Fire Country by Victor Steffensen

Author:Victor Steffensen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hardie Grant Travel
Published: 2020-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Go ahead

Meanwhile back on Awu-Laya country, the national parks rangers seemed to leave us alone for a little while. This allowed us to get back to the joys of exercising cultural practices on country in peace. As usual, Poppy and old man TG would be waiting for me with fishing lines, swags and a billy tin. Things were going good and we could concentrate on being free with the country. We were attracting a little attention around our fire management efforts; we started to get noticed by a range of other agencies who were interested in what we were doing.

Not long after, I got a call from an Aboriginal community from New South Wales asking for help with their own fire projects. They asked if I could go down to work with them on their country. I wasn’t sure at the time; it seemed a bit risky to go to someone else’s country and teach them Indigenous burning. I turned down the offer and stayed focused with our own work, but I did have an interest in seeing the country down south. I wanted to see more country and broaden my knowledge on reading other landscapes.

Over the years we would hear about the many massive wildfires that were going on in the southern parts of Australia. I remember a few occasions of sitting with the Elders, watching the reports on the news. The old people would sit there feeling really sorry for the people and the country. They would constantly say that the people are not looking after the country. ‘They need to believe us, do like we do,’ Poppy would say. ‘We need to go there and show them how to do.’ The old people were really serious when they said these things. They hated seeing the destruction of the country, and more so when lives and houses were taken by these wild infernos.

Every time a bad fire would make the news the topic would always be mentioned among many Elders in our region. I remember when a special old woman I respected commented on the situation one time during a film interview. ‘I don’t know why the country, the houses and the people get burnt, when there are so many people right there to look after the land.’ It made her really angry, even though it wasn’t her country. The passion she expressed that day even for someone else’s country was strong through and through. So strong that the old lady shed a tear for Mother Earth. ‘We made this into a rich country with everything here, and now they have come to destroy it. It’s not a lucky country anymore. When we go, it will be finished, no more lucky country.’ She said all this so powerfully that I started wiping tears away from my eyes as I looked through the camera lens.

We have large wildfires in the far northern parts of Australia too. The old people were constantly upset when they saw local bushland burnt to a cinder by wildfire during the hotter seasons.

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