SHORT REFLECTIVE ARTICLESTime-traveling andrecognizing Aboriginalcultures
I acknowledge with respect that First Australians from the past tothe future are guardians of the Australian land.

By Yuiko Asai
July 3, 2023, Tokyo
Disclaimer: This article includes some swear words in the lyrics that I quote from an
Aboriginal rap artist. I decided to keep these to show respect toward the original workof the artist in protesting how Aboriginal people have been treated since the invasion
by British settlers in 1788. Also, for Aboriginal people, this writing may cause you torecall traumas and other negative experiences you have gone through. I would like toforewarn you in case you decide to read the whole article.

Muttonbird Island is spiritually important for Aboriginal people, particularly theGumbaynggirr, according to one of the boards at the Muttonbird Island Outdoor
Learning Space. It represents their connections with nature (land and water),which their ancestors created for the future generations.

31LEARNING LEARNING『学習の学習』30(2)I needed to hear them out, understand their values
Yuiko Asai is from Tokyo, Japan, and athird-year university student at Chuo
University in Tokyo. She has been
researching Aboriginal issues in Australia
since April 2022. Yuiko has studied
different perspectives about the current
situation between Aboriginal people andthe majority, particularly to do withlanguage. The majority talks of“revitalization” as its final goal, but
Aboriginal peoples are concerned with“healing.” Her main questions are: What do
Aboriginal people say? and Where are theirvoices? Her aim is to grasp the current
situation from Aboriginal people’s side.
Also, Yuiko has been questioning How do
Aboriginal activists act in order to be “listenedto” by society (particularly the majority)? This
is why she started to look at the activist
work of Aboriginal artists, and to explore
Aboriginal peoples’ cultural values andphilosophies. In turn, this brought her tolearning about “The Dreaming” – the way
in which Aboriginal people understandthe world and their place in it.

On January 26 each year, the majority of theAustralian population celebrates the British
settlement as Australia Day, whereas
Aboriginal people consider this Invasion
Day 1 . Aboriginal people have a different
story and history from the mainstream.
According to a group of UNSW
researchers2, Aboriginal people arrived over
50,000 years ago and have since thendeveloped their own cultures and have theirown languages. They settled in the land
long before the first voyage of Captain Cookin 1770. Today, they live in Australiansociety with great language and cultural
diversity despite all the oppression andviolence they have faced since the 18thcentury.

In the early part of my project about
language revitalization in Australia, I cameacross a dark period called the Stolen
Generations. The Stolen Generations iswhen Aboriginal children were taken awayfrom their homes by the government
schemes from the mid-1800s through the197os3. Listening to video testimonies by survivors of the Stolen Generations4, I cameto realize the importance of “hearing” people’s own voices. I then tried to recognize how
Aboriginal people have been seeking “healing” and that their language revitalization is
actually a part of their “healing.”
Then, a totally changing question came up for me: What do Aboriginal people do to healthemselves? That is when I started to meet their activism through hip-hop, art, andeducation, for instance. I began to feel strong voices that hope to be “listened to” by thepublic. I started to notice their strong cultural prides and learn about Aboriginal people’svarious cultural values and philosophies. I also met this interesting concept – “timetraveling” – for the first time. This is a key to unpacking Aboriginal people’s values andunderstanding their cultural pride. Now, I would like you too to get to know about thetime-traveling concept, and reflect on the situation for oppressed minorities around theworld. Welcome to the unique, significant time-traveling of Aboriginal people. In thismagazine article, I’ll guide you by looking at the past, the present, and the future as wetime-travel ourselves.

1 Korff (2023)
2 Coper, Williams, & Spooner (2018)
3 Healing Foundation (n.d.)4 Stolen Generations' Testimonies Foundation (n.d.)322SHORT REFLECTIVE ARTICLESWhat is “time-traveling”?5Okay, I get that we’ll go on some kind of a journey, but what is Aboriginal people’s“time-traveling” – it’s not the Back to the Future time traveling, eh? Of course, this isn’t
the same concept as visiting the present and going back to the future, like “the idea oflinear time” seen in western cultures6. As you can see in the image below, Aboriginal
people’s time-traveling is for today’s generations to maintain and feel spiritualconnections with different times now, in the past and in the future in nature. They canget to know about what ancestral beings have done in the past, appreciate them for what
they have, and, most importantly, find connections to their lands which will bring themto their languages. I created this visual image of time-traveling for our better
understanding about the concept and will explain more in no time!
Time-traveling image

Believes ó Spiritual connections

NatureAs you can see in the image above, Aboriginal people’s time-traveling is done
across every generation and every time through the Dreaming. And this is anever-ending process.

Traveling back to the past – What is the Dreaming?
Why don’t we start our journey from the past? But, first of all, let me introduce to you
Aboriginal people’s core, the Dreaming. In an article of Creative Spirits whose website
is run by Aboriginal people 7 , Mudrooroo (an Aboriginal writer) explains that theDreaming is “a psychic state in which or during which contact is made with the ancestral
spirits, or the Law, or that special period of the beginning.”8 In other words, it is when
Aboriginal people are making spiritual contact with their ancestors to learn about what
their ancestors created for them – from the Creation Period through the present to thefuture.
The Creation Period for Aboriginal people is the time when there were ancestral beings
5 Korff (2020)
6 Working with Indigenous Australians First Nations people (2020)
7 Korff (2021)

8 Korff (2020)

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LEARNING LEARNING『学習の学習』30(2)(ancestral spirits) forming and shaping the world of “Aboriginality” on their own land –knowledge, cultural values, traditions, and customary laws.
The stories of their creations are vividly alive and strongly connected to today’s society
through the Dreaming. They can learn about given rules, laws, and cultural values, how
the universe and everything in the lives of Aboriginal people were created, as well as
knowledge about creatures and the nature. The Dreaming takes place when people get
to listen to the stories through discussions, singing, plays, dances, and other culturalrituals like body painting. This lets Aboriginal people living in this modern world haveconnections with their ancestral beings, and with their own traditions/cultures and theirown lands.
An example of the Dreaming
Let me share with you one of the most well-known
Spiritual beings of the Dreaming: the Rainbow
Serpent. The Rainbow Serpent is a life-giver inmany Aboriginal cultures. In the Creation Period
she shaped the earth as she was traveling acrosslands; for example, meandered paths became
mountains, valleys, and riverbeds. She even tickled
frogs’ stomachs, and the frogs gave the paths
water, which turned into rivers and lakes. Since theRainbow Serpent storytelling
Rainbow Serpent is a creator of the foundations ofvideo
their lands, people pay respect through a ritual.
When they enter rivers, lakes, or other watery sources, they declare by singing to theRainbow Serpent that they will do no harm. If they do not show her the respect, theyfear she will cause great natural disasters like storms, strong winds, or heavy rain. With
Dreaming stories like the Rainbow Serpent, we can learn about the Creation Period
where everything surrounding Aboriginal people started. This is how they learn about
their stories and acquire their cultural pride.
Coming back to the present
After we come back from time traveling through the Dreaming with new knowledge
about Aboriginal people’s cultural values and philosophies, we return to the present.
We’ve completed the past part of our journey, but have not learned about Aboriginal
people themselves yet. With what they have taken in during the Dreaming, Aboriginal
people build up their cultural identity or “Aboriginality” and they gain pride in theirculture and traditions. Then, they can express this actively in the present. By doing so,they “heal” themselves from their dark history since the invasion.
In the present, more and more young people would be keen on taking actions in orderto protect and make their own cultures thrive. This is one way they do this is throughraps. Now, let’s continue our journey by getting to know about the work of an
Aboriginal rapper, and how he story-tells his “Aboriginality” as his interpretation of theDreaming.
Rapper DOBBY
In this new part of our journey, we bump into a rapper called DOBBY! He is a rap artist

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and an activist with a mixed-heritage Murrawarri (from Weilmoringle, NSW 9 ) andFilipino cultural background. He actively tackles today’s issues faced by the Aboriginal
people through music, performance videos, and lectures. His rap music deal with aboutissues such as land rights and environmental issues.
I saw a music video by DOBBY rapper for the first time when I was looking for real
Aboriginal people’s voices. I noticed his great sense of cultural pride through one of hissongs, Walk Away (2022). This is his way to pass down what he has been story-told
about Aboriginal people and their resilience, as well as to show how he feels about
Aboriginal people’s struggles. DOBBY does not want Australian people to forget about
the assimilation in the past and its consequences. Rather, he wishes to encourage people
to move forward together. In this song, he is storytelling about Aboriginal people’s
experiences with assimilation and invasion, as well as what they lost as a result.10 Theselines are where I personally feel his message strongly.

Assimilate us, and then you blamed us

Goddamn, that’s a bitch
Talkin’ shit, you might be liable to catch a fist

You took the voice of my Murrawarri people, and you

ripped it from our throat
Man, I swear I’m ‘bout to let ‘em all know

But you tell me, “Let it go”

DOBBY

This song really expresses Aboriginal people’s loss since the invasion, particularly thatof the Murrawarri. DOBBY is very eager to let Murrawarri people know that theirvoices have been taken away by Europeans. And he tries to encourage Aboriginal people
to keep story-telling about themselves and their struggles, not “letting it go”. His song,
Walk Away, can empower them to build their strong cultural pride for themselves.
Also, in other songs like Peregrine11, DOBBY story-tells his own “Aboriginality”. It isso powerful that audiences can sense this only by listening to his songs, which makes
them want to rethink and take some actions. Through story-telling like DOBBY does,
people can acquire in the present time cultural pride and endeavor to preserve their own“Aboriginality” with great passion.
After our time-traveling
We now have completed our time-traveling. Did you see how Aboriginal people always
go on the journey to learn about their cultural values and philosophies through theirancestors? We don’t necessarily have to be “Aboriginal” to go on the time-traveling
journey to learn about them. Let’s also recognize one of the most famous Aboriginal
elders, Uncle Michael Jarrett. He has said that he “strongly believes in keeping hislanguage and culture alive and proudly teaches anyone who wants to learn.”12 From thisquotation, I feel that, even though I am a non-Indigenous writer, I am encouraged todeepen my understanding about Aboriginal people as much as I can. We all can keep
9 Loo (2020)
10 Sloan (2022)
11 DOBBY.au (2018)
12 State Library New South Wales (n.d.)355LEARNING LEARNING『学習の学習』30(2)time-traveling more, and if we do, we will be able to consider Aboriginal peoples andthe richness of their cultures from their side. This time-traveling is just the beginning:
let’s continue this journey together in the future (and also in the past).
References
Coper, A., Williams A., & Spooner. N. (August 7, 2018). Opinion When did Aboriginal people
first arrive in Australia? UNSW Sydney. Accessed April 16, 2023.
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/when-did-aboriginal-people-firstarrive-australia
DOBBYau (May 19, 2022). DOBBY - Walk Away ft. The Merindas (Official Video). Accessed
October 3, 2022. https://youtu.be/R9gHqK-BEL8
DOBBYau (March 5, 2018). DOBBY - Peregrine (Official Music Video). Accessed April 27,2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Oddm3TJgE
Healing Foundation (n.d.). Who are the Stolen Generations? Healing Foundation. Accessed
March 26, 2023.
https://healingfoundation.org.au/who-are-the-stolen-generations/
Korff, J. (February 10, 2023). Australia Day - Invasion Day. Creative Spirits. Accessed April 8,
2023. https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australia-day-invasionday
Korff, J. (April 18, 2021). About Creative Spirits. Creative Spirits. Accessed April 16, 2023.
https://www.creativespirits.info/about/
Korff, J. (July 17, 2020). What is the ‘Dreamtime’ or the ‘Dreaming’?. Creative Spirits.
Accessed October 16, 2022.
https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/spirituality/what-is-the-dreamtimeor-the-dreaming
Loo, K. (April 28, 2020). Interview // Dobby & the rise of Aboriginal Hip-Hop. Deadest.
Accessed October 3, 2022. https://deadset.press/2020/04/28/interview-dobby/
Muurrbay Aboriginal Language and Culture Co-operative (n.d.). Staff and consultants.
Accessed November 7, 2022. https://muurrbay.org.au/about-us/staff-profiles/
Sloan, J. (May 20, 2022). Filipino and Aboriginal rapper DOBBY releases new single “WalkAway”, featuring The Merindas. the AU review.com. Accessed April 8, 2023.
https://www.theaureview.com/music/filipino-and-aboriginal-rapper-dobby-releasesnew-single-walk-away-featuring-the-merindas/
State Library New South Wales (n.d.,). Story told in Gumbaynggirr. Accessed December 12,2022. https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/research-and-collections/significantcollections/indigenous-language-collection/my-weekend-pop-3
Stolen Generations' Testimonies Foundation (n.d.). Testimonies. Stolen Generations'Testimonies. Accessed April 16, 2023. https://www.stolengenerationstestimonies.com/Violata, A. (June 2, 2021). Meet Dobby, the Filipino-Aboriginal rapper calling forenvironmental action. SBS Filipino. Accessed October 3, 2022.

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/filipino/en/podcast-episode/meet-dobby-thefilipino-aboriginal-rapper-calling-for-environmental-action/uf7u4qlnx

Working with Indigenous Australians First Nations people (June, 2020). The Dreaming.
http://www.workingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/Culture_2_The_Dreaming.
html

Visual elements’ citations

Rainbow serpent & the blue bird (August 11, 2020). The Rainbow Serpent. YouTube.
Accessed November 6, 2022. https://youtu.be/T8RA7-yktM0?t=111
Violata, A. (June 2, 2021). Meet Dobby, the Filipino-Aboriginal rapper calling forenvironmental action. SBS Filipino. Accessed October 3, 2022.
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/filipino/en/podcast-episode/meet-dobby-the-filipinoaboriginal-rapper-calling-for-environmental-action/uf7u4qlnx

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