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Country
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are connected to country through lines of descent (paternal and maternal), as well as clan and language groups. (See a multicultural continent) Although in the past (and sometimes into the present) there have been conflicts between different groups of Indigenous people, these were rarely over land. Indigenous people have such a strong sense of belonging to country, they have no desire to own the land of others.
Territory is defined by spiritual as well as physical links. Landforms have deep meaning, recorded in art, stories, songs and dance. Songlines or Dreaming Tracks as well as kinship structures link Indigenous peoples to the territories of other groups. In the past, these links were also used for trade.
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Reconciliation Australia's Co-Chair Professor Mick Dodson describes Indigenous people's relationship to land in this way:
"What is this Indigenous idea about country and our yearning for it. Well for one thing we are not on about the ordinary English usage of that word – country. Country might mean to some a sovereign nation state that has a right to be a member of the United Nations. Some might even describe the word country as some place outside the urbanized cities."
When we say country we might mean homeland, or tribal or clan area and in saying so we may mean something more than just a place; somewhere on the map. We are not necessarily referring to place in a geographical sense. But we are talking about the whole of the landscape, not just the places on it.
Country is a word for us that conveniently abbreviate all the values, places, resources, stories and cultural obligations associated with that area and its places. The word country best describes the entirety of our ancestral domains. All of it is important – we have no wilderness.
It is place that also underpins and gives meaning to our creation beliefs – the stories of creation form the basis of our laws and explain the origins of the natural world to us – all things natural can be explained."
United Nations International Expert Group Meeting on Indigenous Peoples and Protection of the Environment, Khabarovsk, Russian Federation, August 2007.
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A copy of Professor Dodson’s speech is available at: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/workshop_IPPE_dodson.doc
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