The concept of First Nations Australian traditional custodianship derives from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' strong traditional connection with the lands and seas they reside on, known collectively as "Country". [6] [7] [8] The term "traditional custodian" is often used interchangeably with "traditional owner" in the context of native title in Australia, including in acknowledgements of Country. [9] [10] The role of a custodian, however, implies a responsibility to care for Country, reflecting a worldview that is not necessarily compatible with the Western concepts of land ownership and the right to property. [11] [12]
While specific practices and interpretations of custodianship may differ among the hundreds of distinct Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander groups, they all seemingly share a close affiliation with the land and a responsibility to look after it. [13] [14] [15] Since the 1980s, [16] First Nations and non-First Nations Australian academics have developed an understanding of a deeply rooted custodial obligation, or custodial ethic, that underpins Aboriginal Australian culture, and could offer significant benefits for sustainable land management and reconciliation in Australia. [17] [18] [19]
Aboriginal Australian academics Joann Schmider (Mamu), Samantha Cooms (Nunukul) and Melinda Mann (Darumbal) offer the following simple definition of traditional custodians: "the direct descendants of the Indigenous people of a particular location prior to colonisation". However, they add the caveat that "western worldviews are encapsulated within the English language and using western terminology to illuminate Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing is inevitability fraught with misinterpretations and imperfect understandings". [11] As noted by Wiradjuri scholar Yalmambirra and European Australian archaeologist Dirk Spennemann: "before the onset of European administration, there was no collective concept for the original custodians of this continent, and each community, culturally divergent from its neighbours, had its own identity". [20]
The English-language term "traditional custodians" is not unique to First Nations Australians, [21] and has been used to refer to local communities' relationships with land and resources in West Africa, Southern Africa, and Canada. [22] [23] [24] [25] It has been applied in an Australian context since 1972 at the latest, when sections 4 and 9 of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 defined them as "a representative body of persons of Aboriginal descent [that] has an interest in a place or object to which this Act applies that is of traditional and current importance to it". [26]
Following progress on First Nations land rights, European Australian understanding of traditional custodianship improved in the 1980s. In 1981, journalist Jack Waterford wrote of Aboriginal law as a system of "religious obligations, duties of kinship and relationship, caring for country and the acquisition and passing on of the community's store of knowledge". [27] Geographer Elspeth Young, in 1987, elaborated on the concept of "caring for country" as "a set of practices that articulated primary rights to land, which were based on spiritual custodianship, with secondary land use rights". [16] [28] By 1992, handing down their judgment on the landmark Mabo case, High Court Justices William Deane and Mary Gaudron acknowledged that "[u]nder the laws or customs of the relevant locality, particular tribes or clans were, either on their own or with others, custodians of the areas of land from which they derived their sustenance and from which they often took their tribal names. Their laws or customs were elaborate and obligatory." [29]
In a 2021 report, the Australian federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water defined traditional custodians as "Indigenous people or nations who have responsibilities in caring for their Country". This contrasted with traditional owners, defined as "an Indigenous owner of their traditional Country, as determined through the purchase of freehold, as granted by government or as determined through the native title process". [9] Since 2022 the Australian Public Service has advised capitalising the first letters in each word when referring to traditional custodians, i.e. "Traditional Custodians". [30]
First Nations Australians have expressed their interpretations of traditional custodianship through academic writing, political advocacy, traditional stories, poetry and music.
Numerous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures share an understanding that, contrary to Western views on land ownership, the land "owns us". Elders including Quandamooka woman Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Gai-mariagal and Wiradjuri man Dennis Foley, and Yankunytjatjara man Bob Randall discuss this theme at length, often in a spiritual context, referring to Country as an owner or a maternal figure, and a core component of cultural identity. [31] [8] [32] [33] Noonuccal assigns particular importance to the following maxim: "We cannot own the land for the land owns us". [31]
Drawing on this important relationship with Country, many First Nations Australians — including Aboriginal Australians across the continent and Torres Strait Islanders alike [13] [34] — identify a sense of responsibility or obligation to care for Country as a central tenet of traditional custodianship. Yolŋu woman Djuwalpi Marika outlined this sense of responsibility within her community in a 1993 report: "The Yolngu people belong to a number of separate clan groups, each consisting of individual families. Each clan is spiritually connected to their own particular ancestral homeland place (wanga), and being the traditional custodians are responsible for the care and management of their wanga. Living in their own lands make people feel happy and brings the relationship of the land, its people and their ancestors together." [35]
Turbuna man Jim Everett and Barkandji woman Zena Cumpston both identify a custodial obligation to care for Country as a shared foundation of First Nations communities across Australia, embedding a sense of deep respect and accountability for the natural world. [7] [36] [18] According to this view, being on Country is not considered a right, but a privilege; [37] as Warrwa-Noongar woman Louise O'Reilly explains: "it is not about our right to own land, it is about our right to protect that land. Our right to ensure that land is looked after in a way that will ensure its healthy, sustainable existence. It is a deeply imprinted sense of connection and responsibility that Aboriginal people feel to the land and not about having land as a possession." [12]
First Nations poets and musicians often express their affinity with Country and associated custodial responsibility through their works:
I am a child of the Dreamtime People
Part of the land, like the gnarled gumtree
I am the river, softly singing
Chanting our songs on my way to the sea...
I am this land
And this land is me
We know that the earth is our mother who created us all.
We cannot own her, she owns us.
So we are the custodians of our Earth Mother, whom we must protect and respect at all times.
This land is me
Rock, water, animal, tree
They are my song
My being’s here where I belong
This land owns me
From generations past to infinity
Custodians may be referred to by different names in the hundreds of distinct Australian Aboriginal languages. These include "nguraritja" in Pitjantjatjara, [41] [42] "kwertengerle" in Arrernte, [43] [44] "kurdungurlu" in Warlpiri, [45] [46] and "djungkay" in Kuninjku [47] [48] – although these words may refer more specifically to familial roles within traditional kinship networks that bestow a particular custodial responsibility. In the Dharug language, the related phrase "yanama budyari gumada" means "walk with good spirit". [28]
The distinction between traditional custodians and traditional owners is made by some, but not all, First Nations Australians. [49] [50] On one hand, Yuwibara man Philip Kemp states that he would "prefer to be identified as a Traditional Custodian and not a Traditional Owner as I do not own the land but I care for the land." [51] Wurundjeri man Ron Jones shared this sentiment, claiming that the words "traditional owners" are not typically used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. [52] In 2017, the Referendum Council received several submissions expressing a desire to have First Nations Australians recognised as traditional custodians or guardians in the preamble of the Constitution of Australia, although the Council's final report recommended prioritising a Voice to Parliament and Makarrata Commission rather than symbolic recognition of this status. [53]
Conversely, advocates for Australian Indigenous sovereignty may prefer to emphasise their status as traditional owners rather than solely traditional custodians. Addressing the 2018 Barunga Festival, deputy chair of the Northern Land Council John Christophersen proclaimed: "We're not custodians, we're not caretakers. We weren't looking after [the land] for somebody else to come and take away. We were the owners. And occupiers. And custodians. And caretakers." [54] Wurundjeri, Yorta Yorta and Taungurung man Andrew Peters expressed the view that "using the phrase ‘traditional owners’ indicates an Indigenous definition of ownership that has never involved monetary payments, title, or exclusive rights, but rather the recognition of thousands of years of respect, rights and responsibilities shared among many." [10]
Proposals to amend the constitution to acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as First Peoples, whether framed as owners, custodians, or otherwise, have not been successful. The failed 1999 referendum would have added a preamble to the Constitution that included "honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation's first people, for their deep kinship with their lands and for their ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country"; [55] while the failed 2023 referendum would have established a Voice to Parliament "in recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia". [56]
Mary Graham, a Kombu-merra and Wakka Wakka woman, developed the philosophical concept of a unique Aboriginal "custodial ethic". Acknowledging that different people and cultures develop different theories on the "question of existence", Graham posits that Aboriginal Australians identified land or nature as "the only constant in the lives of human beings", to such an extent that the physical and spiritual worlds were regarded as inherently interconnected. This emphasises the importance of the custodial ethic, effectively an obligatory system for people to play a role in following natural wisdom, looking after the land on which they live, and renewing its flora and fauna. [57]
Elaborating further, Graham identifies two principles that together comprise the custodial ethic: "1. the ethical principle of maintaining a respectful, nurturing relationship with Land, Place and community, and 2. the organising governance principle based on autonomy and identity of Place". These two principles can complement and balance each other to permit "a non-ego-based society", and a unique mode of thinking expressed in the following four basic assumptions: that we are not alone in the world; that our needs are more than just physical; a deep reflective motive of long-term strategic thought; and a rejection of self-oriented survivalist thinking that ultimately normalises competitiveness. [17]
Other First Nations authors have adopted the concept of a custodial ethic. Wiradjuri man Glenn Loughrey suggests that it may offer a more accurate understanding of Aboriginal alternatives to the Western concepts of spirituality, justice and rights: "In Aboriginal ways of being [these are] not needed as it is taken for granted we will care for each other, in whatever shape and form the other comes in. It can be described as the custodial ethic and is the reason there are no owners of country, only custodians." [58] Noonuccal woman Samantha Cooms concurs that the custodial ethic is "a profound concept rooted in the belief that all things are considered equal, autonomous, and protected through the wisdom of the collective". [59]
The importance of commitment to a custodial ethic has also been acknowledged by some elements of non-First Nations Australian society. The Royal Societies of Australia (a national group representing the scientific academies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania) in 2021 proposed that: "This custodianship approach has to be the foundation of our stewardship of country, with priority for support for country on ethical and pragmatic grounds (it is the right thing to do; we rely on it for daily living). We must be looking to the long term, thinking strategically. A society with a custodial ethic must do this." [19]
In being responsible for Country, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's traditional custodians typically serve as custodians of accompanying systems of traditional knowledge; they bear a "cultural imperative for protecting, maintaining and creating knowledge". [60] Much, but not all, of this knowledge relates to land and environmental management, including controlled burning, wildlife observation, pest control, water conservation, and erosion control. [61] [62] [63] [64]
European Australian journalist Jeff McMullen cites Gurindji stockman and land rights activist Vincent Lingiari as an example of a custodian of knowledge: "As a senior lawman, Vincent Lingiari was drawing on his grandfatherʼs knowledge and connection to Gurindji country, reclaiming and asserting the core responsibility of custodianship. Like the very strongest Earth science, this foundational concept of the Aboriginal system of knowledge gives every man, woman and child some responsibility to help maintain the balance of the living system of life, the source of well-being for all creatures now and into the future." [65]
First Nations Australians' knowledge of Country, and the practices underpinning traditional custodianship, have been incorporated into some Australian education programs. [66] [67] [68]
Some First Nations groups in Australia have spoken out about their struggles to receive recognition as traditional custodians within Australia's current political and legal frameworks. [69] Traditional knowledge had historically been passed down via the oral tradition through kinship networks, and despite some progress, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples allege that more work needs to be done to protect their custodial knowledge. [15] [70]
According to Kamilaroi man Marcus Waters, attempts to form a broad pan-Aboriginal political community of scholars in Australian academia, even if well-intentioned, may end up sacrificing the nuance and context of the different custodial governance systems in different First Nations cultures. [14] There is also some concern that the term "traditional custodianship" lacks specificity. In 2017, the Final Report of the Referendum Council noted that custodianship is one of several concepts that are currently "legally ambiguous". [53]
Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal peoples of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped with them as Indigenous Australians. Today, many more Torres Strait Islander people live in mainland Australia than on the Islands.
Australian Indigenous sovereignty, also recently termed Blak sovereignty, encompasses the various rights claimed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within Australia. Such rights are said to derive from Indigenous peoples' occupation and ownership of Australia prior to colonisation and through their continuing spiritual connection to land. Indigenous sovereignty is not recognised in the Australian Constitution or under Australian law.
Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rights were first recognised as a part of Australian common law with the decision of Mabo v Queensland in 1992. The doctrine was subsequently implemented and modified via statute with the Native Title Act 1993.
Melanesian Meriam people are an Indigenous Australian group of Torres Strait Islander people who are united by a common language, strong ties of kinship and live as skilled hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans on a number of inner eastern Torres Strait Islands including Mer or Murray Island, Ugar or Stephen Island and Erub or Darnley Island. The Meriam people are perhaps best known for their involvement in the High Court of Australia's Mabo decision which fundamentally changed land law in Australia - recognising native title.
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), established as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1964, is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, publishing, and research institute and is considered to be Australia's premier resource for information about the cultures and societies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Nungalinya College is an adult education college based in Casuarina, a suburb of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia. Founded in 1973, it describes itself as a "Combined Churches Training College for Indigenous Australians", and provides training for Christian ministers and community leadership.
A Welcome to Country is a ritual or formal ceremony performed as a land acknowledgement at many events held in Australia. It is an event intended to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to the descendants of a particular Aboriginal clan or language group who were recognised as the original human inhabitants of the area. For the Welcome to be recognised as official, it must be performed by a recognised elder of the group. Welcomes to Country are sometimes accompanied by traditional smoking ceremonies, music or dance. Where an elder is not available to perform the welcome, or there is not a recognised traditional owner, an Acknowledgement of Country may be offered instead.
The Laragiya language, also spelt Larrakia, and also known as Gulumirrgin, is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by just six people near the city of Darwin in northern Australia as of 1983. Only 14 people claimed to know the Laragiya language in 2016.
The Larrakia people are a group of Aboriginal Australian people in and around Darwin in the Northern Territory. The Larrakia, who refer to themselves as "Saltwater People", have a vibrant traditional society based on a close relationship with the sea and trade with neighbouring groups such as the Tiwi, Wadjiginy and Djerimanga. These groups share ceremonies and songlines, and intermarry.
Indigenous Australian seasons are classified differently from the traditional four-season calendar used by most western European peoples. Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people have distinct ways of dividing the year up. Naming and understanding of seasons differs among groups of Aboriginal peoples, and depends on where in Australia the group lives.
Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, and/or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of present day Australia prior to British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups, which include many ethnic groups: the Aboriginal Australians of the mainland and many islands, including Tasmania, and the Torres Strait Islanders of the seas between Queensland and Papua New Guinea, located in Melanesia.
An Australian Aboriginal sacred site is a place deemed significant and meaningful by Aboriginal Australians based on their beliefs. It may include any feature in the landscape, and in coastal areas, these may lie underwater. The site's status is derived from an association with some aspect of social and cultural tradition, which is related to ancestral beings, collectively known as Dreamtime, who created both physical and social aspects of the world. The site may have its access restricted based on gender, clan or other Aboriginal grouping, or other factors.
Indigenous Australian customary law or Indigenous Australian customary lore refers to the legal systems and practices uniquely belonging to Indigenous Australians of Australia, that is, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
An Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) is a class of protected area used in Australia; each is formed by voluntary agreement with Indigenous Australians, and declared by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander representative organisations. Each is formally recognised by the Australian Government as being part of its National Reserve System. The areas may comprise land and sea, and are managed by Indigenous groups for the conservation of biodiversity. Managing IPAs also helps to protect the cultural values of their country for future generations, and has benefits for Indigenous health, education, economic and social cohesion.
Land councils, also known as Aboriginal land councils, or land and sea councils, are Australian community organisations, generally organised by region, that are commonly formed to represent the Indigenous Australians who occupied their particular region before the arrival of European settlers. They have historically advocated for recognition of traditional land rights, and also for the rights of Indigenous people in other areas such as equal wages and adequate housing. Land councils are self-supporting, and not funded by state or federal taxes.
Henrietta Marrie is a Gimuy Walubara Yidinji elder, an Australian Research Council Fellow and Honorary Professor with the University of Queensland.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984(Cth), is an Act passed by the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia to enable the Commonwealth Government to intervene and, where necessary, preserve and protect areas and objects of particular significance to Australia's Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples from being desecrated or injured.
In Australia, Indigenous land rights or Aboriginal land rights are the rights and interests in land of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people; the term may also include the struggle for those rights. Connection to the land and waters is vital in Australian Aboriginal culture and to that of Torres Strait Islander people, and there has been a long battle to gain legal and moral recognition of ownership of the lands and waters occupied by the many peoples prior to colonisation of Australia starting in 1788, and the annexation of the Torres Strait Islands by the colony of Queensland in the 1870s.
Indigenous ranger programs enable First Nations people across Australia to protect and manage their land, sea and culture through a combination of traditional knowledge with Western science and conservation practices.
The Indigenous peoples of Australia, that is Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people, have strong and complex relationships with the concept of "Country". In this sense it does not refer to the nation of Australia, but rather different aspects of how the traditional lands of a particular First Nations group affects their culture, way of seeing the world, and interactions with other people.
The area is predominantly occupied by the 'Belyuen' who have a custodial relationship with the Larrakia in relation to their residence on Larrakia country
Belyuen people live in the Belyuen Community, they are made up of three language groups, Batjamalh, Emmiyangal, Mendheyangal. Their traditional lands are further down south of the west coast, but maintain custodial responsibilities for the area of Belyuen Community on the Cox Peninsula.
Larrakia knowledge of country and rituals flourished on the Cox Peninsula, albeit through intermarriage with the Wadjiginy people as custodians.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)today many indigenous people invoke values such as 'caring and sharing' as fundamental elements of a pan-Aboriginal identity
a constant threat from outside forces aiming to seize the resource from the Ada, or "Okor," people who have been its custodians
The traditional custodian of the land who in consultation with the gods, ancestors and chief administers customary land and adjudicates land disputes
the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe also formally recognised the Moyo Ziruvi Nyamweda clan as the traditional custodians of the site
Another theme that this group seemed to share with some others was a desire to move from a concept of ownership toward a concept of custodianship in an effort to build stronger, positive relationships between archaeologists and Indigenous communities
For this [Torres Strait Islander] Elder, such environmental knowledge and traditional laws, based around leaving enough for tomorrow, needed to be passed on to the young people so that they too could listen to, and read, their country... reading country is part of "ways of knowing," which can then be applied to care for and provide custodianship of local environments
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