In Victor Briggs’ culture, his old people are ever present. Their words and stories echo down the generations, informing and guiding and reassuring future generations.
They exerted a profound influence during the research and writing of his book Seafaring: Canoeing Ancient Songlines. Often the Gumbayngirr/Gamilaroi man was far from his Country and navigating difficult terrain in distant museums and libraries. But he never felt alone.
The old people would appear like lights, sometimes in my dreams, to guide me at difficult times
“The old people would appear like lights, sometimes in my dreams, to guide me at difficult times,” says Victor. “They know what our ancestors did and what they were capable of. It’s in my genetic memory, too. It was like my ancestors were wanting me to get this story out.”
‘This story’ is an extension of Victor’s UNE Masters research – a book arguing that First Nations peoples were ocean-going sailors who journeyed regularly across the South Pacific and maintained trade and knowledge networks.
It has its origins in a story Victor first heard in 2010 or 2011 from his uncle Tim Edwards, who had been told by an Hawaiian man that Aboriginal seafarers routinely island-hopped throughout the Pacific, borne on double outrigger canoes and the westerly trade winds. But did they possess the technology, navigational and astronomical skills to achieve such a feat?
Verifying oral history that pre-dates European records poses obvious challenges for a contemporary historian. “I threw myself in the deep-end. There was not a lot written by our mob,” says Victor, who had initially enrolled in Theatre Studies at UNE during his undergraduate days, becoming (he suspects) the first Aboriginal man to play Othello, in a UNE production in 2000. After switching to a Bachelor of Arts and then completing a Masters of Environmental Advocacy – while trying to make ends meet working as a fitness trainer, cleaner and security guard – Victor’s interest in Indigenous history blossomed.
I started to love research and education
“I started to love research and education,” he says. “The Oorala Centre was very supportive; it was a safe place to go, to sit down and talk about all sorts of things and meet people from different disciplines. But to get through university I had to change my lifestyle and attitude. It was a big sacrifice.”
In around 2016 Victor’s dedication caught the attention of UNE alumnus and benefactor Max Schroder, who asked him to develop a mentoring program for Aboriginal students from regional areas. Victor went on to manage the successful program for two years.
“I then started lecturing and tutoring and storytelling in UNE’s Humanities department as a social historian, but the Aboriginal conversation is always political, whichever way you look at it,” Victor says. “I was trying to find my place in the world as an Aboriginal man. I felt compelled to become a teacher, to teach our mob about the impact of colonisation, dispossession and the loss of language.”
Seafaring: Canoeing Ancient Songlines is “something different to mainstream history” – a rich amalgam of academic evidence, and oral stories and “wayfinding” dreams “equal to that of scholarly sources”.
“For various reasons, this story cannot be proven,” Victor writes. “But that does not matter to me, because in my Aboriginal way of being and knowing, stories like my uncle’s do not need modern scientific proof to have validity – the role of story in Indigenous community is key to all aspects of our Culture.”
Still, Victor’s book does seek to substantiate the sophisticated canoe-building skills and navigational know-how of Aboriginal people, referring to star charts recorded in paintings and rock engravings as proof of their “oral maps”. The shared religion and kinship between Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders and Papua New Guineans also speaks to enduring ties.
“I am satisfied that the evidence of religion, astronomy, trade and marriage, and canoe technology shows that Aboriginal people sailing from the north of Australia to Hawaii was highly achievable, despite what historians and other scholars might have thought,” Victor writes.
Giving his ancestors a legitimate historical voice became a cultural responsibility. “We each come into this world with a purpose and I hope my book opens peoples’ minds and inspires additional research,” says Victor, who now teaches the Aboriginal Sites Course at Armidale TAFE. “I am always learning about culture and will continue learning until I leave this world. The cultural awakening I experienced while writing the book is that I can now share my knowledge with other people.
“There’s a lot more to Indigenous culture than what was written down on paper. We wrote our stories on granite and basalt and sandstone. We left stories everywhere about all the deadly things that were going on.”
Seafaring: Canoeing Ancient Songlines is published by Magabala Books.
