March 3, 2025 • 53 mins
Join us for a thought-provoking yarn with Bundjalung woman Ella Noah Bancroft, a storyteller, artist, and activist reshaping the conversation around decolonisation, community, and Indigenous-led solutions. Ella shares her journey of growing up on Country, the wisdom of her matriarchal lineage, and how she has dedicated her life to reclaiming First Nations ways of being.
We explore the transformative power of women-centred societies, the role of food and land sovereignty in healing our communities, and the importance of rest as an act of resistance against colonial capitalism. Through her work with The Returning, Ella is creating spaces where women can reconnect with cultural knowledge, challenge oppressive systems, and nurture future generations. This episode is an inspiring call to action to rethink the way we live, lead, and connect.
To connect with Ella further:
Follow her on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/ellanoahbancroft_/
Get all other links here: https://linktr.eeellanoahbancroft_
Follow Caroline on Instagram:
@blak_wattle_coaching and learn more about working with Caroline here.
We would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri/Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nation where this podcast was taped, and pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders, past, present, and emerging across Australia.
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www.ontrackstudio.com.au
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Quae Cast Unite our voices. This podcast is brought to
you by on Track Studio. Welcome to Yannier, the podcast
that showcases First Nations stories and conversations to help us
(00:24):
learn and unlearn Australia's history to work towards a better future.
I'm your host, proud barber woman and founder of Blackwattel
Coaching and Consulting, Caroline cow We acknowledge the Runderi people
and elders where this podcast is taped, but we also
(00:47):
acknowledge the lands that you are listening in from today.
It always was and always will be unseated aboriginal and
tourist Red Islander Land. Well, I'm super grateful for today's guest.
I had the privilege of connecting with Allah Noah Bancraft
(01:08):
a couple of years ago at a retreat and I
just left feeling so inspired by their gentle but fierce
honesty in how you know they see the world and
challenge us to think about our places in the world.
And so yeah, it's an incredible honor and privilege today
(01:28):
to be sitting down with Alan Noah Bancroft. Thank you
so much for being here, my sis, and welcome to yarning.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Up dingy lasses.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, as we always do on this show. It's beautiful
to just sort of check in and ground ourselves with
person and place. So I'm wondering if you could introduce
yourself how you'd like to be introduced?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Sure, elegaate. My name is Ella.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I'm a proud andreline woman from the northern New South
Wales region and also have ties to Scotland and Poland
on my maternal line. Currently run an indigenous charity here
on country and privilege to work and play and live
on my ancestral lands.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Beautiful and beautiful country there, Bundolong country as well.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
You're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I'm a bit biased, you know. I always think it's paradise.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Fat No, it really is so lovely up there, and
I imagine that, you know, the country there would sort
of like shape, you know, really deeply. Yeah, some of
the places and spaces that you are because you're just
surrounded by lush and green and moving with the seasons,
I imagine there.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, And Bungelin is also you know where the five rivers.
We've got five major rivers that run through. It's where freshwater, meat, saltwater,
and also first light it's the most easily point of Australia.
So like literally the sun Yelgin hits that part of
Joggon Country first and foremost, but we're with anywhere else
(03:01):
on the continent.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Wow. So what time is the sun rising there for
you follows.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's around six ish. Yeah. Yeah, we've got some long days.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I mean, because we're quite close up to the Queensland border,
we've definitely got longer days.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
But I feel like they're longer and now.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
M Yeah, I think that's just because the seasons are
very abrupt here and everyone's just working their holes. Also,
everything feels long and drawn out and gray.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Good lays.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So you're born and raised on your country, on your homelands.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I was actually born in Gadagall Country and my mom
and my dad moved there in the early eighties and
mum had a home birth with me and my brother
because you know, in our family line, hospitals have never
been a safe place to birth. I'm not let alone
a safe place for our family, so she birthed us
there and both our placentas are buried somewhere in the
(03:55):
inner West of Syday. But when I was about just
before I turned five, we moved back up to country
and then you know, had a lot of like my
primary school life being raised here, and we've always been
deeply connected and come home all the time my whole life.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, how special and how special to hear that you
were brought into this world in a home birth. I
think that's just so beautiful and so special. So born
on Gadigall. Your placenter's there in the Inner West. I'm
actually pregnant at the moment, and I've been thinking about
what i want to do with my placenter, and I
think I'm still deciding, but I think I'm going to
put it in some capsules and eat it back in
(04:34):
my body.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
I hear, that's really good for you.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
My younger sister, we drove we actually kept her pleasenter
in the freezer for like ten months and then drove
it up in an eski from Sydney.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
To Banjoe and buried it on our ancestral land.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
How special, Oh my goodness, the legacies continue.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Well, you know you you carry the stories as you
save many bloodlines. Bundelung woman Scottish Polish. I mean I'm
keen to sort of understand a bit more about Yeah,
your personal story and you know what it was like
for you growing up.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, I guess as a mixed raced woman. But living
in Australia and growing up with my community both on Gatigol,
I was always around a big Indigenous community there when
I was growing up, and also on Bunjelung. I've always
identified a lot with my indigenous side. But as I
got older, I started to realize that, like if I
wanted other people to not claim the colony and the
(05:30):
immature culture we called Australia, I also needed to re
establish a relationship with my ancestors on that Polish and
Scottish side. And as I actually dive deeper into understanding
some research, I've actually became like, I'm really proud of
my Scottish side. I feel like the Scots were really
fierce in not only fighting colonization and their indigenous people
(05:53):
were called the Pinks.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
But they feel like real.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Warriors and like tied in with my Bungelung ancestors. I
feel like that's what gives me the kind of fire
to walk through the world that I do. I do
hope one day to do some kind of pilgrimage with
my mum and my sister back to that place, and
I always kind of tend to go more with my
maternal sign.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Because it feels, it just feels the truest.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
For me to be claiming that those ancestral lines. But
that's just for me.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, so beautiful to hear that and hear about Yeah,
your early experiences. Yeah, it's interesting I sort of share
a similar sort of Definitely, it's very resonant. I grew
up with an aboriginal mom, single mom, and didn't really
know my dad and way up until later in life,
until I was, you know, my late twenties, and my
mom's aboriginal. My dad is yes, Scottish English, And yeah,
(06:44):
similarly went on like a path after he passed away,
just being like, what is this white side of me?
And how do I reconcile my whiteness? I guess or
try to understand that and how it's located and defined?
And yeah, it was really painful because we came across
like all these links between colonizers of course and our mob.
(07:05):
But then also yeah, kind of similarly saw that they
were fierce anti colonial warriors fighting the resistance, and so
sometimes I'm like, oh, is this my white side, it's
my black side, who knows. But there's this real strong
sense of fight and justice and resolve on both of
our sides, and it's yeah, it's nice to sort of
(07:26):
make space for them all in some ways.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, And also like I think I hope to inspire
or encourage other people to do their own ancestual work.
Like I feel like, as indigenous people in this country,
every day we get up and we research more about
our families and our culture because it was almost taken
from us, you know, So every day we're relearning or
learning or getting given the knowledge systems passed down to us.
(07:53):
But it's not just like that all just came to us.
And so I feel like other people should step into
that space too and reclaim the ancestors. I recently found
that that we carry fourteen generations in our body, which
equates to sixty five plus thousand ancestors, like their cellular
memory is carried within our body. And for me, I'm like,
(08:16):
how could you just call yourself austrayan? It just seems
like such an injustice.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
To all of those people who fought so hard to
get you to this place, to be here right now.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And I don't know if anybody knows my work, but
I'm not the greatest fan of the colony too, And
I think one of the ways that we can really
resist it is by not identifying with it.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh my god, there's so much to sort of like
unpack there. But I mean, firstly, sixty five thousand ancestors,
doesn't that give you, like, when you're walking into a room,
especially as a black follow that legitimacy of who you are,
to know that you carry, that you carry those stories
and that strength and that love and reciprocity and that fight.
(08:55):
But yeah, you're so right, And I feel like that's
really where we're at right now in terms of like
what we're seeing here and global is that there is
just countries forge in denial of who they are and
how they've come to be, and that it's so people
almost divorced of themselves. They're divorced of community, and they
(09:17):
would much rather sit in this like very comfortable manufactured
sense of nationalism't it, instead of really doing that inner
work and thinking about themselves. And yeah, you're right, we
sort of have to do that as well and honor that.
But yeah, people are just so incredibly disconnected from all
(09:38):
of those ancestors and their stories and then and it's
quite sad in some ways. Hey, like as much as
it really puts it, you get real wild at it.
There's a part of me that just bes like these
more be hurting, you.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Know for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And also you know, it's something in the like, how
do we retrace the unified story that the colony or
colonization and capitalism doesn't actually benefit us, not just mob
but us as a society. You know, For me, I
feel like until we peel back those layers and find
that unifying story of serious disconnect which you know, the
(10:13):
doctrine of discovery is one of the seed letters for
colonization and how they took over so many indigenous lands
across the globe. But this was happening back in Europe too,
when they brought in the commons and they started taking
and discolocating people from their lands. So when we reclaim
that and our ancestry, we say a big fuck you too,
(10:34):
or I don't.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Know if I can say that, but yeah, you can.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
You the money, because.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
This isn't just our story, but we are touched by
it because it's much closer to home, because we sit
at the table with our NaN's and our aunties and
our uncles and our brothers who are still impacted by
colonization today.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
So so true.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You know, building on that, I saw that you wrote
a think tank recently around this topic, and it's something
I sort of had the privilege of being us to
sort of think about too. And yeah, it's interesting, like
for for the first time in maybe a long time,
and it's an awful it's an awful symptom of the
colony and the centuries of harm across civilizations which we
(11:13):
have seen that for the first time in a long time,
it feels like indigenous like long standing issues of indigenous
sovereignty and legitimacy are no longer just aboriginal issues indigenous
issues anymore. And we're seeing it in climate action, in
action crime, We're seeing it in like economic collapse, fossil
(11:37):
fuel greed. We're seeing you know, this hyper individualization and
relationship to imperialism affecting all people from all walks of life.
And you're right, it's almost like we've been knocking on
the doors and screaming into the abyss and all these
things on looking at this from this holistic perspective, just
(11:58):
so like the colony is making us all unwell and
it kind of feels like they're is a growing momentum
in this space.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I'd love to sort of talk a little.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Bit around you know, what has led you on this
path to having these conversations about you know, decolonization and
trying to reclaim and return back to our practices, you
know where there's some moments in your journey that really
led to that. And yeah, I guess these sort of
conversations help with this bigger, growing, expansive movement which we're
(12:31):
seeing right now as well.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think definitely the juxtaposition of being
born in gadagl and I don't really remember that much,
you know, of my younger childhood, but being back on
country with my community and we live an hour and
a half northwest of Grafton, where my ancestral lands by
Jagama from and just being in that space of like,
(12:52):
you know, we lived off grid before off grid was trendy,
and we had our big washpool river that provided everything
for us water, food, entertainment, play, and we got by
that place all the time and we still do as
a family. But actually having that lived experience of growing
up really disconnected in a way from the dominant society
(13:12):
and much more embedded in land based connection and community.
And not to romanticize either, because you know, we also
in northern New South Wales impacted here very heavily by
massacres and the invaders coming through in the late eighteen hundreds,
so it was still a mission that was created there.
But you know the essence of just being with my
(13:33):
family and just making a fire and swimming in the
creek was so simple. And then when I kind of
went back to Gadigul, I was like overwhelmed by the city,
you know, and also just really this juxtaposition between Sydney
and like couldn't get more remote and rule New South Wales.
And I think that is probably like the first seed
(13:55):
of when I started to realize the difference between these
two very opposing cultures that were trying to coexist in
the same continent. And then obviously growing up, like my
mother is a very strong black artist and activist, and
my whole life has always kind of you know, told
us who we are and ensured that we've remained connected
to our ancestral lands, our culture, and our family, because
(14:18):
she didn't ever want us to just assimilate into what
was the wider culture. And so I think I've always
been really rebellious because of her in that way, and
then finishing school, which, like you know, I was horrible
at school. I had dyslexia. I was like put in
special ed classes and I hated it. I hated the
whole concept of the Western institution. And so when I
(14:39):
finally broke free of that, I actually ended up at
Sydney UNI, but I was just going there to socialize,
like the little Geminiam. I got out of UNI there
to work for my brother's organization AIM and again just
you know, trying to support our younger people with an
amazing model when he first started that, you know, really
just going into schools and helping high school students. But
(15:02):
again I just felt like this isn't the way for me.
It's not the way to try and get our kids
in those spaces.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
For me.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I'm like, we need to actually make society realize how
valuable our culture is and how valuable our cultural leaders are.
And I guess I kind of disassociated for most of
my twenties from Australia and didn't really want to be here. Actually,
I found the culture quite repulsive in many ways and
didn't feel like it had a lot of substance, especially
(15:32):
coming from where I've come from. And I think travel
really put a lot of things in perspective. I started
just hitchhiking my way around the world and Mexico, Guatemala,
ended up on the west coast of the States, and
then met a really beautiful Native American brother and he
actually introduced me to the concept of decolonizing, and that
(15:53):
was kind of like maybe fifteen years back now, and
I think he kind of planted that seed for me,
and then I started to kind of investigate it, and
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
They were really progressive of there a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Of the native indigenous mob over there, so I was
kind of sitting with them and seeing what they were
talking about, and then come back home and then started
exploring that through just recognizing, wow, this is such a juxtaposition,
and actually if everyone returned to these more like earth
based indigenous ways, we would not only be healthier, but
country would be singing. You know, she would be in
(16:25):
a day of joy again, because I really do think
the colony is built on us being disconnected from not
only the country, but ourselves and each other and it's
also a culture that glorifies greed and status. And so
this is what we communicate to our young people. We say,
we see you when you are greedy and you hold
(16:45):
and you accumulate wealth and you put yourself above others.
And we also see you when you place yourself above
another being and think you're better than And what I
got taught with the law of the Land is like,
you don't think you're better than anything, including the jari,
the trees, you know, the animals that coexist with us.
And I think this culture is just so dangerous because
(17:07):
of these values and belief systems that are really embedded
in such a young age to many of us, you know,
especially if we went through the Western education system and
didn't question it.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Wow, gosh, so fascinating to hear that. Yeah, I guess
you know, tracing back, so your early life was living
on country, living in pretty humble, beautiful spiritual place in beginnings,
and I guess how that sort of like transcends the
lessons of your mom, understand Bronwan Bancruft, Your mom, Yeah, deadly,
(17:40):
and just that sort of that early experience, like you say,
living on country, off grid before it was kind of trending,
and then I guess, yeah, interesting to hear that you
had to abandon all that you sort of had learned
in search for something that you didn't quite know you
needed until you found it. And even even the language.
I mean, it's interesting decolonization in a way too, because
(18:00):
it still does very much center the colony, isn't it.
It's still using that language. But so I imagine coming
to this realization, meeting this beautiful person, but first and foremost,
going on that real journey for yourself in naming your
experience would be pretty pretty powerful. I want to just
quickly ask about your mom. You know, what lessons do
you think your mom sort of instilled in you in
(18:21):
this sort of conversation as well?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Oh my god, she's like everything.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
She's my greatest mentor my biggest teacher, my best friend,
sometimes my daughter sometimes, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
What a journey we've been on.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
My mom was also a single mom.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
She also had my sissy eleven years apart, so I
was her birthing partner and I helped bring my sissy
out of my mom and cut her in bilical cord.
And we've just had such a life together, like She's
taught me everything, and she is the reason I am
the woman I am today.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
You know, I.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Always say to people, I was raised by a proud Indigenous,
independent single woman, and that's how I feel now that
I'm an adult.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
My mom always to me, you never through action, not
just through.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Words, but you never value your worth in the gaze
of whoever your partner is. You know, you don't look
for somebody else to tell you what you are and
who you are. You find that within yourself. She always
taught me to be grassroots and never go too big.
She always taught me, I never rise until I bring
my community with me. And even just getting the privilege
(19:26):
of being able to be raised around her storytelling through
her visual artwork and the Indigenous community that welcomed u
Song Gadigl and you know, made us family, was just.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
The best experience. Like, I'm so stoked that I picked
ITR to be my mum.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I really also only ever seen her work so hard.
You know, she doesn't really take holidays, and not that
I think that's a good thing, but her fight is
for her people and know her stories and keeping our
culture really strong and alive, even in the face of
growing up in a small country town where there wasn't
actually many other Indigenous families either, you know, So I
(20:07):
just she's everything to me, and I don't know like
other people who are listening. You know, when you have
an Indigenous mother, it's like they are everything for you.
In the colony, they tend to disregard their elders. But
my mom is going to be by my side until
the day she goes, and I will be looking after
her the way she looked after me, because that is
(20:28):
what the reciprocity of relationships look like.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well, she sounds like a pretty fierce and loving and
staunt person and has instilled some beautiful values in you.
And I'd love to sit around the campfire with someone
like you and your mum one day, because yeah, I
can only imagine the yarns and that sharing and reciprocity
that shared. Yeah, and I think it's such a powerful
(20:51):
act of resistance to raise strong black kids, our jar gems.
You know, we are trying to seek love in a
world that doesn't really love us that and so it's
so powerful to to raise self assured and strong and
loving black kids. So good on, your mum did a
great job, and it's funny, my daughter's actually going to
(21:14):
be a Gemini.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
So good ways.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Because we got a bad rap, but it's just because
we're mutable and we can flou in every single space.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I heard and also really talkative I hear, and I'm like,
oh god, I love ya. So my partner might I hear.
My partner's really quiet, and so I was like, look, our.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Little Gemini and me going to come and tear things up.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I guess, you know, it's not really a segue, but
more kind of you know, thinking about this concept of decolonization.
I think, you know, we've got a lot of listeners,
a lot of people from international and also our mobs,
you know, who really proudly champion this show and shout
out to all of them listening, and we love your lots.
But you know, I guess a lot of us are
(21:58):
moving in spaces where people like the narratives or the
ideology decolonization is ever evolving and shifting and how we
think about it, particularly in light of what we are
seeing right now, which is, you know, as we've touched
on these global ills, and you know, our existence and
our resistance and us and our stories and our knowledge
(22:21):
is really helping to sort of reimagine and shape societies
is so incredibly important right now. But you know, what
does decolonizing things mean for you? Like, what does because
I feel like you're actually my take is that you're
walking the truth. You live this every day. You know,
you're still living in communal living in a country. It's
(22:43):
not necessarily a construct that feels out of reach for you,
because it's something you've just always lived and known to
be true. But for many, like urbanized black fellows, who
are wanting to live in a decolonized way, there's this tension,
I guess, between the opposing paradigms in which we sit.
And so, yeah, what does decolonization mean for you? And
(23:03):
how does it sort of like shape your interactions and
your relationships with the world.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yeah, it's interesting because you know, I think I was
kind of talking about decolonization ten or something years ago
in my writings. I've seen it pick up and have
this momentum. And what normally happens with these kinds of
movements is they get co opted, right, we see it
all the time, and suddenly there's non indigenous people doing
decolonial workshops and it kind of takes away the point
(23:32):
of indigenous, lad, and I agree with you, it still
centers the colony. I've been a bit more resistant actually
to using it, and actually decided kind of last year
to move into more like the word of like indigenized,
like how do we indigenize, because again that centers that,
but also it centers the people whose land you're on,
who are the most oppressed by the system. They didn't
(23:53):
have a choice of it. They didn't choose to go
to a land. They stayed there and they were forcibly
removed and their culture was attempted to be taken from them.
So I feel like indigenizing, indigenizing our way of living
is about like reclamation of our true purpose here.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
On this planet.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
And that is really like getting out of this mindset
that capitalism and capitalistic views, which are intrinsically tied to
the colony, are somehow what.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
We need to do in order to succeed.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
And so things like it's interestingly you say, like with
the urban Blackfells, like there might be in a struggle,
But I grew up with this family, the boss Stocks,
and they grew they.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Had a tiny little house in Tempe.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
You feed me your boss Stock with the matriarch, or
when I was little, it was Nanny Bosstock, her mother,
and they had five generations living in one tiny house,
you know, and they still all live in that house
and their cared for. Every matriarch is that matriarch passed
away in the same room and we just barb and
you feed me.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
A boss stock last year. But she passed away.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
In the same room that her My mother passed away
with her daughters looking after her and her grannies around her,
and they're still in that home. And for me, I'm like,
that is indigenizing your way of being within the concept
of the urban's landscape because it's a matriarchal household, one
where the elders are cared for, many generations living under
(25:23):
one roof which it actually is very indigenous because you're
sharing and up against like this economic system which buckles
our people. I think it's a way that we can
get on top of things is actually to come back
to this more intergenerational way of being or living really
close to each other's sharing meals, encouraging each other to
get out from behind the screens and go spend the
(25:45):
weekend in the bush together and just sit by a fire,
even if you can do it only once a fortnight.
I mean when we move to Gadigul and every home
my mum has ever had, the first thing that she
does is go out the back and dig a huge
fire pit into the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
She always dug a ba via pit.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
And I think this like these small ways that we
can divert our attention to the colonial capitalist system and
consumerism and bring it back to our self, our community
and you know, the natural world, which is a part
of our community too, is a way that we can
learn to indigenize. And that can happen in an urban
(26:25):
landscape or a rural landscape here living closer the nature
because there's less density of people and there's more nature
around us, but it's not inaccessible.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You know. And I think there are any.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Way that we can is a fight to the colony.
You know, our people we have to exist within this
society otherwise were constantly oppressed. And we shouldn't beat ourselves
up for having a walk in two worlds. It's a
very complex narrative to try and exist within.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And I think I think.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah, even walking through the world, just identifying as a
black Palla and keeping your culture strong through that identification
is a powerful resistance to the colony.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh my goodness, I could. I could listen to you
speak all day. Yeah. I think it's so beautiful to
hear what you say, because I think what I'm hearing,
or what I'm taking away from what you're saying, is
that decolonization is often about that consciously shifting our perspectives
and our actions and our relationships with ourselves community k in,
(27:30):
mother and father, and like you say, to center that
indigenous knowledge along the way, and that I think sometimes
what we find or what I see, especially in like
the organizing and abolition space where we're required to reimagine systems,
is that we often yet definitely focus a lot on
the perfect system and I guess the end and not
(27:54):
the means, And that these small intentional shifts are just
as critical for the overall movement as is abolishing and
reb yielding, and you know, things like you're saying about
prioritizing the kinship structure and having shared living and communal
living and sharing the labor, sharing the cost, really embedding
(28:15):
that reciprocity. I think the other thing that I sort
of would take away from what you said is that
just noticing you know where like being deliberately I guess
reflective to interrogate our conditioning and that colonial narrative. You know,
so much of what you said is like so embedded
and conditioned from such a young age, like we learn scarcity,
(28:37):
we learn to, you know, do things that take up
our hours that don't bring us joy and connection and healing.
Like with these all learned deeply programmed insidious things that
we have to sort of start to notice, like where
do our colonial ideas shape us and our thinking and
our work and our interactions our relationships, you know. And
(28:58):
I think it's it's also giving people a bit of
confidence that as black fellows, we probably are inherently doing
this every single day, but we might not be I
guess as kind or giving ourselves as much grace because
we're just constantly you know, in a racialized society with
violence and harm and seeing how oppressive and violent structures
(29:19):
are killing, subjugating, silence ever every day that it can
be very hard to sort of like get that perspective
that we are shifting all the time and that we
are every day challenging these colonial narratives which is just
seek to just diminish and erase us. So I think
giving people confidence that it's these small intentional acts, these
small efforts, is an active decolonization in and of itself,
(29:42):
because the colony wants grandeur and you know, these twelve
step programs and dah da da da da. But it's
just like, you know, how do we prioritize ourselves and
our joy and our rest and our healing. What are
the small things getting out on country, returning back to
you know, some that that's enough In this sort of
(30:03):
we all start to think like that. You just think
about the movement that could happen and what the potential is,
and that in order to like imagine the system and
abolish something, we have to celebrate these beautiful intentional moments
along the way as well. So, yeah, thank you for
sharing that. I think it's really important.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, I agree, no one is the same, Like we've
all been put here with a different story, a different purpose,
and a different place to go. And I think anything
that any blackfellow does within the colony, they should be
celebrating it, even if it's just getting out of bed.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, any any.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Black velow that gets up and gets out of bed
is is doing a testament to fighting the colony and
a resistance. You know, I think we're in a time
of information overload, and I've just noticed in the last
few years there's really like so much information about how
undervalued we are as three percent of the population, and
(31:02):
also battling other people popping up in our societies who
are just finding out that they might have an apical
ancestor way back when, but aren't.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Necessarily connected to communities.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
And then you know, faced with the challenges of that
kind of identity complexicity where people are taking big grant
money and it's complex. Like I say to people who
are oh, I just found an apical ancestor, this indigenous,
so good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Want to be a black father. It is the hardest work.
It is the hardest identity to be in.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
This It's definitely about the struggle, there's no doubt about it.
But I think it is also inherently about acknowledging the survival,
about people to get up every day and to do
these things. And you know, like you say, just sometimes
just mustering up a shower through the grief and loss,
or taking a phone call through all the rage and
the violence that you might be experiencing, and that it's
(31:56):
also about celebrating that survival. I just got off a
call just actually before I came on here today with
twelve titters from across so called Australia, and it's sort
of this concept of leadership, but we're really rethinking it.
We're challenging the Western paradigm of leadership. But it's all about,
you know, sharing stories and sharing skills and sharing our
(32:19):
time and being.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
A support network for each other.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And I just feel in a world like right now
where yeah, it's really hard and painful to be a
black following Indigenous person and try to sit in the
duality of our joy and our rage. You know, just
like that in and of itself just feels like such
a powerful active resistance to have spaces where we all
of our experiences can be validated and heard and experience as.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
In its full human experience.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And that I feel is an act of you know,
the decolonization work and digitizing things is like just sometimes
just providing those skills of support that time will be
back you mob right after this short break.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
It's a beautiful question to have.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
And I think I don't know about you in your circles,
but I imagine every time you have this yarm with
people in your work that it looks so vastly different
for everyone too.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
There's no one way to come at this.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Speaking of which I want to talk about, I guess
a space that you have really activated and built and nurtured.
I guess which is the returning? Yeah, tell us about
the returning. What's the vision? How did it come to be?
What does the returning mean for you? Because I feel
like that's also a beautiful active in digenizing and returning
(33:58):
back to Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
The returning was seated out of a deep desire for
me to see not only our people return back to
country and have accessibility to Bungelin country, especially on the.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Coast, which has been so grossly.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Gentrified and is now pretty impossible for most of our
people to actually live anywhere near their ancestral lands if
they're close to the coast here, you know, I wanted
to see a bridging of our people being in their
access the holistic health and wellness services that you know
are created here in the Northern Rivers and give them
(34:36):
an opportunity to see that through a cultural lends. Because
I'm a big believer that when we return back to country,
our health.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Will get better.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
You know, when we eat closer to the lander, our
health will get better.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
When we sit in circle, our health will get better.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That's just what I believe because I'm spiritual, but I
also understand a little bit about quantum physics and energy,
and you know, even things just like earthing ourselves with
their feet in the ground can have like a dramatic
impact on our orvous system.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
So I was like, how do we do this.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
How do we combat indigenous health issues by also keeping
cultural protocols and teachings alive and make a kind of
wellness situation around that. It started as a women's camp
where we invited over eighty percent of our participants to
come back to country on scholarship programs. It was firstly
(35:27):
indigenous women making up mostly that, and then also single
mums and a time for women to come and share
all their ancestral knowledge. Is another point of call to
invite people to stop culturally appropriating, which is really we've
got a lot of people in this country on Bungelung
who were cultural appropriators, and I wanted to start a
women's gathering that wasn't defined.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
By that, but actually resisted it.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
By wanting women to come and reclaim what they could
teach and share. We've always had over fifty percent Indigenous
facilitators at that gathering and it runs over three days
and two nights, and it's a place for women to
come and share knowledge. Is so that we could be
healthier and better together. I think there's a common story
here that women can unite around the oppression that we
(36:11):
felt through the patriarchy, and it's also another threat that
I think when we have these unifying stories, we can
come together. We can create empathy by sharing and learning
and listening to one another, and we can rise.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Together in that.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
And that was kind of like the seed of the charity,
and then it just kind of snowballed, and in twenty
twenty one we became an official charity and now we're
running nine programs across the region and charity starts at home.
So we're all women team, mostly mothers, mostly Indigenous, and
I wanted to create a decolonial workspace where ours were
(36:45):
flexible for both mothers and mob because so much of
the care economy is done on unpaid labor and the
backs of women, you know, whether that's us raising our families,
looking after the elderly, or just like looking after our
entire community always.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
And I wanted to reframe business in.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
A way that we're able to actually pay those women
for what they do and create programs that are centered
around women centered societies and rebringing people back to the
idea of like how much more.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Beautiful it is when we raise our kids together.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, I wanted to reintroduce this women centered societies and
give women this embodied experience of what it's like to
be out on country and have all your kids play together.
And what we found is like, you know, the same
as when I was little. When you get a whole
bunch of little jargeans together, they're going to be looking
after themselves.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
You're not going to see them for a whole day.
They're playing at the river and the.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Climbing trees and the big ones are carrying the babies,
and that's how they grow and that's how they learn
so much. And then it gives mothers and aunties and
thens that break and that rest to just like gather
and speak. And so I guess like that's the seed
of where the charity came from. But now we're running
anything from cultural camps that include language camps that we
(38:03):
run just for mob and also cross cultural exchange programs
with the Pacific Island Brothers and Sisters. We have youth
programs for teenage girls to reconnect with ancestral plant food
and medicine. We've got an arts and culture residency that
runs for one year, Writers Residency partnered with the Barn
Bay Writers Festival, a postpart and program that's supporting our
(38:24):
First Nations mums with six weeks worth of home cook meals.
It's all got native ingredients in it. An elder's healing
program that takes twelve Indigenous matriarchs post the age of
sixty through our one year healing space, which includes four
retreats and one on one no tropathy care. All through that,
we do community days in Lismore and Balana and it's
(38:46):
just kind of taken on a life and I don't
know how it's gotten like this, but you know, we
we're just listening to what our community wants and we're
trying to provide a service. I don't know if it's
super sustainable to run this many programs with such a
small team. You know, we're five Indigenous women who make
up the team and two non Indigenous women who make
(39:08):
up our accounts and grant writer. But somehow we're managing
to get the work done, and we're working with so
much of our beautiful community on a needs base. And
you know, we're just doing this for this time until
other people can step in and take over and run
the programs too. You know, I've got no desire to monopolize,
(39:30):
to grow, to get bigger than Bungelung. Like even if
we end up in a couple of years just stripping
back and only running a few programs, that's better for me.
But I don't want to grow and expand and move
into other people's country. But I do want to inspire
other people to you know, potentially take on these models
of care, to support our women to actually do that work.
(39:52):
And look at how we can support other mob and
different nations to bring about similar models as us, you know,
and now's the time. You know, the not for profit
space can be complex and we and like I said,
like I'm not an academic person or a business woman.
I don't know how I ended up running this charity.
But Ban says, to bless me with a whole bunch
(40:12):
of good relations that are supporting here on Bungelung and beyond,
and so I just want to continue to be the
bridge and redistribute the distribution of wealth. Last year we
employed over eighty cultural workers, and that for me is
a redefining of what the colony says the value system is,
because it's really placing the money back in the hands
(40:33):
of our people, who know country, who know the lay
of the land, who know language, who know art, sustainable art,
who know our ways of being, and to redefine that
as like that is an appropriate and beautiful job for
you to do, and I hope it inspires the next
generation to know that they don't have to go and
get a degree to be a well paid person under
(40:55):
this economic system that always tells us that our culture
is not value.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I mean, like that just sounds so dead to hear that. Yeah,
from this vision of the women's centered society to the
returning to now these nine very beautiful holistic programs, I'm like, oh,
I wish we had some stuff like that here and
on our country. You know, I feel like we still
have such a long ways to go in going back
(41:22):
to some of these cultural practices. But yeah, I can
definitely see why it's grown because of the grit and
the love, and I think when you're moving with the
spirit an ethos of community at your center and you're
listening and you're adapting and you're providing, Yeah, it's kind
of easy for things to sort of like evolve and
grow based off communities needs. So yeah, wow, I mean
(41:46):
what are you seeing from some of the people, like
some of the mob that come through some of these programs,
like any sort of sentiments or things that are shared
for how they experience these incredible programs.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yeah, I mean, we just finished our last retreat for
the Elder's program, which is one of my favorites. It's
like so beautiful to take these twelve matriarchs on this
journey of giving some of them the first facial they've
ever had, giving them some of them the first massage
they've even had. The introduced them to craniosecral therapies as well.
(42:19):
They had one on one atropathy, which apparently through our
data that we collected, magnesium seems to be the thing
that can get heaps of our elders off numerous amounts
of pharmaceuticals. So one of our elders was on twelve
pharmaceuticals when she started the healing program. We put her
on magnesium every night to help with the pain that
(42:40):
she was feeling. So she got rid of her painkillers,
which then indirectly got rid of her heart medicine because
the painkillers were helping. That she's down to four pharmaceuticals.
That's all she's taking. Anwo the elder started the program
on a walker. She's now finished the program without a walker.
And our oldest participant, who's almost eighty, you know her
(43:00):
reflection piece. She's still living out on the mission Bugamart,
which is really close to where I grew up. Annie Carroll.
She also taught me in primary school, you know. And
she was saying, like the best thing is coming actually together.
So much of the healing was all these matriarchs from
Tweed all the way down to near the border of
Yaegel Gumbangy Country and all the way out the past Graft,
(43:23):
and that all these women know each other's families and
family lines, but some of them had never met, and
they got to sit and repatriate all of.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
These stories that they knew about each.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Other's families and everything that they had experienced, all the
stories that were given to them, and even in that
those meetings of just sitting around and having a youarn,
so much can be healed, so much can be repatriated,
having like us younger, younger women, you know, just show
up in service to those beautiful old women who have
(43:55):
carried the backs of so many of our people and
still continued to who raised our jajams, who still care
for their granny and everyone else. It's such a privilege,
It really is.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Such an honor.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Like brings tears to my eyes, because this is what
our culture is about, you know, It's about looking after
the most disadvantage and the most undervalued in society. And
I think this society is like disgusting to their elder women,
you know. And I've heard a lot of elder women
not even indigenous. If you're indigenous, it's like a whole
(44:29):
other situation. But you know how invisibilized they become in
the patriarchy once they go through their initiation into menopausem
beyond where in our culture, that is the wisest woman,
that is the most respected woman, you know, and it
is for us to take that back and look after
those ladies with such great care, and that gives them
(44:51):
so much worse.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
And if we're able to just fill.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Them with one year of like loving them up, connecting
them in and supporting them. My hope is that a
lot of those elder women who I was deep relationship
with prior to because a lot of them come from
you know, Bungelung, so I know them or their families.
But my hope is that we somehow can help embed
them into our programs and provide spaces where elders can
(45:17):
just be paid to come and be in the program.
They don't actually have to show up and do anything anymore.
They've done it. And this is how we change business
from inside the colonial couple system. Is like, we build
elders fees into our brands, and we make them valuable
and we make sure that they can come and they
can be paid to just rest.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
I'm a big believer in rest is the revolution, but
all types of rest.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
You know, environmental rest, community rest, rest around culture. This
allows us the time and space to really find our
way home. I think that program is probably my favorite,
but you know, I'm a bit biased, I guess, but
all of the programs are amazing. I mean, the post
Partner program runs all year round, servicing Indigenous women all
over Bungee Country and we drive the meals out there.
(46:06):
Curly Dawn, who was also you know, a big support
during the floods and right by my side at Carey
Mail alongside all the other deadly mob naming Mimran and
Wayne King and Annie Jackulari, you know, she runs that
program and she's a deadly.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Indigenous schooler who's been a birth worker for.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
A long time and she's really passionate about educating our
women and our names and our aunie so that we
can be in the birthpace advocating for our women and
not just letting these Western institutions coerce us into doing
things that may not be best for us, you know,
and just also providing things like Kangaroo Tales do curried
(46:45):
sausages but with all organic ingredients. And we worked with
Mindy Woods, who's an amazing, visible, viable chef from banjelannxhos
or Master Chef, and she's come out with your love this.
She come up with the Keynes curry, but it's using
all our native spices and are tastes.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Exactly the same, and it's so deadly like this kind
of stuff is like ground.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
You know what Nan used to make you and when
you're in your postpartum you have to be eating these
kind of rich, dense protein foods. I mean, you can
eat other foods if your vegetarian or vegan, but you
know this way, but having that kind of courage sausage
for so many people is so nostalgic. They just said, like,
I can't believe this food is like getting delivered to
our door.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
And it's just like NaN's, oh my god. Well, this
is the power of indigenity and indigenizing what we do,
right Like you're feeling and experiencing that every day. And yeah,
and I mean I think there's no there's really no
like English word to like summarize what you said. But
there's one thing that I think that I want to highlight,
which is that program you were yearning about with our elders,
(47:49):
you know, because they were such in enslaved in servitude
to give back to them in that way for them
to have that sense of community at the stages of
their life when they when they are, you know, because
so much of their lives is around care responsibilities, unpaid labor,
(48:09):
how special and native food for postpartum. These are all
things that I'm constantly thinking about as I start my
birth journey and you know, really wanting to think about
how I can protect my indigenoity through that process in
a hospital system which is really violent. So wow, you're
doing amazing, powerful work. You should be so proud of
(48:32):
what you've been able to co create with a mob
down there. I guess my kind of last.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
Question, and I could speak to you all day obviously.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
But I mean, what are you you know, if we
were to sit here in ten years, you know time,
and have this yarn about the work you're doing and
the work that other communities are doing around this conversation
around indigenizing our practices and returning back to you know
what do you hope that we'd be celebrating?
Speaker 4 (49:00):
What sort of changes would you like to see over
that time?
Speaker 3 (49:05):
I mean a massive return to women's centered societies, which
means like the eradication.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Of these nine to five confinements.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
I think that not only steal our sunlight or our
time and relationship with the sunlight, but allowing mothers and women.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
To have more flexible hours, to be able to get paid.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
On their bleed days, to see the return of younger
women or men being paid to look after their elders.
I think food systems are critical in this time, Like
in ten years, I'd love to see community gardens and
gardens kind of like in the urban space especially, but
take over that place because I think capitalism's co opted
(49:46):
our food systems. And in ten years time, if we
can do real reclamation not only with our food, but
you know, our medicines here on country too, and see
First Nations people leading those businesses not being left behind,
which does happen in the native food industry a lot,
you know, I think it's like ninety seven percent non
(50:08):
Indigenous owned in the native foods. Is that like, if
we want to see real change, it requires us to
see women and Indigenous people lead. And I really believe
that because for too long it's it's not been the way.
We've been behind. We haven't been leading, and we haven't
been given the respect that we deserve, and everybody suffers.
(50:28):
Everybody suffers if a woman or a mother is not
at her greatest health. If our vision is to raise
the next generation strong and healthy, then we need to
be looking after our women.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
We need to ensure that they have very good access
to food.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
And it's dire in this country and I know that
the food systems is it's a place of privilege, and
it's disgusting that people got to pay what they pay
in some rural communities for even just three or four
grocery items. I think all of us should be championing
and campaigning that we bring our food back and we
(51:03):
able to do what we do best because it's what
we consume the most of you know. So, I mean,
I guess that's my vision in ten years. I hope
like the rivers are restored to good health. We got
five major river systems, But the difference it would make
in some of these small community towns, like There's more
and a Wallumbar, if they had rivers that were swimmable
(51:27):
and people and our young people could like return back
to the rivers and play, then that would be my
greatest dream and I would happily go if I could
see that.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
It's kind of nice to think about what that might
look like. And I think it's these conversations are going
to be prolific and guided by people like you and
our next generation, guided by our elders who've opened these doors.
But it absolutely requires solidarity in these movements and collectivism
(51:57):
right now and for you know, Migloo's and non indigenous
folks to really listen and learn and reckon with their
own stories, their own histories to really help us, because
indigenous knowledge does have the power to.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Help us all.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
And you've got to sort of hold on to hope
that we can get their hope and a lot of fight,
that's for sure. Oh, my sis, thank you so much.
I'm going to put all of Allah's details in our
show notes her instagram, the returning the programs we can
back and support issues and causes and get behind the work.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
That you're doing on Bundelung Country.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
From the bottom of my heart, I just want to
say thank you so much for being here today and
sharing your wisdom.
Speaker 4 (52:46):
And you've certainly given me.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
A lot to think about, but you probably reaffirmed so
much of what many blackfellows are grappling with right now
in a much eloquent term. But yeah, thank you so
so much for being here and sharing your time and
your knowledges and your labor given what you're doing in
building women's centered society.
Speaker 4 (53:07):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Massis guber where Sis, thank you, thank you so much
for listening. You mob if you're vibing this season of
yarning up. Then please head over to Apple, Spotify, or
wherever you get your podcasts from to show us some love, rate,
and review. Alternatively, you can get in contact and give
(53:30):
us some feedback by visiting www. Dot Caroline Cool, dot
com dot au
Quae Cast Unite our voices. This podcast is brought to
you by on Track Studio. Welcome to Yannier, the podcast
that showcases First Nations stories and conversations to help us
(00:24):
learn and unlearn Australia's history to work towards a better future.
I'm your host, proud barber woman and founder of Blackwattel
Coaching and Consulting, Caroline cow We acknowledge the Runderi people
and elders where this podcast is taped, but we also
(00:47):
acknowledge the lands that you are listening in from today.
It always was and always will be unseated aboriginal and
tourist Red Islander Land. Well, I'm super grateful for today's guest.
I had the privilege of connecting with Allah Noah Bancraft
(01:08):
a couple of years ago at a retreat and I
just left feeling so inspired by their gentle but fierce
honesty in how you know they see the world and
challenge us to think about our places in the world.
And so yeah, it's an incredible honor and privilege today
(01:28):
to be sitting down with Alan Noah Bancroft. Thank you
so much for being here, my sis, and welcome to yarning.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Up dingy lasses.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, as we always do on this show. It's beautiful
to just sort of check in and ground ourselves with
person and place. So I'm wondering if you could introduce
yourself how you'd like to be introduced?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Sure, elegaate. My name is Ella.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I'm a proud andreline woman from the northern New South
Wales region and also have ties to Scotland and Poland
on my maternal line. Currently run an indigenous charity here
on country and privilege to work and play and live
on my ancestral lands.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Beautiful and beautiful country there, Bundolong country as well.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
You're so lucky.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I'm a bit biased, you know. I always think it's paradise.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Fat No, it really is so lovely up there, and
I imagine that, you know, the country there would sort
of like shape, you know, really deeply. Yeah, some of
the places and spaces that you are because you're just
surrounded by lush and green and moving with the seasons,
I imagine there.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, And Bungelin is also you know where the five rivers.
We've got five major rivers that run through. It's where freshwater, meat, saltwater,
and also first light it's the most easily point of Australia.
So like literally the sun Yelgin hits that part of
Joggon Country first and foremost, but we're with anywhere else
(03:01):
on the continent.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Wow. So what time is the sun rising there for
you follows.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's around six ish. Yeah. Yeah, we've got some long days.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I mean, because we're quite close up to the Queensland border,
we've definitely got longer days.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
But I feel like they're longer and now.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
M Yeah, I think that's just because the seasons are
very abrupt here and everyone's just working their holes. Also,
everything feels long and drawn out and gray.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Good lays.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
So you're born and raised on your country, on your homelands.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I was actually born in Gadagall Country and my mom
and my dad moved there in the early eighties and
mum had a home birth with me and my brother
because you know, in our family line, hospitals have never
been a safe place to birth. I'm not let alone
a safe place for our family, so she birthed us
there and both our placentas are buried somewhere in the
(03:55):
inner West of Syday. But when I was about just
before I turned five, we moved back up to country
and then you know, had a lot of like my
primary school life being raised here, and we've always been
deeply connected and come home all the time my whole life.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, how special and how special to hear that you
were brought into this world in a home birth. I
think that's just so beautiful and so special. So born
on Gadigall. Your placenter's there in the Inner West. I'm
actually pregnant at the moment, and I've been thinking about
what i want to do with my placenter, and I
think I'm still deciding, but I think I'm going to
put it in some capsules and eat it back in
(04:34):
my body.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
I hear, that's really good for you.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
My younger sister, we drove we actually kept her pleasenter
in the freezer for like ten months and then drove
it up in an eski from Sydney.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
To Banjoe and buried it on our ancestral land.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
How special, Oh my goodness, the legacies continue.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Well, you know you you carry the stories as you
save many bloodlines. Bundelung woman Scottish Polish. I mean I'm
keen to sort of understand a bit more about Yeah,
your personal story and you know what it was like
for you growing up.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, I guess as a mixed raced woman. But living
in Australia and growing up with my community both on Gatigol,
I was always around a big Indigenous community there when
I was growing up, and also on Bunjelung. I've always
identified a lot with my indigenous side. But as I
got older, I started to realize that, like if I
wanted other people to not claim the colony and the
(05:30):
immature culture we called Australia, I also needed to re
establish a relationship with my ancestors on that Polish and
Scottish side. And as I actually dive deeper into understanding
some research, I've actually became like, I'm really proud of
my Scottish side. I feel like the Scots were really
fierce in not only fighting colonization and their indigenous people
(05:53):
were called the Pinks.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
But they feel like real.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Warriors and like tied in with my Bungelung ancestors. I
feel like that's what gives me the kind of fire
to walk through the world that I do. I do
hope one day to do some kind of pilgrimage with
my mum and my sister back to that place, and
I always kind of tend to go more with my
maternal sign.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Because it feels, it just feels the truest.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
For me to be claiming that those ancestral lines. But
that's just for me.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, so beautiful to hear that and hear about Yeah,
your early experiences. Yeah, it's interesting I sort of share
a similar sort of Definitely, it's very resonant. I grew
up with an aboriginal mom, single mom, and didn't really
know my dad and way up until later in life,
until I was, you know, my late twenties, and my
mom's aboriginal. My dad is yes, Scottish English, And yeah,
(06:44):
similarly went on like a path after he passed away,
just being like, what is this white side of me?
And how do I reconcile my whiteness? I guess or
try to understand that and how it's located and defined?
And yeah, it was really painful because we came across
like all these links between colonizers of course and our mob.
(07:05):
But then also yeah, kind of similarly saw that they
were fierce anti colonial warriors fighting the resistance, and so
sometimes I'm like, oh, is this my white side, it's
my black side, who knows. But there's this real strong
sense of fight and justice and resolve on both of
our sides, and it's yeah, it's nice to sort of
(07:26):
make space for them all in some ways.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, And also like I think I hope to inspire
or encourage other people to do their own ancestual work.
Like I feel like, as indigenous people in this country,
every day we get up and we research more about
our families and our culture because it was almost taken
from us, you know, So every day we're relearning or
learning or getting given the knowledge systems passed down to us.
(07:53):
But it's not just like that all just came to us.
And so I feel like other people should step into
that space too and reclaim the ancestors. I recently found
that that we carry fourteen generations in our body, which
equates to sixty five plus thousand ancestors, like their cellular
memory is carried within our body. And for me, I'm like,
(08:16):
how could you just call yourself austrayan? It just seems
like such an injustice.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
To all of those people who fought so hard to
get you to this place, to be here right now.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
And I don't know if anybody knows my work, but
I'm not the greatest fan of the colony too, And
I think one of the ways that we can really
resist it is by not identifying with it.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh my god, there's so much to sort of like
unpack there. But I mean, firstly, sixty five thousand ancestors,
doesn't that give you, like, when you're walking into a room,
especially as a black follow that legitimacy of who you are,
to know that you carry, that you carry those stories
and that strength and that love and reciprocity and that fight.
(08:55):
But yeah, you're so right, And I feel like that's
really where we're at right now in terms of like
what we're seeing here and global is that there is
just countries forge in denial of who they are and
how they've come to be, and that it's so people
almost divorced of themselves. They're divorced of community, and they
(09:17):
would much rather sit in this like very comfortable manufactured
sense of nationalism't it, instead of really doing that inner
work and thinking about themselves. And yeah, you're right, we
sort of have to do that as well and honor that.
But yeah, people are just so incredibly disconnected from all
(09:38):
of those ancestors and their stories and then and it's
quite sad in some ways. Hey, like as much as
it really puts it, you get real wild at it.
There's a part of me that just bes like these
more be hurting, you.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Know for sure.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And also you know, it's something in the like, how
do we retrace the unified story that the colony or
colonization and capitalism doesn't actually benefit us, not just mob
but us as a society. You know, For me, I
feel like until we peel back those layers and find
that unifying story of serious disconnect which you know, the
(10:13):
doctrine of discovery is one of the seed letters for
colonization and how they took over so many indigenous lands
across the globe. But this was happening back in Europe too,
when they brought in the commons and they started taking
and discolocating people from their lands. So when we reclaim
that and our ancestry, we say a big fuck you too,
(10:34):
or I don't.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Know if I can say that, but yeah, you can.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
You the money, because.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
This isn't just our story, but we are touched by
it because it's much closer to home, because we sit
at the table with our NaN's and our aunties and
our uncles and our brothers who are still impacted by
colonization today.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
So so true.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You know, building on that, I saw that you wrote
a think tank recently around this topic, and it's something
I sort of had the privilege of being us to
sort of think about too. And yeah, it's interesting, like
for for the first time in maybe a long time,
and it's an awful it's an awful symptom of the
colony and the centuries of harm across civilizations which we
(11:13):
have seen that for the first time in a long time,
it feels like indigenous like long standing issues of indigenous
sovereignty and legitimacy are no longer just aboriginal issues indigenous
issues anymore. And we're seeing it in climate action, in
action crime, We're seeing it in like economic collapse, fossil
(11:37):
fuel greed. We're seeing you know, this hyper individualization and
relationship to imperialism affecting all people from all walks of life.
And you're right, it's almost like we've been knocking on
the doors and screaming into the abyss and all these
things on looking at this from this holistic perspective, just
(11:58):
so like the colony is making us all unwell and
it kind of feels like they're is a growing momentum
in this space.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
I'd love to sort of talk a little.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Bit around you know, what has led you on this
path to having these conversations about you know, decolonization and
trying to reclaim and return back to our practices, you
know where there's some moments in your journey that really
led to that. And yeah, I guess these sort of
conversations help with this bigger, growing, expansive movement which we're
(12:31):
seeing right now as well.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Yeah, I mean, I think definitely the juxtaposition of being
born in gadagl and I don't really remember that much,
you know, of my younger childhood, but being back on
country with my community and we live an hour and
a half northwest of Grafton, where my ancestral lands by
Jagama from and just being in that space of like,
(12:52):
you know, we lived off grid before off grid was trendy,
and we had our big washpool river that provided everything
for us water, food, entertainment, play, and we got by
that place all the time and we still do as
a family. But actually having that lived experience of growing
up really disconnected in a way from the dominant society
(13:12):
and much more embedded in land based connection and community.
And not to romanticize either, because you know, we also
in northern New South Wales impacted here very heavily by
massacres and the invaders coming through in the late eighteen hundreds,
so it was still a mission that was created there.
But you know the essence of just being with my
(13:33):
family and just making a fire and swimming in the
creek was so simple. And then when I kind of
went back to Gadigul, I was like overwhelmed by the city,
you know, and also just really this juxtaposition between Sydney
and like couldn't get more remote and rule New South Wales.
And I think that is probably like the first seed
(13:55):
of when I started to realize the difference between these
two very opposing cultures that were trying to coexist in
the same continent. And then obviously growing up, like my
mother is a very strong black artist and activist, and
my whole life has always kind of you know, told
us who we are and ensured that we've remained connected
to our ancestral lands, our culture, and our family, because
(14:18):
she didn't ever want us to just assimilate into what
was the wider culture. And so I think I've always
been really rebellious because of her in that way, and
then finishing school, which, like you know, I was horrible
at school. I had dyslexia. I was like put in
special ed classes and I hated it. I hated the
whole concept of the Western institution. And so when I
(14:39):
finally broke free of that, I actually ended up at
Sydney UNI, but I was just going there to socialize,
like the little Geminiam. I got out of UNI there
to work for my brother's organization AIM and again just
you know, trying to support our younger people with an
amazing model when he first started that, you know, really
just going into schools and helping high school students. But
(15:02):
again I just felt like this isn't the way for me.
It's not the way to try and get our kids
in those spaces.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
For me.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I'm like, we need to actually make society realize how
valuable our culture is and how valuable our cultural leaders are.
And I guess I kind of disassociated for most of
my twenties from Australia and didn't really want to be here. Actually,
I found the culture quite repulsive in many ways and
didn't feel like it had a lot of substance, especially
(15:32):
coming from where I've come from. And I think travel
really put a lot of things in perspective. I started
just hitchhiking my way around the world and Mexico, Guatemala,
ended up on the west coast of the States, and
then met a really beautiful Native American brother and he
actually introduced me to the concept of decolonizing, and that
(15:53):
was kind of like maybe fifteen years back now, and
I think he kind of planted that seed for me,
and then I started to kind of investigate it, and
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
They were really progressive of there a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Of the native indigenous mob over there, so I was
kind of sitting with them and seeing what they were
talking about, and then come back home and then started
exploring that through just recognizing, wow, this is such a juxtaposition,
and actually if everyone returned to these more like earth
based indigenous ways, we would not only be healthier, but
country would be singing. You know, she would be in
(16:25):
a day of joy again, because I really do think
the colony is built on us being disconnected from not
only the country, but ourselves and each other and it's
also a culture that glorifies greed and status. And so
this is what we communicate to our young people. We say,
we see you when you are greedy and you hold
(16:45):
and you accumulate wealth and you put yourself above others.
And we also see you when you place yourself above
another being and think you're better than And what I
got taught with the law of the Land is like,
you don't think you're better than anything, including the jari,
the trees, you know, the animals that coexist with us.
And I think this culture is just so dangerous because
(17:07):
of these values and belief systems that are really embedded
in such a young age to many of us, you know,
especially if we went through the Western education system and
didn't question it.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Wow, gosh, so fascinating to hear that. Yeah, I guess
you know, tracing back, so your early life was living
on country, living in pretty humble, beautiful spiritual place in beginnings,
and I guess how that sort of like transcends the
lessons of your mom, understand Bronwan Bancruft, Your mom, Yeah, deadly,
(17:40):
and just that sort of that early experience, like you say,
living on country, off grid before it was kind of trending,
and then I guess, yeah, interesting to hear that you
had to abandon all that you sort of had learned
in search for something that you didn't quite know you
needed until you found it. And even even the language.
I mean, it's interesting decolonization in a way too, because
(18:00):
it still does very much center the colony, isn't it.
It's still using that language. But so I imagine coming
to this realization, meeting this beautiful person, but first and foremost,
going on that real journey for yourself in naming your
experience would be pretty pretty powerful. I want to just
quickly ask about your mom. You know, what lessons do
you think your mom sort of instilled in you in
(18:21):
this sort of conversation as well?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Oh my god, she's like everything.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
She's my greatest mentor my biggest teacher, my best friend,
sometimes my daughter sometimes, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
What a journey we've been on.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
My mom was also a single mom.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
She also had my sissy eleven years apart, so I
was her birthing partner and I helped bring my sissy
out of my mom and cut her in bilical cord.
And we've just had such a life together, like She's
taught me everything, and she is the reason I am
the woman I am today.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
You know, I.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Always say to people, I was raised by a proud Indigenous,
independent single woman, and that's how I feel now that
I'm an adult.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
My mom always to me, you never through action, not
just through.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Words, but you never value your worth in the gaze
of whoever your partner is. You know, you don't look
for somebody else to tell you what you are and
who you are. You find that within yourself. She always
taught me to be grassroots and never go too big.
She always taught me, I never rise until I bring
my community with me. And even just getting the privilege
(19:26):
of being able to be raised around her storytelling through
her visual artwork and the Indigenous community that welcomed u
Song Gadigl and you know, made us family, was just.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
The best experience. Like, I'm so stoked that I picked
ITR to be my mum.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
I really also only ever seen her work so hard.
You know, she doesn't really take holidays, and not that
I think that's a good thing, but her fight is
for her people and know her stories and keeping our
culture really strong and alive, even in the face of
growing up in a small country town where there wasn't
actually many other Indigenous families either, you know, So I
(20:07):
just she's everything to me, and I don't know like
other people who are listening. You know, when you have
an Indigenous mother, it's like they are everything for you.
In the colony, they tend to disregard their elders. But
my mom is going to be by my side until
the day she goes, and I will be looking after
her the way she looked after me, because that is
(20:28):
what the reciprocity of relationships look like.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Well, she sounds like a pretty fierce and loving and
staunt person and has instilled some beautiful values in you.
And I'd love to sit around the campfire with someone
like you and your mum one day, because yeah, I
can only imagine the yarns and that sharing and reciprocity
that shared. Yeah, and I think it's such a powerful
(20:51):
act of resistance to raise strong black kids, our jar gems.
You know, we are trying to seek love in a
world that doesn't really love us that and so it's
so powerful to to raise self assured and strong and
loving black kids. So good on, your mum did a
great job, and it's funny, my daughter's actually going to
(21:14):
be a Gemini.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
So good ways.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Because we got a bad rap, but it's just because
we're mutable and we can flou in every single space.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I heard and also really talkative I hear, and I'm like,
oh god, I love ya. So my partner might I hear.
My partner's really quiet, and so I was like, look, our.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
Little Gemini and me going to come and tear things up.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I guess, you know, it's not really a segue, but
more kind of you know, thinking about this concept of decolonization.
I think, you know, we've got a lot of listeners,
a lot of people from international and also our mobs,
you know, who really proudly champion this show and shout
out to all of them listening, and we love your lots.
But you know, I guess a lot of us are
(21:58):
moving in spaces where people like the narratives or the
ideology decolonization is ever evolving and shifting and how we
think about it, particularly in light of what we are
seeing right now, which is, you know, as we've touched
on these global ills, and you know, our existence and
our resistance and us and our stories and our knowledge
(22:21):
is really helping to sort of reimagine and shape societies
is so incredibly important right now. But you know, what
does decolonizing things mean for you? Like, what does because
I feel like you're actually my take is that you're
walking the truth. You live this every day. You know,
you're still living in communal living in a country. It's
(22:43):
not necessarily a construct that feels out of reach for you,
because it's something you've just always lived and known to
be true. But for many, like urbanized black fellows, who
are wanting to live in a decolonized way, there's this tension,
I guess, between the opposing paradigms in which we sit.
And so, yeah, what does decolonization mean for you? And
(23:03):
how does it sort of like shape your interactions and
your relationships with the world.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yeah, it's interesting because you know, I think I was
kind of talking about decolonization ten or something years ago
in my writings. I've seen it pick up and have
this momentum. And what normally happens with these kinds of
movements is they get co opted, right, we see it
all the time, and suddenly there's non indigenous people doing
decolonial workshops and it kind of takes away the point
(23:32):
of indigenous, lad, and I agree with you, it still
centers the colony. I've been a bit more resistant actually
to using it, and actually decided kind of last year
to move into more like the word of like indigenized,
like how do we indigenize, because again that centers that,
but also it centers the people whose land you're on,
who are the most oppressed by the system. They didn't
(23:53):
have a choice of it. They didn't choose to go
to a land. They stayed there and they were forcibly
removed and their culture was attempted to be taken from them.
So I feel like indigenizing, indigenizing our way of living
is about like reclamation of our true purpose here.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
On this planet.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
And that is really like getting out of this mindset
that capitalism and capitalistic views, which are intrinsically tied to
the colony, are somehow what.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
We need to do in order to succeed.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
And so things like it's interestingly you say, like with
the urban Blackfells, like there might be in a struggle,
But I grew up with this family, the boss Stocks,
and they grew they.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Had a tiny little house in Tempe.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
You feed me your boss Stock with the matriarch, or
when I was little, it was Nanny Bosstock, her mother,
and they had five generations living in one tiny house,
you know, and they still all live in that house
and their cared for. Every matriarch is that matriarch passed
away in the same room and we just barb and
you feed me.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
A boss stock last year. But she passed away.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
In the same room that her My mother passed away
with her daughters looking after her and her grannies around her,
and they're still in that home. And for me, I'm like,
that is indigenizing your way of being within the concept
of the urban's landscape because it's a matriarchal household, one
where the elders are cared for, many generations living under
(25:23):
one roof which it actually is very indigenous because you're
sharing and up against like this economic system which buckles
our people. I think it's a way that we can
get on top of things is actually to come back
to this more intergenerational way of being or living really
close to each other's sharing meals, encouraging each other to
get out from behind the screens and go spend the
(25:45):
weekend in the bush together and just sit by a fire,
even if you can do it only once a fortnight.
I mean when we move to Gadigul and every home
my mum has ever had, the first thing that she
does is go out the back and dig a huge
fire pit into the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
She always dug a ba via pit.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
And I think this like these small ways that we
can divert our attention to the colonial capitalist system and
consumerism and bring it back to our self, our community
and you know, the natural world, which is a part
of our community too, is a way that we can
learn to indigenize. And that can happen in an urban
(26:25):
landscape or a rural landscape here living closer the nature
because there's less density of people and there's more nature
around us, but it's not inaccessible.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You know. And I think there are any.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Way that we can is a fight to the colony.
You know, our people we have to exist within this
society otherwise were constantly oppressed. And we shouldn't beat ourselves
up for having a walk in two worlds. It's a
very complex narrative to try and exist within.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
And I think I think.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah, even walking through the world, just identifying as a
black Palla and keeping your culture strong through that identification
is a powerful resistance to the colony.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Oh my goodness, I could. I could listen to you
speak all day. Yeah. I think it's so beautiful to
hear what you say, because I think what I'm hearing,
or what I'm taking away from what you're saying, is
that decolonization is often about that consciously shifting our perspectives
and our actions and our relationships with ourselves community k in,
(27:30):
mother and father, and like you say, to center that
indigenous knowledge along the way, and that I think sometimes
what we find or what I see, especially in like
the organizing and abolition space where we're required to reimagine systems,
is that we often yet definitely focus a lot on
the perfect system and I guess the end and not
(27:54):
the means, And that these small intentional shifts are just
as critical for the overall movement as is abolishing and
reb yielding, and you know, things like you're saying about
prioritizing the kinship structure and having shared living and communal
living and sharing the labor, sharing the cost, really embedding
(28:15):
that reciprocity. I think the other thing that I sort
of would take away from what you said is that
just noticing you know where like being deliberately I guess
reflective to interrogate our conditioning and that colonial narrative. You know,
so much of what you said is like so embedded
and conditioned from such a young age, like we learn scarcity,
(28:37):
we learn to, you know, do things that take up
our hours that don't bring us joy and connection and healing.
Like with these all learned deeply programmed insidious things that
we have to sort of start to notice, like where
do our colonial ideas shape us and our thinking and
our work and our interactions our relationships, you know. And
(28:58):
I think it's it's also giving people a bit of
confidence that as black fellows, we probably are inherently doing
this every single day, but we might not be I
guess as kind or giving ourselves as much grace because
we're just constantly you know, in a racialized society with
violence and harm and seeing how oppressive and violent structures
(29:19):
are killing, subjugating, silence ever every day that it can
be very hard to sort of like get that perspective
that we are shifting all the time and that we
are every day challenging these colonial narratives which is just
seek to just diminish and erase us. So I think
giving people confidence that it's these small intentional acts, these
small efforts, is an active decolonization in and of itself,
(29:42):
because the colony wants grandeur and you know, these twelve
step programs and dah da da da da. But it's
just like, you know, how do we prioritize ourselves and
our joy and our rest and our healing. What are
the small things getting out on country, returning back to
you know, some that that's enough In this sort of
(30:03):
we all start to think like that. You just think
about the movement that could happen and what the potential is,
and that in order to like imagine the system and
abolish something, we have to celebrate these beautiful intentional moments
along the way as well. So, yeah, thank you for
sharing that. I think it's really important.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, I agree, no one is the same, Like we've
all been put here with a different story, a different purpose,
and a different place to go. And I think anything
that any blackfellow does within the colony, they should be
celebrating it, even if it's just getting out of bed.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, any any.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Black velow that gets up and gets out of bed
is is doing a testament to fighting the colony and
a resistance. You know, I think we're in a time
of information overload, and I've just noticed in the last
few years there's really like so much information about how
undervalued we are as three percent of the population, and
(31:02):
also battling other people popping up in our societies who
are just finding out that they might have an apical
ancestor way back when, but aren't.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Necessarily connected to communities.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
And then you know, faced with the challenges of that
kind of identity complexicity where people are taking big grant
money and it's complex. Like I say to people who
are oh, I just found an apical ancestor, this indigenous,
so good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Want to be a black father. It is the hardest work.
It is the hardest identity to be in.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
This It's definitely about the struggle, there's no doubt about it.
But I think it is also inherently about acknowledging the survival,
about people to get up every day and to do
these things. And you know, like you say, just sometimes
just mustering up a shower through the grief and loss,
or taking a phone call through all the rage and
the violence that you might be experiencing, and that it's
(31:56):
also about celebrating that survival. I just got off a
call just actually before I came on here today with
twelve titters from across so called Australia, and it's sort
of this concept of leadership, but we're really rethinking it.
We're challenging the Western paradigm of leadership. But it's all about,
you know, sharing stories and sharing skills and sharing our
(32:19):
time and being.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
A support network for each other.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And I just feel in a world like right now
where yeah, it's really hard and painful to be a
black following Indigenous person and try to sit in the
duality of our joy and our rage. You know, just
like that in and of itself just feels like such
a powerful active resistance to have spaces where we all
of our experiences can be validated and heard and experience as.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
In its full human experience.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And that I feel is an act of you know,
the decolonization work and digitizing things is like just sometimes
just providing those skills of support that time will be
back you mob right after this short break.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
It's a beautiful question to have.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
And I think I don't know about you in your circles,
but I imagine every time you have this yarm with
people in your work that it looks so vastly different
for everyone too.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
There's no one way to come at this.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Speaking of which I want to talk about, I guess
a space that you have really activated and built and nurtured.
I guess which is the returning? Yeah, tell us about
the returning. What's the vision? How did it come to be?
What does the returning mean for you? Because I feel
like that's also a beautiful active in digenizing and returning
(33:58):
back to Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
The returning was seated out of a deep desire for
me to see not only our people return back to
country and have accessibility to Bungelin country, especially on the.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Coast, which has been so grossly.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Gentrified and is now pretty impossible for most of our
people to actually live anywhere near their ancestral lands if
they're close to the coast here, you know, I wanted
to see a bridging of our people being in their
access the holistic health and wellness services that you know
are created here in the Northern Rivers and give them
(34:36):
an opportunity to see that through a cultural lends. Because
I'm a big believer that when we return back to country,
our health.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Will get better.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
You know, when we eat closer to the lander, our
health will get better.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
When we sit in circle, our health will get better.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That's just what I believe because I'm spiritual, but I
also understand a little bit about quantum physics and energy,
and you know, even things just like earthing ourselves with
their feet in the ground can have like a dramatic
impact on our orvous system.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
So I was like, how do we do this.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
How do we combat indigenous health issues by also keeping
cultural protocols and teachings alive and make a kind of
wellness situation around that. It started as a women's camp
where we invited over eighty percent of our participants to
come back to country on scholarship programs. It was firstly
(35:27):
indigenous women making up mostly that, and then also single
mums and a time for women to come and share
all their ancestral knowledge. Is another point of call to
invite people to stop culturally appropriating, which is really we've
got a lot of people in this country on Bungelung
who were cultural appropriators, and I wanted to start a
women's gathering that wasn't defined.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
By that, but actually resisted it.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
By wanting women to come and reclaim what they could
teach and share. We've always had over fifty percent Indigenous
facilitators at that gathering and it runs over three days
and two nights, and it's a place for women to
come and share knowledge. Is so that we could be
healthier and better together. I think there's a common story
here that women can unite around the oppression that we
(36:11):
felt through the patriarchy, and it's also another threat that
I think when we have these unifying stories, we can
come together. We can create empathy by sharing and learning
and listening to one another, and we can rise.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Together in that.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
And that was kind of like the seed of the charity,
and then it just kind of snowballed, and in twenty
twenty one we became an official charity and now we're
running nine programs across the region and charity starts at home.
So we're all women team, mostly mothers, mostly Indigenous, and
I wanted to create a decolonial workspace where ours were
(36:45):
flexible for both mothers and mob because so much of
the care economy is done on unpaid labor and the
backs of women, you know, whether that's us raising our families,
looking after the elderly, or just like looking after our
entire community always.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
And I wanted to reframe business in.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
A way that we're able to actually pay those women
for what they do and create programs that are centered
around women centered societies and rebringing people back to the
idea of like how much more.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Beautiful it is when we raise our kids together.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, I wanted to reintroduce this women centered societies and
give women this embodied experience of what it's like to
be out on country and have all your kids play together.
And what we found is like, you know, the same
as when I was little. When you get a whole
bunch of little jargeans together, they're going to be looking
after themselves.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
You're not going to see them for a whole day.
They're playing at the river and the.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Climbing trees and the big ones are carrying the babies,
and that's how they grow and that's how they learn
so much. And then it gives mothers and aunties and
thens that break and that rest to just like gather
and speak. And so I guess like that's the seed
of where the charity came from. But now we're running
anything from cultural camps that include language camps that we
(38:03):
run just for mob and also cross cultural exchange programs
with the Pacific Island Brothers and Sisters. We have youth
programs for teenage girls to reconnect with ancestral plant food
and medicine. We've got an arts and culture residency that
runs for one year, Writers Residency partnered with the Barn
Bay Writers Festival, a postpart and program that's supporting our
(38:24):
First Nations mums with six weeks worth of home cook meals.
It's all got native ingredients in it. An elder's healing
program that takes twelve Indigenous matriarchs post the age of
sixty through our one year healing space, which includes four
retreats and one on one no tropathy care. All through that,
we do community days in Lismore and Balana and it's
(38:46):
just kind of taken on a life and I don't
know how it's gotten like this, but you know, we
we're just listening to what our community wants and we're
trying to provide a service. I don't know if it's
super sustainable to run this many programs with such a
small team. You know, we're five Indigenous women who make
up the team and two non Indigenous women who make
(39:08):
up our accounts and grant writer. But somehow we're managing
to get the work done, and we're working with so
much of our beautiful community on a needs base. And
you know, we're just doing this for this time until
other people can step in and take over and run
the programs too. You know, I've got no desire to monopolize,
(39:30):
to grow, to get bigger than Bungelung. Like even if
we end up in a couple of years just stripping
back and only running a few programs, that's better for me.
But I don't want to grow and expand and move
into other people's country. But I do want to inspire
other people to you know, potentially take on these models
of care, to support our women to actually do that work.
(39:52):
And look at how we can support other mob and
different nations to bring about similar models as us, you know,
and now's the time. You know, the not for profit
space can be complex and we and like I said,
like I'm not an academic person or a business woman.
I don't know how I ended up running this charity.
But Ban says, to bless me with a whole bunch
(40:12):
of good relations that are supporting here on Bungelung and beyond,
and so I just want to continue to be the
bridge and redistribute the distribution of wealth. Last year we
employed over eighty cultural workers, and that for me is
a redefining of what the colony says the value system is,
because it's really placing the money back in the hands
(40:33):
of our people, who know country, who know the lay
of the land, who know language, who know art, sustainable art,
who know our ways of being, and to redefine that
as like that is an appropriate and beautiful job for
you to do, and I hope it inspires the next
generation to know that they don't have to go and
get a degree to be a well paid person under
(40:55):
this economic system that always tells us that our culture
is not value.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
I mean, like that just sounds so dead to hear that. Yeah,
from this vision of the women's centered society to the
returning to now these nine very beautiful holistic programs, I'm like, oh,
I wish we had some stuff like that here and
on our country. You know, I feel like we still
have such a long ways to go in going back
(41:22):
to some of these cultural practices. But yeah, I can
definitely see why it's grown because of the grit and
the love, and I think when you're moving with the
spirit an ethos of community at your center and you're
listening and you're adapting and you're providing, Yeah, it's kind
of easy for things to sort of like evolve and
grow based off communities needs. So yeah, wow, I mean
(41:46):
what are you seeing from some of the people, like
some of the mob that come through some of these programs,
like any sort of sentiments or things that are shared
for how they experience these incredible programs.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yeah, I mean, we just finished our last retreat for
the Elder's program, which is one of my favorites. It's
like so beautiful to take these twelve matriarchs on this
journey of giving some of them the first facial they've
ever had, giving them some of them the first massage
they've even had. The introduced them to craniosecral therapies as well.
(42:19):
They had one on one atropathy, which apparently through our
data that we collected, magnesium seems to be the thing
that can get heaps of our elders off numerous amounts
of pharmaceuticals. So one of our elders was on twelve
pharmaceuticals when she started the healing program. We put her
on magnesium every night to help with the pain that
(42:40):
she was feeling. So she got rid of her painkillers,
which then indirectly got rid of her heart medicine because
the painkillers were helping. That she's down to four pharmaceuticals.
That's all she's taking. Anwo the elder started the program
on a walker. She's now finished the program without a walker.
And our oldest participant, who's almost eighty, you know her
(43:00):
reflection piece. She's still living out on the mission Bugamart,
which is really close to where I grew up. Annie Carroll.
She also taught me in primary school, you know. And
she was saying, like the best thing is coming actually together.
So much of the healing was all these matriarchs from
Tweed all the way down to near the border of
Yaegel Gumbangy Country and all the way out the past Graft,
(43:23):
and that all these women know each other's families and
family lines, but some of them had never met, and
they got to sit and repatriate all of.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
These stories that they knew about each.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Other's families and everything that they had experienced, all the
stories that were given to them, and even in that
those meetings of just sitting around and having a youarn,
so much can be healed, so much can be repatriated,
having like us younger, younger women, you know, just show
up in service to those beautiful old women who have
(43:55):
carried the backs of so many of our people and
still continued to who raised our jajams, who still care
for their granny and everyone else. It's such a privilege,
It really is.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Such an honor.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Like brings tears to my eyes, because this is what
our culture is about, you know, It's about looking after
the most disadvantage and the most undervalued in society. And
I think this society is like disgusting to their elder women,
you know. And I've heard a lot of elder women
not even indigenous. If you're indigenous, it's like a whole
(44:29):
other situation. But you know how invisibilized they become in
the patriarchy once they go through their initiation into menopausem
beyond where in our culture, that is the wisest woman,
that is the most respected woman, you know, and it
is for us to take that back and look after
those ladies with such great care, and that gives them
(44:51):
so much worse.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
And if we're able to just fill.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Them with one year of like loving them up, connecting
them in and supporting them. My hope is that a
lot of those elder women who I was deep relationship
with prior to because a lot of them come from
you know, Bungelung, so I know them or their families.
But my hope is that we somehow can help embed
them into our programs and provide spaces where elders can
(45:17):
just be paid to come and be in the program.
They don't actually have to show up and do anything anymore.
They've done it. And this is how we change business
from inside the colonial couple system. Is like, we build
elders fees into our brands, and we make them valuable
and we make sure that they can come and they
can be paid to just rest.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
I'm a big believer in rest is the revolution, but
all types of rest.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
You know, environmental rest, community rest, rest around culture. This
allows us the time and space to really find our
way home. I think that program is probably my favorite,
but you know, I'm a bit biased, I guess, but
all of the programs are amazing. I mean, the post
Partner program runs all year round, servicing Indigenous women all
over Bungee Country and we drive the meals out there.
(46:06):
Curly Dawn, who was also you know, a big support
during the floods and right by my side at Carey
Mail alongside all the other deadly mob naming Mimran and
Wayne King and Annie Jackulari, you know, she runs that
program and she's a deadly.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Indigenous schooler who's been a birth worker for.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
A long time and she's really passionate about educating our
women and our names and our aunie so that we
can be in the birthpace advocating for our women and
not just letting these Western institutions coerce us into doing
things that may not be best for us, you know,
and just also providing things like Kangaroo Tales do curried
(46:45):
sausages but with all organic ingredients. And we worked with
Mindy Woods, who's an amazing, visible, viable chef from banjelannxhos
or Master Chef, and she's come out with your love this.
She come up with the Keynes curry, but it's using
all our native spices and are tastes.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Exactly the same, and it's so deadly like this kind
of stuff is like ground.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
You know what Nan used to make you and when
you're in your postpartum you have to be eating these
kind of rich, dense protein foods. I mean, you can
eat other foods if your vegetarian or vegan, but you
know this way, but having that kind of courage sausage
for so many people is so nostalgic. They just said, like,
I can't believe this food is like getting delivered to
our door.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
And it's just like NaN's, oh my god. Well, this
is the power of indigenity and indigenizing what we do,
right Like you're feeling and experiencing that every day. And yeah,
and I mean I think there's no there's really no
like English word to like summarize what you said. But
there's one thing that I think that I want to highlight,
which is that program you were yearning about with our elders,
(47:49):
you know, because they were such in enslaved in servitude
to give back to them in that way for them
to have that sense of community at the stages of
their life when they when they are, you know, because
so much of their lives is around care responsibilities, unpaid labor,
(48:09):
how special and native food for postpartum. These are all
things that I'm constantly thinking about as I start my
birth journey and you know, really wanting to think about
how I can protect my indigenoity through that process in
a hospital system which is really violent. So wow, you're
doing amazing, powerful work. You should be so proud of
(48:32):
what you've been able to co create with a mob
down there. I guess my kind of last.
Speaker 4 (48:37):
Question, and I could speak to you all day obviously.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
But I mean, what are you you know, if we
were to sit here in ten years, you know time,
and have this yarn about the work you're doing and
the work that other communities are doing around this conversation
around indigenizing our practices and returning back to you know
what do you hope that we'd be celebrating?
Speaker 4 (49:00):
What sort of changes would you like to see over
that time?
Speaker 3 (49:05):
I mean a massive return to women's centered societies, which
means like the eradication.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Of these nine to five confinements.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
I think that not only steal our sunlight or our
time and relationship with the sunlight, but allowing mothers and women.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
To have more flexible hours, to be able to get paid.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
On their bleed days, to see the return of younger
women or men being paid to look after their elders.
I think food systems are critical in this time, Like
in ten years, I'd love to see community gardens and
gardens kind of like in the urban space especially, but
take over that place because I think capitalism's co opted
(49:46):
our food systems. And in ten years time, if we
can do real reclamation not only with our food, but
you know, our medicines here on country too, and see
First Nations people leading those businesses not being left behind,
which does happen in the native food industry a lot,
you know, I think it's like ninety seven percent non
(50:08):
Indigenous owned in the native foods. Is that like, if
we want to see real change, it requires us to
see women and Indigenous people lead. And I really believe
that because for too long it's it's not been the way.
We've been behind. We haven't been leading, and we haven't
been given the respect that we deserve, and everybody suffers.
(50:28):
Everybody suffers if a woman or a mother is not
at her greatest health. If our vision is to raise
the next generation strong and healthy, then we need to
be looking after our women.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
We need to ensure that they have very good access
to food.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
And it's dire in this country and I know that
the food systems is it's a place of privilege, and
it's disgusting that people got to pay what they pay
in some rural communities for even just three or four
grocery items. I think all of us should be championing
and campaigning that we bring our food back and we
(51:03):
able to do what we do best because it's what
we consume the most of you know. So, I mean,
I guess that's my vision in ten years. I hope
like the rivers are restored to good health. We got
five major river systems, But the difference it would make
in some of these small community towns, like There's more
and a Wallumbar, if they had rivers that were swimmable
(51:27):
and people and our young people could like return back
to the rivers and play, then that would be my
greatest dream and I would happily go if I could
see that.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
It's kind of nice to think about what that might
look like. And I think it's these conversations are going
to be prolific and guided by people like you and
our next generation, guided by our elders who've opened these doors.
But it absolutely requires solidarity in these movements and collectivism
(51:57):
right now and for you know, Migloo's and non indigenous
folks to really listen and learn and reckon with their
own stories, their own histories to really help us, because
indigenous knowledge does have the power to.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Help us all.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
And you've got to sort of hold on to hope
that we can get their hope and a lot of fight,
that's for sure. Oh, my sis, thank you so much.
I'm going to put all of Allah's details in our
show notes her instagram, the returning the programs we can
back and support issues and causes and get behind the work.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
That you're doing on Bundelung Country.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
From the bottom of my heart, I just want to
say thank you so much for being here today and
sharing your wisdom.
Speaker 4 (52:46):
And you've certainly given me.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
A lot to think about, but you probably reaffirmed so
much of what many blackfellows are grappling with right now
in a much eloquent term. But yeah, thank you so
so much for being here and sharing your time and
your knowledges and your labor given what you're doing in
building women's centered society.
Speaker 4 (53:07):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Massis guber where Sis, thank you, thank you so much
for listening. You mob if you're vibing this season of
yarning up. Then please head over to Apple, Spotify, or
wherever you get your podcasts from to show us some love, rate,
and review. Alternatively, you can get in contact and give
(53:30):
us some feedback by visiting www. Dot Caroline Cool, dot
com dot au
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