Te r r a i n s
Hi v e r 2012 -
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permanent. These beliefs lead to what Sackett deems to be too careless of an attitude towards the act of hunting and the surrounding vegetation. Aborigine spirituality, in this case, appears to hinder sound conservation ethic. On the other hand, research done in the Arhman Land Region demonstrates that indigenous groups are capable of translating their belief system into practical models of land and resource management (Ross and Pickering 2002; Altman 2003; Bowman and Vigilante; Whitehead 2003). After all, hunter-gatherers, whose survival depends on subsistence from the land, need a practical understanding of environment management. These groups have lived in intimate relations with the natural world for centuries. While Australian aborigines may not use the language of ‘conservation’ or ‘sustainability,’ they have amassed intricate knowledge of their habitat and its maintenance. This wide array of ‘traditional knowledge’ has always allowed for successful and sustainable land and resource management. It continues to do so today. Research conducted amongst the Kuninjku people of the Armhem Land Region, with respect to land management through landscape burnings, provides an example of how aborigines combine spiritual understandings of nature with practical ecosystem knowledge to create balanced managements systems. This community has an extensive knowledge of both the religious and utilitarian significance of over 90 animal species and 136 plant species (Altman 2009:67). They assure species vitality through periodic burns. These fire management tactics involve lighting controlled fires throughout the year, resulting in the temporary clearing of particular habitats. While these practices are now accepted in the scientific community, fire management remains extremely controversial within the larger Australian community. Indigenous groups have often been accused of transforming and defacing pristine wilderness through their
According to the indigenous belief system, it is through song that the landscape was originally created, and thus through music that it must be maintained. However, from a scientific perspective, none of these practices convert into viable conservation methods. In fact, some have suggested that the spiritual understanding of land maintenance has caused practical management to be ignored – Sackett notes, in his analysis of the Wiluna clan’s hunting practices, that wastage is common among aborigine communities (1979:225-226). His research shows that animals killed on hunting trips, but seen as inadequately skinny, were simply left where they had fallen while hunters continued to search for more substantial kills. When an appropriate animal was at last discovered, it was butchered on the spot. The desired meat was then cooked and returned to the clan, but the remaining organs, skins, bones, and undesired meat were left to rot (Sackett 1979:234-235). Although these practices seem to differ from aboriginal beliefs, Sackett suggests that this treatment of animals does not contradict the clan’s understanding of animals as kin. Instead, it results from aborigine understanding of the ecological balance as being maintained through ritual performance rather than secular concepts of wildlife preservation. For indigenous Australians, animal populations are replenished by coaxing spirits to impregnate animals through ritual; thus, humans play an instrumental role in bringing these animals into being (Kinsley 1995:27). When an animal is killed, its spirit is thought to be merely shedding material skin so that it may happily return to the land. If there is scarcity, humans only need to engage in ceremonial practice that will prompt spirits to impregnate animals once more (Sackett 1979:232). In Sackett’s analysis, this understanding of the world as a cyclic system of rebirth may in fact result in a negligence of sustainable practices. Cyclicity suggests that there is no finality or permanence to death. Spirits, as eternal beings, cannot be destroyed; thus no damage done to the earth is considered
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