Ancient skeletons and true Australians
Australia is unique in cradling the oldest rocks and most ancient life forms on our planet (in Western Australia). It is also home to the oldest continuous human cultures, repositories of the most ancient knowledge, including principles for enduring human societies and deeply fulfilling lives.
The 1969-74 discoveries by geomorphologist Dr James Bowler that people like us – modern homo sapiens – were living around Lake Mungo in the Willandra Lakes region of Australia 40-42,000 years ago was a revelation of profound significance not only for the scientific community but for the world.
Until then, the thinking was Australia had been occupied by homo sapiens for about 10,000 years. That dovetailed nicely with the view that civilisation began emerging in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago.
But the appearance of the carefully buried, lovingly adorned skeletons of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man changed everything. Here was proof that modern humans had been living in Australia for at least 1,600 generations.
In 2017, the discovery of stone implements and ochres by Professor Chris Clarkson and his team at Madjedbebe in the Kakadu National Park pushed back human occupancy of the continent a further 25,000 years.1
It is now indisputable that modern humans are known to have been in Australia for at least 2,600 generations. During the course of those 65,000+ years, despite massive climate changes that saw the oceans rise more than 125 metres and reduce Australia’s size by about 40%, its Indigenous occupants adapted and survived.
Not only did they survive but the evidence suggests they did so without genocidal wars of conquest and control, enslaving people and pillaging their lands. Nor did they resort to exploitative environmental practices, pursuing economic gain and material well-being as the prime purpose of life.
Mungo Lady and Man’s appearance tells us loud and clear, “Now you know the truth. We were here 1,600 generations ago and our ancestors long before that. We prospered because we never deviated from following the Law carried by all people from Day One. Your mob have occupied our land for only ten generations and look at the mess you have made, not only of Country but of people’s hearts and minds. That is what happens when the principles for living proper – First Law – are not applied. We have revealed ourselves now to tell you, it’s time.”
Because the First Australians remained faithful to that Law, they could rightfully declare in 1788, “Look upon our Works, ye Mighty, and rejoice! Everything remains!” the antithesis of the words of Ozymandias, King of Kings.2
Implicit in the longevity of the First Australians’ societies and their pristine environment (see comprehensive accounts in Bill Gammage’s 2012 book, The Biggest Estate on Earth), it is not unreasonable to conclude they understood constructs for enduring societies in which people and the natural world are genuinely respected and cared for. Those constructs, their blueprint for living, are extensively explored in my 2022 book, Total Reset.3
Many are familiar with the concept of Earth Law or Natural Law, the principles operating in the natural world to maintain a balanced system, reflective of the impulse to homeostasis evident throughout our universe. First Law, however, is specifically for our species. It holds not only all elements of Earth Law but shows how people can organise to live in harmony with one another and the natural world.
According to Indigenous elders, every species has its Law, and if all adhere to it, the Earth prospers. It follows that if the planet is in trouble we need to consider the role played by the species most responsible for maintaining the balance of all life. The elders told me that species is us.
In Australia, First Law was followed generation after generation with unswerving commitment from the time it was received. None messed with the Law. According to Indigenous elders, the givers of the Law were ancestral creator beings. Though not physical entities, they had an unlimited capacity to manifest as forms and phenomena and did so. They became all that exists, including people.
Under First Law, Australia was not created as a single sovereign nation. Centralised governance was not part of the design. Instead, around 500 autonomous societies operated, each sovereign within their bio-region, with their Law, language/dialect, culture and territory, each of them interdependently connected with other societies via sophisticated cooperative, collaborative protocols.
As upholders of First Law, these were eco-centric, kin-centric, spirit-centric societies. Though each was unique, numerous commonalities bound them together, internally and externally, in an unbreakable, enduring union. Pointers to the likely commonalities are extensively examined in Total Reset. The remarkable network of songlines woven like a net across Australia is one example of the diverse mechanisms for supporting cross-cultural harmony and maintaining the well-being of the whole.
During the course of my 31-year collaboration writing Total Reset with legendary West Kimberley Law-keeper and maban4 man, Lulu (Paddy Roe, 1912-2001) and the Goolarabooloo people, it became luminously clear that the principal challenge confronting human society is the return to balance, homeostasis. It is difficult to see how that is possible without recognition and application of the principles of First Law.
Lulu was indeed among the last of his kind. His Nyikina tribal father, Bulu (also a widely respected senior Lawman and maban) was already married with kids before any non-Indigenous people entered the Kimberley region. Like Mungo Lady and Mungo Man, Bulu and Lulu’s mother – Karajarri woman, Wallia – were traditional ‘bush people’. They followed the traditional ways of their Law and culture.
It was how Lulu was raised. He carried the same mindset. There was no separation between the material and spiritual, between himself and Country. Reflecting the tenets of First Law, all was fused. The individual did not exist as a cocooned entity apart from the whole but as an integral part of an indivisible oneness. First Law is the quintessential embodiment of the oneness paradigm.
Like other traditional bushmen I knew, Lulu was adamant that the knowledge and ways of their people had been handed down unbroken from creation time. From their perspective, they were seeing, knowing and feeling as their ancestors had, going back countless generations.
As it appears such appreciations were common throughout Australia, it is not unreasonable to presume this was also very much the mindset of Mungo Lady and Man, walking the Dreaming connected in multiple ways with the totality of life, members of a vast family of many elements, physical and spiritual.
During our years of collaboration, I asked Lulu numerous times about the nature and condition of Indigenous people before the British arrived. Here is some of what he told me:
“Them days, people very contented, not speak much. No big humbug, livin’ long healthy lives, one big family together. Well, they sittin’ on the ground at the bottom of everythin’ – Bugarrigarra, the Dreamin’.5 They know who they are, where they come from an’ where they’re goin’. They know they’re part of Country like everythin’ else, not different from it. They know Country is alive, watchin’ ‘em, smellin’ ‘em, feelin’ ‘em. That’s right, livin’ Country they know. Sittin’ on the ground at the bottom of everything they can see. Yair, true people, got the whole picture, Bugarrigarra.”
“Them fellas know Country is Law, Law is Country. That’s First Law, not human-made law. Them fellas all inside that First Law. They know the number one job we got is to look after the balance of all life, everyone workin’ together, each mob lookin’ after their place. That’s number one, look after everythin’ proper way. To do that, gotta keep our liyan6 strong. Yair, then we’re connected proper. We got true feelin’, we know the Dreamin’ and work with that one.”
Them fellas know they not just a human body. They know their rayi7 come into that body before they born and they know it doesn’t die like their body. Different mobs got different names for that one but everyone got rayi, not just people. Animals, birds, fish, insects, trees, bushes, all got rayi. Those fellas who make everything (creator beings), they leave their rayi (part of their spiritual essence) everywhere during’ the makin’, like sparks from the fire. No matter where you from or who you are – whitefella, blackfella, yellafella, any kind of fella – we all under the Dreamin’, all got rayi of Country.”
If people gonna have a future, gotta learn how to walk together and know livin’ Country. That’s why we open the Lurujarri Heritage Trail, so anyone – no matter who – can walk an’ camp with our people, travellin’ the songline together. Yair, nine days with livin’ Country gonna wake up some fellas.
You gardiya (whitefellas) not listenin’. You thinkin’ you’re better than us, smarter than us. Well, with some things you’re smart fellas that’s true, but look at what you’re doin’ with Country and each other. Is that smart? Yair, we can see what happens when you’re not sittin’ on the ground at the bottom of everything, when you got no Dreamin’.
Few would disagree with the view that reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples calls for a sharing of perspectives and a blending of two ways in recognition of each having something to offer. However, an important question remains unanswered: does such reconciliation mean compromising the integrity of First Law, the post-colonial governance model continuing to override it?
Lulu and the other elders all understood that reconciliation or walking together implicitly means sharing knowledge and finding ways to accommodate everyone’s interests but NEVER in violation of First Law.
That suggests the highest priority is people being educated about First Law, positioning them to consider how it can re-emerge as the overarching law of the land, thereby enabling the return to a sustainable, equitable world. The heart of such education is diverse ways of individually and collectively connecting with Country.
Predictably, Australia’s post-colonial model of power and control with its centralised hierarchical governance structures, exploitative monetary systems, impersonal legal systems and so on has not produced the promised fair and equitable society.
Unless our heads are buried in the sand, it is evident that millions are struggling to make ends meet. Homelessness, suicides, domestic violence and mental health are relentlessly rising. Environmental degradation continues unabated, the condition of Murray-Darling Basin is just one example. And a range of species continue their trajectory to extinction due to habitat loss etcetera, 100 endemic Australian species extinct since 1788.8
When will we say enough is enough and begin considering how to replace the post-colonial model with a model that yields opposite outcomes to those mentioned?
There is no reason to believe that Mungo Lady and Mungo Man were other than traditional bush people with the knowledge, mindset and ways of those who preceded and followed them.
Like Lulu and his ancestors and descendants, they would have known themselves as spirit beings inhabiting a human body.
They would have known that all is of the Dreaming and been living in that experience, intimately connected with living Country and highly capable of managing its well-being, understanding it to be their foremost responsibility.
They would have been fully initiated into First Law, knowing their reciprocal rights and obligations towards all others while remaining very aware of the non-material entities/powers of our world, including how to work with them.
Unless they were visiting strangers, they would have identified as Barkandji/Paakantyi, Mutthi Mutthi and/or Ngiyampaa, the sovereign societies of the Willandra Lakes region. Like all other societies in Australia, these were relational/holistic societies with an egalitarian, caring and sharing, respect-based ethos.
And most certainly, they would NOT have identified as Australians but as true people, an inseparable part of the oneness reality.
No matter our country of origin, gender, age, faith or beliefs, we all live in this most extraordinary ancient land and have the opportunity to experience ourselves as true people too. Transcending nationalism, it is the deep meaning of being a true Australian, someone who knows themself as ab origine.9
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END NOTES
1. The team’s peer-reviewed findings were published in the science journal Nature in 2017.
Citation: Chris Clarkson, Zenobia Jacobs, et al., ‘Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago’, Nature, 547 (20 July 2017), pp. 306-10. www.nature.com/articles/nature22968
2. In his famous 1812 poem, Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
3. Total Reset is available as both a printed book and audiobook (narrated by Mark Coles Smith). A comprehensive overview is available on the website https//totalreset.com.au
4. Maban is the name used by Aboriginal people of the West Kimberley for a man who has access to supernatural powers of one or more ancestral beings of the Dreaming and has been endowed with the ability to utilise those powers in a variety of ways, usually in support of community well-being. The name of the female equivalent is janggungurr. Across Australia, there are a variety of names for maban such as karadji, gingin, kurdaitcha and bán-man. Commonly known as a ‘clever man’, a maban is also referred to in the literature as a ‘medicine man’ or ‘doctor’ though their functions are much broader. In the Americas, Siberia and other places, the equivalent is a shaman.
5. Bugarrigarra (‘Bu’ is pronounced ‘Boo’) is the West Kimberley Aboriginal word for the Dreaming or Dreamtime. In the literature, the various forms of spelling include Bukarikara (Akerman), Bugaregara (Muecke), Bookarrarra (Poelina), Bugarragarra (Sinatra and Murphy), Bugarigaara (Wilcox).
6. Liyan (pronounced ‘lee-an’) is a subtle energy centre in the navel region connecting the individual’s non-material self (rayi or spirit self) with the oneness reality, the Dreaming. Often referred to as ‘true feeling’, it can receive information/energy from the Dreaming and send it out. More than gut feeling or intuitive awareness, it is the power in the belly that enables one to operate beyond the limits of physical laws; the seat of spiritual power.
7. Rayi is the ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ of each created entity, formed of the spiritual essence or residue of an ancestral creator being. In the West Kimberley, a non-incarnated spirit waiting to be born as a human was traditionally referred to as a ngargalulla.
8. See the 2 December 2019 article (co-authored by six professors from the Australian National University and Charles Darwin University) in The Conversation.
9. The word ‘aborigine’ is derived from the Latin ab meaning ‘from’ and origine, ‘the original’.
© Copyright 2024 Greg Campbell
Permission is hereby granted to anyone participating in the Meeting the Dreaming process to make use of any or all of this paper in their works, providing it is appropriately cited.
Information about Meeting the Dreaming can be perused at https://meetingthedreaming.com/
