September 2011

THE URBAN INDIGENOUS EXPERIENCE

Aboriginal art, bush food, didgeridoos and personal stories - a day in Perth on a new city tour reveals fresh insights into indigenous culture.

WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY GEMMA DEAVIN

It’s rare to come across someone who really loves and believes in what they do. Meet Rebecca Casey, the young Perth woman whose business connects locals and tourists with indigenous people, stories, art, food and music. “Thought provoking” is something Casey wants her day-long Urban Indigenous Tours to be. As we sit in the small back terrace of Aboriginal artist Sheila Humphries’ home looking at a photographof herself and 30 girls at community services and the New Norcia Catholicmission, my mind raceswith the reality of whatHumphries, and thousandslike her, lived through. I’ve read about the stolen generation in history books. But I’d never spoken to someone who lived through it. That was until I met Humphries on the Urban Indigenous Tour.

We are there to learn about, and try our hand at, Aboriginal art. We cover the symbols for waterholes, animals, travel lines, rain, moon, stars and mountains. But it’s her story about a dark chapter in Australian history which has us hanging on her every word. Listening to the details of her life — denied the love of a family from the age of four and an education — I swell up with sorrow and anger. “I grew up full of hate,” she says. “I wouldn’t look at a white person, I didn’t want to live.”

Now 70 years old, Humphries has eight children and 30 grandchildren. After putting herself through college, pursuing a career looking at a photograph in the department of community services and discovering art, she ishappy. Being able to shareher experience is a big partof this. “If we don’t speakout, no one will know what happened in mission all over Australia,” she says.

Driven by a passion for reconciliation in Australian society, Casey had the idea to showcase indigenous culture in Perth while she was leading a tour group in Brazil. In the summer of 2009 she established her business, going on to secure the 2010 Small Business Spirit of Australia award under her belt.

For Casey, the tour is about exposing Aboriginal Australia in a positive way. “I want people to talk and share, regardless of their history or background,” she says.

Noongar radio, an indigenous station playing soul, rock, roots and indigenous music, is our constant soundtrack as we circumnavigate Perth. The station is based near the indigenously run Kaditj Café where the tour stopsfor lunch on weekdays. On the weekends, tour groups lunch at Maalinup Aboriginal Gallery, where we pull in for our secondstop. Primus Ugle, anotherindigenous artist, meets us at the door. He wears a wide-brimmed akubra hat and a beaming smile. Unlike Sheila’s art, his works are pictorial. But his paintings, which also hang in the National Gallery, are about more than the landscape. “It’s about the land, yourself and myself,” he says.

Dale Tilbrook, director of the gallery, has also prepared a feast. First on the menu is bush tomato, also known as kutjera, or desert raisin, followed by sandlewood kernels, which taste like macadamias. I sample avocado, lemon myrtle and chilli dip, and kangaroo sausage rolls. I feel obliged to try all three sweets —chocolate and river mint cake, lemon myrtle and quandong swirl cake and, my favourite, quandong jam tarts. They’re popular with everyone.

Another slight deviation from the weekday tours is the Saturday Lancaster Wines pit stop, an optional extension of what is already a delicious and ﬁlling lunch. The friendly James, who lays on a spread of matching cheese and wine, takes us through the picks of the crop, saving the best until last. The 1994 muscat — a yellow rose-coloured drop that, according to James, is “the essence of Swan Valley” — is a hit. We leave the rambling vine-covered shed and head to Fremantle for our didgeridoo lesson. Outside the Didgeridoo Breath store we’re met with a ﬂoor full of didgeridoos in all shapes, sizes and colours. We know to expect passionate teachers and Simon, who started playing on his parent’s vacuum cleaner pipe at the age of eight, doesn’t disappoint.

Today, the majority of didgeridoo playing is for recreational purposes, but it has a lasting connection with indigenous ceremonial life. We learn that traditionally, Aboriginal didgeridoo craftsmen place branches and trunks of wood in active termite areas for a natural hollowing out process to occur.

Simon brings out a range of “didges”. I’m bowled over by the sound he makes . We’re each handed a plastic pipe to practise on. We may not look the part but we, almost, sound it.

With lips buzzing we’re soon attempting the “dingo bark”, “baby kangaroo” and “kookaburra”. As we string the sounds together we start to tell our own stories.

I’ve learnt more about Aboriginal Australia in seven hours than I have over the course of two decades. Of all the tales we’ve heard, it comes down to one — the story of a young woman, who, fuelled by her passion for reconciliation, started a business to share indigenous culture with the community around her.

TRAVEL EPIPHANY

Urban Indigenous Tours go beyond bush tucker and dot painting. They’re about connecting people through stories and real experiences. I think about how good it would be for every Australian to come on Rebecca Casey’s tour and how each city would beneﬁt from an initiative like hers. Kaditj, the name of the café where the tour stops, means “to sit and reﬂect” — a suitable sentiment for how I felt during, and after, the tour.