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Abstract
Drawn into a discussion of emotional environs, this paper offers up an emotional geography of the social and sensory relations that define a group’s heritage and traditional homelands. It focuses on the homelands and heritage of the Yanyuwa, the Indigenous owners of land and waters throughout the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia. This discussion provides an insight into homelands that are deemed ‘too strong to ever not be there’, recognising ‘home’ and ‘country’ as the embodiment and containment of all forms of heritage, tangible and intangible. Emotive narratives informed by cultural habit and experience are what connect people to their ancestors and homelands. I propose emotional geography, as informed by ethnoarchaeology, as a means to explore the manner in which emotions and sensory experience affect the way that cultural groups sense the substance of their past, present and future.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge those individuals who have allowed me the privilege of learning about their homelands and who have shared their personal and ancestral narratives. They are: Dinah Norman a‐Marrngawi, Annie Isaac Karrakayny, Pyro Dirdiyalma, Jemima Miller Wuwarlu, Rosie Noble Wundirrimara, Thelma Douglas Walwalmara, Amy Friday Bajamalanya, Dinny McDinny Nyilba, Billy Miller Rijirrngu, Gordon Lansen Milyindirri, Roddy Harvey Bayuma‐Birribalanja, Roddy Friday Mayalkarri, Nancy McDinny, Leanne Norman Wulamala and Rex Norman.
Notes
[1] Davidson and Milligan, ‘Embodying Emotion Sensing Space’, 524.
[2] Throughout this paper, the term homeland is used to refer to all aspects of heritage. Homeland, home or ‘country’ are terms that encapsulate the tangible and intangible elements of cultural heritage and expression for Indigenous Australians. The term ‘country’ represents another way of expressing homeland, and denotes land and sea territories. It is a term commonly adopted by Indigenous Australians and reflects the Yanyuwa view that the land and sea are not separate. As Yanyuwa woman Dinah Norman a‐Marrngawi states, ‘country is all country’.
[3] Bradley, ‘Li‐Anthawirriyarra, People of the Sea’, 177.
[4] Bradley et al., ‘Yanyuwa Wuka: Language from Yanyuwa Country’; Bradley, ‘Li‐Anthawirriyarra, People of the Sea’; Kirton and Timothy, ‘Yanyuwa Concepts Relating to Skin’.
[5] For the Yanyuwa, ‘their lives, society and land are held by what they classify as Law or the Way, which in Yanyuwa is called narnu‐Yuwa’, Bradley, ‘Li‐Anthawirriyarra, People of the Sea’, 145–146. This Law originates from the actions of the spirit ancestors, makes relative the past and the present, and structures all life and meaning within Yanyuwa ‘country’ as inclusive of the natural world, ancestral elements and human beings.
[6] Davidson and Milligan, ‘Embodying Emotion Sensing Space’, 524.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Cloke et al., Introducing Human Geographies; Hayes‐Bohanan, ‘What is Environmental Geography, Anyway?’ Available at http://webhost.bridgew.edu/jhayesboh/EnvironmentalGeography.htm (accessed 3 September 2007); Pattison, ‘The Four Traditions of Geography’.
[10] Davidson et al., Emotional Geographies.
[11] Darvill, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology, 136; David and Kramer Ethnoarchaeology in Action.
[12] Kearney, ‘An Ethnoarchaeology of Engagement’, 274.
[13] Deacon et al., The Subtle Power of Intangible Heritage.
[14] UNESCO, ‘Text of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage’. Available at http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00022 (accessed 28 August 2007).
[15] Bondi et al., ‘Introduction: Geography’s Emotional Turn’, 1.
[16] Crossley, The Politics of Subjectivity, 9.
[17] Ibid., 14.
[18] Merleau‐Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception; Crossley, The Politics of Subjectivity, 14.
[19] Gordon Lansen Milyindirri in Kearney, [2003—Unpublished Fieldnotes].
[20] Munn, ‘The Transformation of Subjects’, 145.
[21] Baker, ‘Coming‐In: Yanyuwa as a Case Study in the Geography of Contact History’, 41.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Dinah Norman a‐Marrngawi translated in Bradley, Yanyuwa Country, 47.
[24] Bradley, ‘The Social, Economic and Historical Construction of Cycad Palms’.
[25] Kearney and Bradley, ‘Too Strong to Ever Not Be There’.
[26] Bradley, ‘The Social, Economic and Historical Construction of Cycad Palms’.
[27] Bradley, pers. comm. 2007.
[28] Mussolini Harvey, in Bradley [1994—Unpublished Fieldnotes].
[29] Bradley et al., ‘Yanyuwa Wuka: Language from Yanyuwa Country’.
[30] Ibid., 316.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Langton, ‘The Edge of the Sacred’, 302; Bradley ‘Fire, Emotion and Politics’. Burning practices involve the regular use of fire to burn vegetation to enable hunting and modification of the physical environment. These practices have an incredibly long history of use in Australia; see Jones, ‘Fire Stick Farming’.
[33] Langton, ‘The Edge of the Sacred’, 301.
[34] Bradley, ‘Fire, Emotion and Politics’.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Dinah Norman a‐Marrngawi pers. comm. 2007.
[37] Seton and Bradley, ‘When You Have No Law You Are Nothing’, 206.
[38] See note 3; Seton and Bradley, ‘When You Have No Law You Are Nothing’.
[39] Clara Bob, 1990 in Seton and Bradley, ‘When You Have No Law You Are Nothing’.
[40] Bradley, ‘Li‐Anthawirriyarra, People of the Sea’, 150.
[41] Bradley et al., ‘Yanyuwa Wuka: Language from Yanyuwa Country’, 231, 310.
[42] Bradley pers. comm. 2007.
[43] Bradley et al., ‘Yanyuwa Wuka: Language from Yanyuwa Country’, 271.
[44] Ibid., 180, 262.
[45] Ibid., 226.
[46] Pyro Dirdiyalma, 1998 in Bradley, ‘The Social, Economic and Historical Construction of Cycad Palms’, 175.
[47] Bradley pers. comm. 2007.
[48] Langton, ‘The Edge of the Sacred’, 293.
[49] Sharp, Saltwater People, 54.
[50] Bondi et al., ‘Introduction: Geography’s Emotional Turn’, 1.
[51] Ibid., 2.