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Rupert Max Stuart, Arrernte Mat-utjarra Elder oversees the preparation of kangaroo by his two descendents. He tells us that he never ate white man’s food growing up and was taught by the old men and ladies. Max is teaching the younger people so that they can teach it after he passes away. As a young man, Rupert Max Stuart tells us, they would get their own meat, but the old men and women would always be fed first. Max tells us that the young fellas are learning two ways – whitefella way and blackfella way. The kangaroo is thrown onto the fire, its body singed.
Curator’s notes
Elder Rupert Max Stuart discusses the importance of culture in the riverbed during a beautiful sunset; he gives instruction to two young fellas preparing kangaroo. The importance of continuing tradition is paramount, and being able to live in both blackfella world and whitefella world is very much about being able to live in the land of one’s Ancestors. Each person is a repository of knowledge, and Elder Rupert Max Stuart is a man who, having experienced Western culture, focuses on his responsibility as an Elder and a caretaker of Indigenous culture and knowledge. There is a whole way of being that is represented through the eyes of Max Stuart, and it fundamentally symbolises the cultural paradox that exists between Western and Indigenous cultures.
