Aboriginal people (from anywhere in the world) have an ability to convey complex ideas honestly and simply. In the case of Australia’s First Nations people, it’s because they’ve had 65,000 years to work things out. Our civilisation’s history is little more than a few hundred years old. The verbal stories indigenous people tell might not meet our definition of science but the sense they make is common. Tyson Yunkaporta describes the same sense of crisis that I feel, from being disconnected from nature. In this book review of Sand Talk I am going to write from an unusually personal perspective. Shortly, I will explain why.
But first, I will start this review with a quote from Sand Talk, that simply describes how we need to behave:
‘Like all things that last, it must be a group effort aligned with the patterns of creation discerned from living within a specific landscape.’
The importance of stories
In the opening chapter, Yunkaporta laments having to tell his back story. The inference seems to be that First Nations people are tired of justifying their history to other Australians. I can’t begin to fully understand or would ever want to comment on the hardships our First Nations people suffered. Which is why, as a reader, it’s important we get to acknowledge this. Some things just need to be reminded, over and over. As I will explain though, without knowing Yungaporta’s background, the book would not have meant as much to me. But it wasn’t because of our differences, it was because of our similarity.
Yunkaporta makes no bones of ‘yarning’ his way through the book. You may, like me, find its candour challenging in places. But there is a unifying and non-secular wisdom and empathy that emerges from the stories. It’s a different way of reading though. You have to listen to the words, and not take them so literally.
We all have different but connected backgrounds
Any book we read is going to be interpreted based on our personal experience. So I’m going to briefly tell you my background and why the book affected me in particular.
I am a descendent of indigenous people from Europe but that culture was lost centuries before me. My ancestor’s stories disintegrated thousands of years ago and any connection I have to that, has been long since been forgotten. Unlike Yunkaporta though, I spent my childhood immersed in nature.
I fear for our next generation. A disconnection with land for many, is the worst kind of torture. Most don’t even know it yet.
What I know about Country is who I am. For years, I wandered hills and valleys, sat in wildflower meadows, observing the seasons come and go. My understanding of people, nature and place, is founded on my knowledge of the world beneath my feet and the wildlife around me – not of the civilisation I live in. I was born in Australia in 1973, son of ‘ten pound poms’. But from the age of two, I grew up in the English countryside.
Because of my background in nature, there is little in Sand Talk that surprises me. And that’s not to belittle the wisdom of it all, quite the opposite. We all have one life in which to learn for ourselves. It gives me comfort to know that what nature taught me, is mirrored in ancient stories. There is hope knowing people can work some things out for themselves, by being among wildlife. But it is better when stories like in Sand Talk can be told. These days, more than ever, our society is disconnected from nature and people need to listen to others wiser than them, to think differently and respect the world.
That, is what I think this book is about.
How Australians lost their natural identity
When I moved back to Australia in 2001, I saw vast wilderness for the first time. I can’t begin to describe to you the feeling of walking in desert country, or swimming on a vast coral reef. It took ten years to embrace the scale of that normality. European landscapes are heavily modified and retain little of their original cultural significance – yet they are a dominated by people. Ours is a world dominated by nature where culture still exists.
Yet my childhood seems more embedded in nature than Yunkaporta’s. That is the worse loss I can imagine and it is with the greatest sympathy that I read about the struggle of the Stolen Generation to return to their land.
Who will tell our next generation stories? Who will fill in the gaps, when we only have densely verbose narratives and the raw data of scientists and engineers left?
It’s one of Australia’s greatest ironies that in a country so massive, most people live in the city. First Nations people were forcibly removed from Country. I would not have traded my early life in nature for anything but moving to Australia nonetheless forced me to leave the countryside and reside in a city for the first time in my life.
Nature though, holds my identity, despite me having little ancestral culture left to speak of.
Perhaps I’m one of the lucky ones. I got nature. Most young Second Nation Australians (to use Yungaporta’s words) get neither nature or culture. Our indigenous cousins at least have their cultural identity. I think it’s worth remembering that there are always people worse off than any of us.
I fear for our next generation. A disconnection with land for many, is the worst kind of torture. Most don’t even know it yet.
The ancient art of contemporary simplicity
When it comes to conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More, I’ve always advocated reinforcement of basic principles. As Yungaporta explains, the pursuit of a unifying explanation of everything, could very well end up being our downfall. Especially if this is at the expense of getting on with the obvious need to start living in harmony with our world.
Yungaporta presents the book as a few pictures that can be drawn in sand, or carved into wood. The cover depicts a carved boomerang with these icons: the entire narrative, summarised in a few lines. Not lines of text but a more open dialogue of impression. Leaving enough to the imagination, to explore further than the constraints of written language.
This is what art is for and is also why we should be concerned that our politicians do things like doubling the cost of art degrees. Who will tell our next generation stories? Who will fill in the gaps, when we only have densely verbose narratives and the raw data of scientists and engineers left?
Carved into the most ancient of tools, this visual aid is elegant and brutal, like all contemporary art should be. The perfect medium to demonstrate the constantly evolving culture of First Nations people. The non-linear, timeless and open-ended nature of Aboriginal culture is explained eloquently in the book. The author knows no better way to symbolise this than to use a most traditional form of art, in a modern way.
A shared destiny with nature
If Yungaporta had not explained his life and struggles growing up in Australian cities, I will have read the book differently. I could easily imagine someone thinking it to be self-indulgent or maybe even a bit sanctimonious. But that would be wrong.
The reason it struck a chord with me, was how much more personally I could empathise with loss of connection. I am grateful the author took the time to explain their background, as without this, I would not have known. That is why I think you should read it … because the loss of connection to Country is shared by all of us, irrespective of our ancestry.
A culture deeply connected to the land we live in, is something most people don’t know the benefit of. Nature however, we can all respect and appreciate. It’s the only thing we share equally as humans on this planet. And we can regain that connection by just stepping outside and maybe, framing our appreciation within the stories of our First Nations people.
Sand Talk has helped convince me even more, that the most powerful solution to our world’s problems, is to reconnect culture and nature. It’s why we need to embrace First Nation’s wisdom and accept stories, and their history, as part of our own and not maintain this false illusion of Anglo-centric and scientific superiority.
It’s been a privilege to do this book review of Sand Talk and I’m thankful that Tyson Yunkaporta stepped beyond the normal rules of his culture and spared time to translate the stories for me.
I won’t say any more but to encourage you to pick up a copy and read it for yourself.
Sand Talk is published by Text Publishing
Extent: 288pp
Format: Paperback
Published: 3 September 2019
ISBN:9781925773996
Read an extract
