Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Rupert Max Stuart, an Arrernte Mat-utjarra Elder, speaking beside a campfire in English and his own language, passing on his stories about the Dreaming and traditional law to some young Indigenous men. He explains how the Lurritja and Arrernte peoples have the same Dreaming, but that it is told in different ways. He compares the Dreaming to the Ten Commandments. He speaks about the consequences of settlement in Alice Springs on Indigenous cultures, traditions and way of life. The clip is subtitled in English and is accompanied by a gentle acoustic guitar soundtrack.

Educational value points

• This clip shows Stuart explaining important cultural knowledge about the Dreaming to the next generation. He tells the young men of the Dreaming running through the ground. Indigenous peoples often see signs of the presence of their Dreaming ancestors in places where the ancestors dug out valleys and split rocks as they passed. Because the land sustains people, each person has a sacred duty to protect it and has a specific role and obligations to individual people, sites and parts of the country such as rivers or hills, or totemic animals such as emus or goannas.

• Stuart uses references to the Bible and the Ten Commandments to stress the importance of Indigenous beliefs and the difference between general access to religious traditions in a church and the specific ownership of traditions in Indigenous societies. He would have been aware that the young men and the documentary viewers would probably have been familiar with Christianity, so he likens Indigenous Dreaming to the Ten Commandments. As a male Elder he stresses to the young men around the campfire that his Dreaming is for males only. Some stories are for a general audience, and women also have their own separate traditions.

• Stuart paints a picture for the young Indigenous men of a self-governing Indigenous culture providing a good life for its people before it was destroyed with the establishment of Alice Springs. Self-governing refers to traditional or customary law, which involves rules of behaviour that bind members of Indigenous Australian communities. These rules define who a person is, his or her relationship to everyone else in the world, and how people should treat the land, animals and plants.

• This clip depicts Stuart as a storyteller who is conveying information to his audience and in doing so is keeping his Indigenous culture alive. Stuart dramatises as he talks, using gestures to convey meaning to his immediate audience and to enhance his storytelling skills for a film audience. The campfire glowing in the darkness gives a sense of intimacy to the film audience. The number of fires suggests a larger community tradition. Silence and music enhance the effects of Stuart’s storytelling.

• Stuart asserts his culture as both Arrernte and Lurritja, both of which tell the same Dreaming but in different ways. The Arrernte people’s traditional lands include the area of Alice Springs and the East MacDonnell Ranges in the Northern Territory and their language is one of the most spoken Indigenous Australian languages. Their neighbours include the Lurritja, Southern and Western Arrernte, Anmattyer and Alyawarr peoples.

• Stuart (1932–) is an Arrernte Mat-utjarra Elder who served on the Central Land Council from 1985, and as chairperson from 1998 to 2001. His early life was quite different. He was convicted of murder in 1959, spent 35 years in prison and was released in 1984. His murder conviction was contentious because many believe he was incapable of dictating the confession that was the basis of the police case. Following his release he became a respected Elder and Indigenous representative.

• This clip from the documentary Sunset to Sunrise exemplifies the work of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), which aims to promote pride in Indigenous Australians by creating training and employment opportunities, and informing and educating the wider community about the richness and diversity of Indigenous cultures. CAAMA broadcasts in all the major local Indigenous languages around Alice Springs and plays an important role in language maintenance.