When early European settlers took ownership of traditional Aboriginal lands across our continent, one of the first things they did was to erect fences to stake their claim. These defined the boundaries of their landholdings, afforded stock protection but also sought to exclude those who had been custodians of the landscape for tens of thousands of years.
Even as late as the 1980s there was still plenty of work for fencers out in the remote north-western backblocks of NSW. Indeed, 60-year-old Ngemba man Paul Gordon grew up in fencing camps on the outskirts of Brewarrina.
"My father was a fencer and my grandfather was a fencer," says Paul, a UNE Masters student. "All the old Aboriginal men were fencers and we often worked for three or four months at a time building 40 or 50 miles of fencing on big sheep stations. While we were out bush, I was able to learn about ceremony from those old men who went through it before it was disrupted."
But barbed wire was no barrier to maintaining one of the world's oldest living cultures. Law and ceremony may have been discouraged by the white intruders, but it was never lost.
"For me, the resurgence began in Wollombi, when I teamed up with elder Lenny da Silva," Paul says. "For the past 40 years I have been helping to put young people through the law. Now, my Masters thesis is telling the story of how it came back; how there was this disruption, but it could never be stopped.”
Law and ceremony in resurgence
"After the national referendum of 1967 [in which Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the constitution to include Aboriginal people in the census], law and ceremony started to grow again and I've been part of that growth, especially as a senior law man. I think it's important to document the revival in cultural practices while there are still old people around to share that history,” Paul says.
These days, Paul is frequently on the move, travelling year-round across the state "for ceremony and to maintain traditional links with people and the land". On his own country near Brewarrina, ceremony still takes place today.
"It's been a really positive story of growth," Paul says. "We started with seven men and now we might get 200, 300 or 500 turning up for ceremony. Men from all over Australia - Pitjantjatjara, Yolngu and Larrakia men - come and take part in our ceremonies in NSW.
"I've spent time in the APY Lands, Arnhem Land and the Kimberley, and many of our ceremonies are the same. They are consistent with the kinship links between Indigenous people right across the country, which embody our spirituality and beliefs, our whole way of life. The way we look at country, look after country and sing for country, the way we conduct ourselves with our family ... all those things are governed by ceremony.
"We also have big ceremonial pathways right across the country, that our ancestors walked long before us. Authors Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe talk about these pathways, and I know they exist because I've been retracing them all my life, sitting down with different old men from all over Australia.”
Historically, we were a very united people, who respected one another. There were never any fences built between our mobs.
Breaking down barriers
As part of his research, Paul is keen to tear down some of the fences that have been erected more recently between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
In the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, which curtailed his travels in 2020, he was granted an extension for submission of his thesis and hopes to deliver it in March.
"When the First Fleeters arrived in Sydney Cove, they were not met by an army of warriors with spears and shields; they were met with open arms and a welcome to country," he says. "Aboriginal people were never war-like. No tribe in Australia set out to conquer and take land off another. They saw each other as family and everyone was welcome in your country through kinship. I want to get that message across to non-Indigenous people."
Ultimately, Paul hopes this will assist with reconciliation. "I have been teaching a lot of young people through the law and there are a growing number of non-Indigenous people who want to come and listen," he says. "Our education system has been in existence for thousands of years and, although it is not recognised by the western system, it should be."
Mostly through video, Paul has documented old law men sharing their memories and connection to country and sacred places. "They tell the stories of our ancestors who travelled from the coast, into western NSW, and then into South Australia and the Kimberley," Paul says. "Our kinship system, its values and responsibilities, goes right across the country. I had two great uncles who walked from Bourke in 1934 all the way up to Arnhem Land. It took them three years and all they were doing along the way was ceremony.
"It was common for people to go on three-year, five-year, sometimes 10-year walks all across the country, sitting down, doing ceremony, sharing stories. When the disruption happened, a lot of people couldn't travel the country like they used to. Fences stopped them from walking country."
Our stories on our country
After leaving school and going fencing himself, Paul attended college in Sydney, became an Aboriginal site officer and studied anthropology and archaeology, so he could "record our own stories on our own country". He became a TAFE educator and university lecturer, helping to highlight the breadth and depth of Aboriginal knowledge.
"I realised I knew a lot of stuff that other people didn't know and needed to know," Paul says. "My grandmother was still walking around NSW naked in 1900, before being taken to the mission in Brewarrina, and the last massacre of Aboriginal people in this country was in 1957 in the Kimberley, which is almost in my lifetime.”
We often think such things happened 240 years ago, but that's when it started, not when it finished.
For Aboriginal people, Paul hopes his videos will serve as a living resource, so "they can learn to live a good, positive, unified life with one another". But there are abundant lessons for non-Aboriginal people, too.
"I hope they will learn more about the positives of Indigenous culture and its knowledge system," he says. "It's a living thing that has to be nurtured and cared for, just as we need to nurture and care for each other and our country. Instead, many people see country as a resource that we take from. That's a really important lesson for all Australians; that we start to value this whole Mother Earth, who has been giving to us forever."
‘It connects them with their spirit’
Observing the recent revival in Aboriginal language, singing and dancing has filled Paul with renewed pride and enthusiasm. "When people reconnect to culture, they reconnect to the past and to our ancestors," he says. "It connects them with their spirit; their mental health improves and they start to think about what they eat. In my lifetime, I've seen fragmented communities become positive as more and more law comes back into their lives. They become different people.
"This is not exclusive to Aboriginal people either; if everyone sees the world as we see it, we'll look after our country better. It's for everybody."
