I gave up attending conferences without presenting at them a long time ago and this year I'm giving two presentations tomorrow in a session dedicated to ethnoornithology and titled "Birds in historical, cultural & archaeological context" where we will "examine birds and human culture in a variety of contexts, including birds, humans and fire, birds and archaeology and what happens when birds, birders and sacred and ancient grounds meet."
Out here fires can sometimes run for weeks - if not months - and burn-out huge tracts of land - I'll try to keep a watching eye on this fire over the coming weeks - if you have any information on its progress please log in and post a note about its progress.
Michael Coggan: It can be a real problem - particularly coming from a western culture and not having seen Aboriginal communities before. When journalists go to a community for a day - and as a journalist that is usually what you do - fly-in, fly-out, or drive-in, drive-out. We usually have no idea of the cultural and long-term context of what is going on in the communities that we travel to. Unless you have got very good contacts in those communities. Thankfully often we do, but it is very easy for reporters that don't spend a lot of time on the ground to come in and say "Oh, it is all just a mess - we need to report on this, there will be a political & media focus on this and then it will be fixed."
3 days in the southern Tanami desert in November
I spent most of my 20s at Yuendumu; I feel like I grew into a man there, and I did not do it on my own. Maybe one day I’ll be that old man sitting on a bed, keeping myself company by closing my eyes and recalling these stories.
"Warlpiri people are not slaves, yet many in ‘mainstream’ society persist in claiming some sort of ‘ownership’ of Aborigines. They arrogantly have opinions as to what Aborigines should or shouldn’t do, and believe they have some sort of right in deciding what is best for them. Warlpiri have no power over their destiny. No say in their future. No say in how they should run their lives." Frank Baarda, Yuendumu 2010
I can’t think of a single incident in the past in which the Warlpiri residents of Yuendumu have not respected non-Warlpiri residents’ neutrality in such matters. They respect our right to be kept out of it. This respect is not reciprocated by “mainstream” society, that has the arrogant belief that it is entitled to interfere and dictate to remote Aboriginals how they should live their lives. The Intervention epitomises this arrogance.
This female Pallid Cuckoo Cacomantis pallidus has been hanging around my front yard for the past week or so and I had the chance to grab a few pix of her this afternoon. She lacks the very distinctive, and often distinctly irritating, call of the male of this species. […]
The Shire of Halls Creek is particularly impecunious; it has a very small rating base and few other revenue opportunities...it is responsible for a very large road network that it does not have adequate resources to maintain at an appropriate level...[t]he poor state of the Tanami Road is a serious impediment to providing services of all kinds.
Kala tiya-tiya ngulaji kalu-jana ngarrirni yapa yangka Jardiwanpaku wiri kujakarla nyinami yapa, ngularlangu tiya-tiyaji yapa wiri. Kula jurlpu-mipa yirdiji tiya-tiyaji, kala yangka yapa wiri jujuku-ngarduyu.
