People bring their own knowledge, experience and emotions to their environment to interpret the world in which they live.
According to Professor Andrew Taylor from Edith Curtin University, landscape is not “what is out there, unseen”. It is how we look at landscape that matters and the fact that I am looking at it from where I am because of who I am. Everyone has a different way of looking at landscape which is influenced by their prior experiences and the accumulation of knowledge about who they are and their own individual place in the world. The way I look is also influenced by my emotions, my hopes and fears. As such the landscape takes on many hues – much depends upon our feelings, our position in time and our attitudes, experiences and memories.
People might inhabit the same place at the same time, but have a completely different relationship with their world. Their memories, their knowledge and experiences all influence this relationship. This is certainly true of the distinction between the indigenous and the settlers as depicted in One night the Moon The theme songs capture the aborigines’ experience with the land which is one of respect and mutuality. Even more, the land is their being. The land is their soul. So instinctive and harmonious is their relationship, that without it, they would lose their heart and soul. This symbiotic and heartfelt emotion is conveyed in the respectful phrase, “the land is me”. Land determines identity and community relationships. In other words, the land is bigger than the sum of their various individual parts. For aborigines, the land also speaks to them about origins. Albert says, “my being’s here where I belong”.
This intimate century-deep knowledge is also translated into physical actions like tracking – a dual symbol of their spiritual closeness. A closeness that outsiders will never learn. Albert states, “I can track the shadow of the moon from hearts to the limits of the land”. This knowledge could have saved Emily’s life. He instinctively knows that Emily would have followed the light; he knew immediately that Jim and the team of settlers had taken the wrong path, which becomes a symbol of a different landscape imposed upon the indigenous landscape that was meant for dreaming.
In contrast, the settlers are strangers in a foreign land – both physically and psychologically; their knowledge is only skin deep and as a sign of their inexperience and difference, Emily dies. As Europeans, they are indeed intruders and seek to own, subdue and control the land. QUOTES>.. They destroy and kill and are killed in turn. Their catchcry “The land is mine” captures their desire to own this contested space. They erect signs, “no blacks on my land”. Jim tersely reminds Albert of the boundaries and the fences of white occupation, and he becomes increasingly defensive and aggressive – even paranoid. The family’s estrangement is evident in the starched, white clothes. As Perkins reminds viewers, their’s is a fearful attitude based on difference because they lack the century-deep knowledge that is ingrained in their indigenous counterparts. Their prior knowledge and experiences breed arrogance and a sense of superiority because they erect fences and own a gun. Contradictorily, they feel threatened and humiliated by a land that cannot be controlled. A daughter is lost. Jim commits suicide (“i drove kindness from my door”) and Rose sinks into depression. Quotes of kath -… foreigners…
The settlers erect fences to mark their territory and try to gain a sense of permanence by warding off the aborigines: “This land is mine; all the way to the old fence line”. Jim is not unlike Robert Frost’s neighbor in “Mending the Wall”, who likes to erect fences as a way of staking his territory and trying to ward off fear of the unknown. He believes that by hemming himself in he can better maintain control over the unknown. Finally, Jim states, as he takes the gun to shoot himself, “I drove kindness from my door”. Perkins suggests that his raw brutal and hostile emotions have diminished him. Fear and anger triumph.
More recently, our experiences with dingos, some commentators suggest, reflect our experiences of the land, and capture the white man’s interpretation of landscape. The Age writer Martin Flanagan remarks, “for thousands of years, there has been a dingo dreaming at Uluru, a story of a dingo hostile to human beings and their infants.” He believes that the Azaria Chamberlain narrative stands as a “marker in the consciousness of a nation, comprised of people from all over the world, predominantly Euorpe, coming belatedly to terms with a land with an ancient history and a nature all its own.” Indeed, this sense of belatedness is certainly a factor in Jim’s experience with the land and his estrangement, leading to paranoia, influenced his response to Emily’s death.
Although Perkins describes a hostile relationship because of their inadequate knowledge and fearful emotions, Malouf also draws attention to the way the settlers tries to create a vision of home based on memories and knowledge of what the land should be like. In his 1993 Boyer lecture, he states that the settlers’ vision of “nature” was like an English landscape garden as was evident in a Poussin or a Claude painting. In particular, Joseph Banks tried to recreate gardens by “stepping back in imagination to a place on the far side of the globe”. Malouf states that he played a “godlike little game with himself and with a whole new continent.” He brought an “arkload of plants” that was suitable for a climate similar to Southern France and set about making his own Garden of Eden according to his vision of home. This was like bringing his version of “home” to Australia. In this case, his interpretation of the land is influenced by his prior memories and knowledge of home – in short his nostalgia.
Our experiences with the land and our emotional reactions can also lead to spiritual interpretations that help us make sense of who we are and where we come from. Land is also about origins for the aborigines. Malouf’s comment in his Boyer lecture that we are “makers of landscape” refers to our ability to recreate the landscape in our own image and according to our imaginative and spiritual possibilities. The landscape often becomes a product of our imagination (internal life) and tells us a great deal about our identity. Albert sings, “I heard your spirit calling” which shows how he gains knowledge and wisdom from the spirit of the land. Similarly, In stories of the Dreamtime aborigines create myths about they who they are and where they come from. In most stories of the Dreaming, the Ancestor spirits created the animals, plants, rocks and other forms of the land. For example, Uluru is not just a sandstone rock to the aborigines as it is to many Westerners. In Aboriginal mythology Uluru is the Intelligent Snake from the higher spirit realms of the universe and has become a symbol of fertility – the father and mother of all forms of life. The past and memories of ancestors who were also part of the land become integral to the identity of indigenous people. Knowledge of the past and the experiences of ancestors shape their future in a way that maybe strange to white settlers. Albert sings about how they “walk with dignity of ancient knowledge and wisdom of spirit of the land” which gives them pride. As the dedication note to Charles Perkin states, “we know we cannot live in the past but the past lives in us”.
Stories and songs also capture the way individuals make sense of their landscape – often in creative and imaginative ways. For example, the nursery rhyme, “One Night the Moon” captures Emily’s child-like knowledge and her curiosity as she imagines going for a ride. “One Night The Moon came a choochooing by Called all the sleepers to come for a ride”. Her spontaneous and intuitive wonder prompt her escapade that ends in tragic circumstances. Her child like curiosity propels her interpretation and influences Emily’s star-struck approach.
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