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ISIS Report 30/08/07
The Return of the Whale Dreamers
What connects British actor Kim Kindersley to a dispossessed aboriginal
tribe to the musician Julian Lennon? A powerful new film documenting a gathering
of indigenous and tribal leaders that explores the profound connection between
whales, dolphins and humanity. Sam
Burcher
Imagine what it would be like if your family home had been leased out to another
family for ninety-nine years because the Government has made them homeless.
This is the helpless and frustrating situation that the Mirning, an aboriginal
tribe from South Australia dating back 100 000 years, have found themselves in. During
the 1950s the British
Government, with the compliance of Australian officials, made Miralinga (a rural
outpost of South Australia) a nuclear test site. It
is uninhabitable to this day because of high levels of radiation. The aborigines
that survived the fallout were relocated to the traditional lands and coastal
whale sites belonging to the Mirning, which has become a source of conflict
between the two tribes.
Bunna Lawrie, the Mirning’s
song man explains that besides losing their land, the tribe is disconnected
from their sacred totem animal the whale. A painful memory for the Mirning
is the boats arriving when their waters were opened to whaling. “It was like
watching our children being killed,” he says. The film also documents the
genocide of indigenous aboriginal cultures through the eyes of Mirning elders.
Margaret Lawrie describes the impact of “The Great Australian Silence” when
the Europeans arrived and the aborigines were herded
into reservations and forced to leave their cultures behind. Iris Bourgoyne,
a radiant woman whose features defy her age remembers the “The Lost Generation”
as a time when zealous missionaries took aborigines into servitude. Iris implies
that her own experience of service was less than pleasant. She recalls the diseases brought
in by the outsiders such as influenza,
which killed many more aborigines.
Kim Kindersley, the film’s
writer and director, made his first connection with a dolphin when he went
to Ireland in search of his ancestral roots. He had travelled
there to reflect on his “successful life” in London as actor, homeowner, and
partner in a stable relationship.
After swimming with a lone dolphin in Dingle Bay on Ireland’s
West Coast, known to the locals as Fungie, he gave up acting and embarked
on a journey of researching dolphins and whales around the world. Kim’s promotional
film “The Dolphin’s Gift” was sent around to indigenous tribal leaders and
caught the attention of Bunna Lawrie who invited him to witness a whale calling ceremony.
A
ceremony at Whale Rock
Kim and Bunna go to perform
the ceremony at Whale Rock on the Great Australian
Bight, which is shaped
like a whale’s tail. Legend
has it that the Head of the Bight is the gateway to the stars and to the aboriginal
dreamtime that connects their deepest collective memories of past, present,
and future together in one dream. So intertwined is Mirning life with the
whale that when they die, Bunna says, “It is with the whale that we return
to the Morning Star.” In a heart-stopping moment, we see Kindersley framed
against the golden rocks and azure blue of the Bay as a magnificent Southern
right whale rises out of the waves and roars in response to Bunna’s song.
It comes to within metres of where Kim stands to his obvious delight. Bunna
and Kim send this footage out as a video invitation to a Gathering of indigenous
elders and whale tribes around the world to greet the whales at the Head of
the Bight and to share their ceremonies and spiritual traditions.
The
Gathering of indigenous cultures
The Gathering gets off to a bad start. The colourful procession of the
85 tribal leaders heads to the Bight, but when they arrive, they see that
a high wooden platform has been erected for a crowd of paying tourists to
watch the whales. An elder sends out her whale call and within minutes they
appear amid cheers from the spectators. But Bunna, Kim and their guests are
quickly ushered off the platform and told they are banned from performing
ceremony on the Bight. The mood of the Gathering plummets as the promise
of greeting the whales is lost and the pain of the Mirning intensifies. The
Yolngu aborigines from North Australia’s Elko Island, in a gesture
of support, suggest a secret whale initiation ceremony some 30 kilometres
from the Bight. They paint the men with white ochre to imitate the symmetrical
bleached barnacle like markings on the southern right whale. Bunna is daubed with
a whale tale in yellow ochre on his whitened chest signifying that he is the
“Whale Dreamer”. The Yolngu lead the Gathering to the cliff’s edge where they
dance and chant to the drone of a didjeridu and rhythm sticks. The grace
and power of the Yolngu elder is stunning. They gesture Bunna and the others
back from the edge of the cliff saying that no whale has come. The Gathering
is again struck with disappointment and despair.
But suddenly,
a great roar is heard, a whale surfaces in the sea below, and jubilant shouts
go up from the Gathering now dancing
with joy and relief. The Gathering has witnessed the Mirning
tribe’s reconnection with the whale.
Indigenous tribes struggle against extinction
As the Gathering comes together, we meet other remarkable leaders from
indigenous tribes all
over the world. Alberta Thompson is an elder and a lone voice from the Makah,
a Pacific American North West tribe whose younger members are killing the
friendly grey whales with guns. She has come to the Gathering to share her
sadness and to find strength. She says that the FBI have been to her home
asking why she protests against the slaughter of whales. Terry Freitas is
an interpreter for the U’Wa tribe, one of the last remaining indigenous cultures
of the pristine Cloud Forest of the Amazon. He is a young and thoughtful
man who sits in quiet companionship with tribal leader who says through Terry that there is a threat of
mass suicide and extinction within the U’wa tribe if the Occidental Oil Company
takes one more step into their land. He tells the Gathering that they would
rather die with dignity than see their land exploited, and they mean it one
hundred percent. Terry Freitas leads the Gathering in the concluding ceremony by translating the
words of the U’wa tribe’s song that has never been heard outside the Amazon
Forest. He says:“This song is about unifying creation; this song is about
humans, this song is about all the fish of the sea, animals, birds, everything
together. This song is about sharing different cultures, understanding and
a way of thinking that makes my heart glad. This song is about everything
in the world. This is a song that is the heart of our work that is about our
very being. And this is a song that we cannot forget. If we forgot this song,
the world will end.”
Tribe
interpreter murdered in Columbia
Some time after the Gathering, Buna and Kim receive the news that Terry
Freitas and his two female indigenous colleagues were kidnapped by hooded
men on the road to the airport in Columbia and executed. Both
are crushed by the news and do not speak to each other for five years. The happy end to this story
is that the U’wa tribe has used
their song to push back the Occidental Oil Company, which withdrew their operations.
The second
half of the film brings into focus the global atrocities that have ushered
in the new century such as the Iraq war, 9/11, the Tsunami, increased natural
resource depletion, and climate change. In contrast, the global phenomenon of social movements
feature strongly in the film as a powerful force for change in the world and
for peace. It is apparent that Kim believes we must all learn to work together if
we are to come back from the edge of extinction ourselves. The colourful and
united spirit of the peace protests fires Bunna and Kim to finish the project.
We share Bunna’s exciting journey to complete his initiation and as he sings
his Whale Dreamer’s song across Australia. Stories of the Gathering attract
media interest. Julian Lennon flies to Melbourne to meet the Mirning, and
is so inspired by their struggle and the gift they give him that he agrees
to co-produce the film and to provide the soundtrack. The Whale Dreamer’s
song imparts a vital message to us all. Bunna says: “People of the world need
to reconnect, back to the fire, back to the land, back to the dreaming and
nature, back to the beginning. Before it’s too late.”
Blood
in the ocean
Kim Kindersley shows us the brutal reality that has befallen millions
of whales and dolphins at the hands
of the human species. Greenpeace‘s heroic effort in turning
global public opinion against the systematic decimation of fragile whale populations
receives high praise. The scenes of whales being harpooned and dragged alongside
the whaling boats, as blood spilt into the oceans are images you will never forget.
As the whale populations have slowly recovered so has the spiritual strength
of the Mirning. In turn, the Mirnings struggle to reconnect with the past
has brought forward a spirit of reconciliation and peace with the aborigine
tribes that share their land and their dreaming.
The return of the Whale
Dreamers was ten years in the making and has already won a clutch of prestigious
awards at international film festivals. It deserves global attention for its support
of restraining commercial whaling and other destructive activities, and its
insistence that the traditional cultures of the indigenous tribes, which depend
on living in harmony with nature for their survival must be given due recognition
and respect. Our very futures depend on it.
This experiential film is
crammed full of examples of beautifully framed myths, legends, and prophesies
of many traditional cultures.
These stories have tremendous power. Kim meets Credo Mutwa,
a traditional Zulu healer (see Can
Traditional Medicine Help AIDS? [1].), who makes the link between humanity
and whales and dolphins explicit. “The dolphin is the symbol of man’s reconnection
to nature and to God who is the whale. Therefore, go down to the beach and
dream your dreams with the dolphins and the whales,” he says.
The Gathering, the return of the Whale
Dreamers is written and directed by Kim Kindersley, and
is a Julian Lennon Production. Released in UK cinemas in November 2007.See
also www.whaledreamers.com;
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/save-our-seas-2/save-the-whales
Reference
1. Burcher S. Can traditional medicine help aids? Science in Society 22, 40-43, 2004.
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