Recently Hugo & Treats were invited to Minjerribah, the island known also as North Stradbroke Island. We were struck by the intense natural beauty of the location and the rich living culture of the Aboriginal tribes there, who form part of the Quandamooka People. Both are vivid reminders of what life and land were like prior to European invasion, and what they could be like again, with a little respect, intelligence and care. I decided to write a poetic postcard from there and recite it over one of Treats's latest blends.
lyrics
there is a voice on the wind, where the elements breathe in,
stop for a second and hear it tenderly speaking
where the tendrils are creeping in the scent of the evening,
whispering delicately from the depths of the dreaming
telling the deeds of the first peoples to step on these beaches
first walk these forests and first venerate these creatures
first weave the stories and songs of the dolphins the dugongs
dance to the constellations at night, through dawn til the dew gone
keeping tradition strong and alive on this island around and near
harmonising with nature's abundant sounds and cheer
even conservative estimates thus pronounced it clear
sustainable civilisation once abounded here for at least twenty one
thousand years
but this here ain't some kind of Quantum future
this is the lives of the tribes on the island of Minjerribah in Quandamooka
and it still lingers and thrives, two centuries since Flinders arrived
and they helped him survive,
though he was a harbinger of genocide, Quarantine, an asylum and
the very sands of time getting strip mined
I cannot walk
For my legs are broken
But I have to, have to find you
my ancestors stepped in from the cloisters
with cannons and shells, and scriptures to prove the world was our
oyster
that land without agriculture was Terra Nullius
but labelling a whole continent thus, when it was evidently tended
for millennia to tender effortless nourishment in tremendous abundance
never worried us
even as the sand miners destroyed the twenty millennia-amassed
middens
from those buried oyster shells, pearls of wisdom were arising
in the stanzas written
by Oodgeroo Noonuccal who viewed this brutal funeral
and channelled her passion into a miracle of beautiful rage on the
page like Mirapool
with word winds to call and tempests of intellect to scream
for freedom, leading her to be lauded but not heeded yet by the Queen
because it seems we didn't see the people and creeds we
attempted to bury and terminate
were actually potent seeds eventually ready to germinate
and even the sheer volume of tears over the years can't stop this
type of woman and man grow
and they emerge through salt water like Capembah Spring or mangrove
digging roots deep, seedlings to trees, as that voice speaks,
these peoples
catch thermals with ease and soar like sea eagles
40 lakes I’d wade through
But my boat it was taken too
By who I cannot tell you
For they took my tongue too
that stage was final, now they make a rise as inevitable as waves in tidals
even recently campaigning and succeeding in gaining Native Title
resurrecting their culture, warming their hands on the flames of the bible
and reconnecting with the names, frames and veins of the tribal
feeling the abundant vibrant eternal soul spin
And in the same way that the fishermen collaborated with dolphins
by squeaking the sand under the sea so it called them in
and together they could catch more, and share it with those porpoises
, to co-create that freedom may well be what our purpose is
I set out toward it
But this damn door won’t open
Well then how to find you?
that voice belongs to Unborn generations that peer through the mist and
stare at ya
of what type of Earth will your offspring be the inheritor
will we give the terror of a ravaged planet with inhospitable temperature
or adopt similar sustainable ways to the peoples of Minjerribah
I gave up walking
Took a blade to get it open
Now I think I
Think I
Found
You
Odjeroo Nunuccal: I heard the voices of my people
And every time I heard a story like that
I went home and I wrote a poem about it
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