Wearing Country

A possum skin cloak is traditionally worn from birth through to death. It is a personal, biographical map that connects the wearer to Country. This possum skin cloak created by Treahna Hamm of the Yorta Yorta people represents her intimate knowledge of the landscape, particularly the creation of Moorundie—the Murray River. The ochre and yellow paint reflects the red river gums of the Barmah Forest and shows the places where ochre is naturally found. The making of possum skin cloaks has been revived in the last decade. This continued cultural practice is just one example of how detailed knowledge of the landscape is inscribed and passed on. 

A Strange Land 

Early European maps of the Pacific and Australia were limited by the viewpoint of the people making them. Crossing the continent gives explorers an extremely limited view of the land that they’re passing through. They’re only glimpses of the ocean coastline of the continent.

—Dr Claire Brennan, Historian

The first European maps of Australia’s coast and waterways were incomplete and wildly inaccurate. As navigators from Europe encountered the continent, they spent more time at sea than on land, and this is evidenced in their drawings. They were maps made by strangers from afar.

Our modern understanding of the appearance of the Australian land mass is quite different to how the ancestors of the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island nations have seen continental Australia in the past.  The Australian coast took the shape we know today around 8,000 years ago. Before then, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples lived on land that is now covered by sea.

At one point there would have been dry land stretching out 160 kilometres from the current shoreline. That land would have been owned and lived on by generations of Aboriginal people. Our discovery demonstrates that underwater archaeological material has survived sea-level rise.

—Chelsea Wiseman, Deep History of Sea Country Project

Aside from reading the underwater cultural landscape, there are change markers in the natural environment, like corals, which can grow slowly for thousands of years. Coral core samples can reveal the age of the coral bed and the impacts of river systems flowing into the ocean and sea level rise. Each growth layer of a coral tells a story, similar to the way each ring in an old-growth forest tree reveals changes in its environment.    

Marine Dust and Dhangal (Dugong)

The hunter would carve the back of a wooden dugong charm hollow as if it was a canoe. He would then place ancestral bones and sea grass obtained from the mouth of a previously killed dugong. When the light of the moon shines on the charm, the hunter waiting with his wap (harpoon) whispers a sacred chant that leads the dugong to the nath (hunter's platform).

 —Alick Tipoti, Badu Island, Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait Islands), 2016

Alick Tipoti’s bronze sculpture, Kisay Dhangal shows the life cycle and feeding patterns of the dhangal (dugong) in the Torres Strait Islands. The dhangal is captured in the position known as San Tidayk in Kala Lagaw Ya language—marking the moment the mammal flips its tail to dive down and graze on the sea grass beds. A marine dust trail between the tail and the moon emphasises how lunar cycles determine dugong feeding and mating habits. 

Guided by Ancestral Memories 

Ilma is a Bardi term that refers to open ceremonies performed by the Bardi people and the objects that are used in their ceremonies. The dance performance and associated songs pass on intergenerational knowledge. Ilma can record stories, directions, information about tides and navigation. They can be like story maps of the sea.

These Ilma were designed by Roy Wiggan and made by one of his sons at One Arm Point, Western Australia in 1993. They tell the story of when Roy Wiggan's father was swept out to sea in a storm and how he observed the birds, tides, stars, winds and the sea itself to safely navigate home.

It's through following the paths of seabirds that Roy's father was able to know the directions of where to head, to head back towards land, for example, and after Roy's father's passing, those memories came back to Roy in dreams and in moments where he was concentrating on preserving the cultural knowledges that his father had towards him and those cultural knowledges which saved his father's life.

—Matt Poll, Indigenous Programs Manager

Guided by Tiny Satellites in Space 

Satellites have dramatically changed how we travel, navigate and get directions in the 21st century. They act like the stars in constellations—so we know where they are supposed to be at any given time. Their data can provide information about the Earth, the Sun, and other planets, monitor weather on Earth, weather in space, and beam communication signals like TV, phone calls and internet signals down to the ground.

Satellites are in space and in the sky. From the sky, we can study the land and the sea. We can see how they link together, the land, the sea, the sky. We can see the forces shaping the land from the sea and therefore see how Australia is shaped by the sea.

—Professor Iver Cairns, University of Sydney