Why Warriors Lie Down and Die - By Richard Trudgen
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
GLOSSARY
Notes
Translation form
MAPS - ARNHEM LAND AND ENVIRONS
THE YOLNGU REGION OF ARNHEM LAND
MACASSAN TRADE ROUTE
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
The Way It Is
PART ONE: THE YOLNGU OF ARNHEM LAND
CHAPTER 1: Wangarr’s Gift is Broken
The Fifty Year War
The Madayin
The Wind Traders
Table 1. Quantities and Tariff value of recorded imports into the
Northern Territory from Macassar, 1894-1903
Contact with White Humans
The First Pastoral War
The Second Pastoral War
The Loss of International Trade
The Third War
The Lesser of Two Evils
Balayni
The Fourth War
The Battle for Survival Continues
CHAPTER 2: A Crisis in Living
Into the Self-determination Era
Yolngu Life Pre-1970
From Dreams to Nightmares
Confusing Balanda Structures
The Collapse of Industries and Services
Galiwin’ku Fishing Industry
Galiwin’ku Garden
Bank Agencies
Yolngu Workers Displaced
New Decision-Makers
New-style Resource Staff
Yolngu Elders Lose Control
Changed Community Attitudes
The Resulting Nightmare
CHAPTER 3: ‘The Trouble with Yolngu is . . . !’
Official and Unofficial Views on the Current State of Yolngu Health
Perspectives on the Health Crisis
Naming, Blaming, Lecturing
What Yolngu say
The Effects of Naming
Direct Effects on the People
Policies and Programs That Fit the Naming
The Factor of Naming
PART TWO: A WAR OF ‘WORDS'
CHAPTER 4: The Essence of Human Interaction - Communication
The Crisis in being Understood
The Role of Communication
Effects of Poor Communication
Tumour—A Boil or a Cancer?
Communication Problems and Health Delivery
Difficulties with Diagnosis
Sunday Afternoon with an English Doctor
Using Health Workers as Interpreters
The Two-way Crisis
Communication Mores
A Problem with Silence
The Victims of this War
CHAPTER 5: ‘What Language Do You Dream In?’
Uncharted English
Strange New Words
English versus Yolngu Matha
Language Is Not Taken Seriously
‘English Makes Me Tired’
‘It’s Like a Bomb Being Thrown Down in Front of You’
What’s So Hard About English?
Coping with a Foreign Language
Specific Difficulties with English
Computers Are Understood—Humans Are Not
Uncharted Languages
Patient/Doctor Communication: A Yolngu Perspective
A Grieving Mother
The Foreign Language Learning Process
Knowing but Not Knowing
The Importance of the People’s Own Language
CHAPTER 6: Thirteen Years of Wanting to Know
World-view—as Important as Language
David’s Thirteen-Year Search
From Experience to World-view
The Effects of World-view on Communication
• World-view Problem 1:
• World-view Problem 2:
• World-view Problem 3:
• Language Problem 1:
• World-view Problem 4:
• World-view Problem 5:
• World-view Problem 6:
• World-view Problem 7:
• Language Problem 2:
• World-view Problem 8:
Trained Professionals Are Essential
CHAPTER 7: ‘You Can Hear the Grass Grow’
Understanding the People’s Cultural Knowledge Base
Pre-existing Knowledge
Get Behind, Brother!
The Role of a Cultural Knowledge Base in the Learning Process
Using the Cultural Knowledge Base to Bridge the Gap in Knowledge
The Effects of Different Cultural Knowledge Bases on Learning
Education and the Cultural Knowledge Base
CHAPTER 8: Is the Age of Knowledge and Thinking at an End?
Why Cross-Cultural/Cross-Language Education Is Failing
The Degeneration of Yolngu Education
The Need to Know ‘How the New World Works’
The High Cost of Ineffective Education
• Because of ineffectual education, Yolngu learn to feel
inferior and unintelligent.
• Because of ineffectual education, Yolngu discount their
elders and traditional knowledge.
• Because of ineffective education, Yolngu lose the ‘cause and
effect’ relationship in their thinking about how the
world operates.
• Because of ineffective education, Yolngu come to believe that
dominant culture knowledge is of a superior, mystical quality
and unattainable.
• Because of ineffective education, Yolngu learn that ritual, rather
than productive action, is all-important in the
dominant culture world.
• Because of ineffective education, Yolngu lose all interest in
gaining knowledge.
Inappropriate Responses to Given Situations
A Visit to the Doctor
But Our Children Grew Bigger
Sweet Equals Good Food?
Is Knowledge and Thinking at an End for Yolngu?
PART THREE: THE COST OF BEING DIFFERENT
CHAPTER 9: ‘Witch Doctor is the Real Doctor?’
Health, Healing and Traditional Authority
Traditional Yolngu Health Matters
The Yolngu Classification of Foods
Table 2. The Yolngu Classification of Foods
Marr`gitj—the Authorised Healers and Doctors
Confusion in a Balanda-Controlled World
Old Knowledge Rediscovered
An Encounter with the Local ‘Witch Doctor’
Traditional Practices—Holy or Evil?
So What Has Happened to the Traditional Doctors?
Chief Medical Officers Locked Out
The Midwives Also Lose Control
The Cultural Clash
The Disappearance of Knowledge
The Question of Law and Authority
Confusion About Dominant Culture Systems of Law
‘Who Ever Asked Us?’
Pseudo Schemes and Structures
The Effect on Health Workers
Dying with Dignity
The Unhealthy Cost of Being Different
CHAPTER 10: ‘Living Hell’
Welfare and Dependency and their Effect on the People
A New Way of Living?
Welfare—A Yolngu Perspective
The Fish and the Shadow
Administering the 'Last Rights'
Learned Helplessness
Roy’s Story
Dependency and Its Effect on the People
Loss of Roles
Loss of Mastery
Hopelessness
From Drug Abuse to Violence
The Real Violence
CHAPTER 11: ‘Stop the World — I Want to Get Off!’
The Stress of Living between Two Cultures
Culture Shock
Dominant Culture Personnel and Culture Shock
Yolngu and Culture Shock
The Serious Effects of Culture Shock
Future Shock
Was It Always This Way?
Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma
Just Get On With Things
You Can’t Say No To Balanda
Psychological Scarring
Steel of Character?
Transmission of Trauma to Children
Captives of the Dominant Culture
Community Violence
Re-Traumatisation and the Agents of Trauma
Stop the World I Want to Get Off
PART FOUR: WARRIORS THEY WERE AND WARRIORS THEY
CAN BE AGAIN
CHAPTER 12: Owners of Information
The Traditional Learning Process
Acquiring New Information—Not What, but How
The ‘Right’ Process in Balanda Society
The ‘Right’ Process in Aboriginal Society
CHAPTER 13: Treating the Symptoms or the Cause?
An Analysis of the Problem
A Look at the Past
Looking for the Primary Cause
The Babies on the River
Posing the ‘Million Dollar’ Question
The Trip up the River
Others in the Same Boat
The Symptoms and the Primary Causes
‘Victims of Progress’—A World-wide Reality
CHAPTER 14: Rewriting the Future
The Way Ahead
Five Steps to a More Yolngu-friendly Environment
Take the People’s Language Seriously
How Do We Take the People’s Language Seriously?
What Are ‘Leaking Kidneys’?
Train Dominant Culture Personnel
Why Should Dominant Culture People Be Trained?
It’s Just Too Expensive
Approach Education and Training in a Different Way
Who Designs Yolngu Education?
Education Around Concepts Needs to Happen First
Discovery Education
Our Young People Are Sniffing Petrol—Can Someone Help Us?
Replace Existing Programs with Programs That Truly
Empower the People
The Galiwin’ku Melioidosis Education Program
A Program That Empowered the People
Deal with Some Basic Legal Issues
A Security of Tenure
A Rule of Law
Warriors Once More
PRONUNCIATION: A GUIDE FOR YOLŊU MATHA WORDS
Vowels
Consonants
Some Additional Rules
BIBLIOGRAPHY
REFERENCES
DETAILED SUBJECT INDEX
REFERENCES
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Why Warriors Lie Down and Die
 The
result of over 30 years of working face to face with Aboriginal people,
this book identifies many of the causes of the crisis faced by Aboriginal
Australians and provides examples of ways people working with Aboriginal
people effectively empower Indigenous Communities.
“Many books have been about the Yolngu people of Arnhem
Land (NT Australia). This one is very different. It speaks of about
the real situation that we face every day, a reality that is hard
for people of another culture to imagine.”
Dr. Djiniyini Gondarra
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Foreword
Subject Index
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