, he just go ‘poof’. Couple of weeks, you got nothing. This ground never move. I’ll be buried here” (Neidjie pg 49). Through this, he shows that having capital and an accumulation of objects with only simply monetary value truly gives you nothing in the end. You will always have the land, and will one day become it. This is all that matters. It reminds me of when, in Ceremony, Tayo goes to Old Betonie’s place, and Betonie explains why he lives there, on the outskirts, next to the dump: “‘They don’t understand. We know these hills, and we are comfortable here.’ There was something about the way the old man said the word ‘comfortable’. It had a different meaning–not the comfort of big houses or rich food or even clean streets, but the comfort of belonging with the land, and the peace of being with these hills” (Silko pg 117). This speaks to the indigenous way of finding peace with the land–all other desires become unnecessary.
What does it take to restore this sense? Are our desires simply a way of coping with the world around us, or are our things truly what we want? How do we lessen the power of our non-living objects?
Bill Neidjie’s writing and Octavia Butler’s novel share the theme of plant, people relationships with roots in the present world issues. The pieces of Bill Niedjie’s work we focused on was activism rooted in poems warning the detriment of mining in the Northern Territories of Australia, aboriginal land. A quote from Niedjie’s poem that stands out to me is ‘Don’t dig up bones of the ancestors… disasters will ensue.” This is speaking to the fossil fuel reserves on this aboriginal land and the climate disaster that will be an effect of their extraction and use.
Octavia Butler’s parable of the sower rings the same warning cry. The title itself stems from a bible story of spreading God’s word. The understanding that this word will not be understood by all, some will dismiss, some will be listen but soon be distracted by their worldly concerns.
Both authors write to the current difficulty of cohesive respect and concern for the environmental state. It feels as if these authors are “preaching to the choir” and resonating deeply within the audience, but not penetrating to those who may have a change of heart with these written pieces. Is there any further responsibility of activist writers to reach the crowd in which their work is intended for? Who is the work intended for?
Gagudju Man by Bill Neidjie highlights the implications of the colonization of knowledge and writing. Global literature is almost entirely written or translated to English, which silences other languages and removes the voice of non-English speakers. Although Neidjie’s poems are written in English, the words are rather simple and the grammar is imperfect. In this way, reading Gagudju Man requires readers to meet him halfway between our cultures. He criticizes Western/English imposition of education in Aborigine cultures, which are not educated enough to decide to fight against it before its too late.
“If you feel sore,
Headache, sore body,
That mean somebody killing tree or grass.
You feel
Because your body in that tree or earth”
One of the main themes in these poems is our connection with nature–we are nature, part of it, in it. As we kill nature, we kill ourselves.
My questions are, how do we eliminate the colonization of knowledge or change it in a way that is more inclusive? How do we inspire a shift in Western realization of our dependence on nature? Will we only realize this when we (people with control? money? power?) are forced to confront the effects of climate change, as Aborigine groups are closer to the environment due to their subsistence nature?