For thousands of years – long before UNE’s Armidale campus was established, before the White family took up residence and established grand Booloominbah – the lands on which we work have been home to the Anaiwan people.
Their rich heritage and connection to Country, though largely omitted from the history books and supplanted by buildings and bitumen, remains deeply embedded in the New England landscape. Which is what makes the appointment of Steve Ahoy, UNE’s first Cultural Heritage Advisor, so important.
Steve’s family’s roots are firmly fixed in the region’s granite and basalt soils. They support a strong oral history that has survived colonisation and speaks of their belonging to this land. And in what we believe is an Australian first, Steve is now guiding the University of New England in its acknowledgement of local culture and people.
Generations of connection
“In my culture, the land, the environment and culture are one,” he says. “My family has always lived on the land that the university is built on. I have the stories of how we lived here – oral stories from my grandparents and great-grandparents, as well as the written records of the local Aboriginal people. Our family has maintained a continuing relationship with this country.”
In more recent times, Steve’s great-grandmother Sarah Archibald worked for the White family as a midwife and was renowned for her bush medicine skills.
“She was the first generation of my family to be associated with what would become the university, and our relationship with this place has continued ever since,” Steve says. “Sarah’s husband Frank Archibald (who is remembered by our annual UNE lecture series) was a stockman for the White family and, later in life, helped to build some of the first university buildings.
“More recently, my maternal grandfather Ronny Kitchener also worked at UNE and helped build Robb College. My mum, Cheryl Kitchener (also known as Ahoy), assisted in the establishment of the Oorala Aboriginal Centre in 1986 and was the first local Anaiwan person to graduate from the university majoring in archaeology. My father’s grandfather – Pop Leonard de Silva – named Oorala (a local Anaiwan word), and his wife Nan Ethel (Sarah Archibald’s daughter) named the Yarm Gwanga Childcare Centre (also from Anaiwan language).”
Site visits spark passion
Steve’s informal education in archaeology began at a very early age, when Cheryl would take him and his brothers out on Country to teach them about archaeology, complemented by their great-grandfather Lenny’s cultural teachings.
“I’m lucky that Mum had no babysitters when she was studying, so I had to go out on site visits with her and her university lecturers and National Parks and Wildlife Service staff,” Steve remembers. “I was only six or seven.”
Those experiences stayed with him. After working as a sites officer for a variety of Aboriginal organisations and the Local Aboriginal Land Council, Steve completed the TRACKS tertiary preparation program at UNE and enrolled to study archaeology himself in 2017. It wasn’t long before he was engaged as an advisor, to help UNE evolve its cultural heritage procedures, and this developed into a full-time position two years ago.
Watch this space, because the work he is doing to protect and promote his culture is only going to grow.
UNE Environmental Sustainability Manager Suzannah Mitchell says Steve is helping to shape how we manage the land on which the campus is built – his ancestral land.
“Steve’s passion for his culture is really inspiring,” Suzannah says. “Anyone who meets him will tell you the same thing. It’s hard to explain, but he just has this aura of wisdom about him. Watch this space, because the work he is doing to protect and promote his culture is only going to grow.”
Starting from scratch
Since joining the staff of UNE in 2019, Steve’s diverse role has included everything from reviewing archaeological reports for capital projects to fieldwork to identify and register new artefacts.
“I had to start from scratch, documenting cultural sites and raising awareness of the importance of consultation,” Steve says. “No other university in Australia has an Aboriginal cultural advisor, so we were testing new ground. I’ve had to physically go around and talk to the old people, retired UNE staff, current archaeologists, environmentalists and geologists, to work out where the areas of cultural interest are, and where there have there been investigations in the past.”
Anaiwan people have generously shared a wealth of information, and trawling through UNE’s archives and records has yielded some clues. But it’s not always smooth terrain.
“The previous loss and damage of artefacts had created distrust among some members of the local Aboriginal community,” Steve says. “Regaining trust was one of my first big hurdles, but I think we have made good progress. The university now has a partnership with the Aboriginal Cultural Centre and Keeping Place and we have built some bridges.”
It’s Steve’s job to “reconnect with” Indigenous sites or artefacts during cultural heritage assessments in collaboration with Anaiwan cultural knowledge-holders. Detailed records are then compiled and added to UNE’s heritage list and Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System (AHIMS) to ensure they are appropriately managed and protected.
“When I first started, I think we had catalogued seven artefacts across UNE’s properties; now we are up to 1,678,” Steve says. “There were a lot of sites recorded but not added to the heritage list or AHIMS database and, as a community, we want more awareness of our cultural objects and areas.”
Now, any planned development at UNE requires Aboriginal consultation, and cultural protocols must be followed. “It’s a big turnaround in the history of the university, which is great,” Steve says. “UNE now leads the sector in engaging with Indigenous people in an appropriate and respectful way. It goes above and beyond.”
Now that I am in this role, the history and contributions of Anaiwan people on Anaiwan country are being acknowledged.
Mediator, detective, teacher
Part mediator, part detective, Steve is also adding teacher to his job description. There is the support he gives fellow archaeology students but also, more recently, the lectures and lessons shared with graduating teachers and medical students, and UNE researchers, about working in First Nations communities. Steve’s work to engender respect for cultural heritage and history now informs most departments across the university.
Still, confronting Australia’s historic mistreatment of Indigenous people remains a challenge. “A lot of our painful history has been hidden, but we have to acknowledge it to come to a mutual understanding,” Steve says. “Our culture was not destroyed, it just got fragmented, and we have to be honest and transparent about why that happened. Now that I am in this role, the history and contributions of Anaiwan people on Anaiwan country are being acknowledged. Bringing that respect into the university community, that understanding of where people are coming from, flows across the board.”
It all adds up to busy but immensely satisfying days. “To be able to work in my own nation, on my own country, on my own cultural history, is so empowering,” Steve says. “I feel very, very lucky. My wish is to take our UNE successes and promote them, and to see similar roles established in every Australian university.”
