Aboriginal+-+Kawaka+story

I was born forty years ago. As from that day I was a real, respected Aboriginal member of our Kawaka Clan. We fought a lot before, and my father, Dorak was killed by the cold-blooded east clan on a commission through our Province just a month before I was born. Grandfather gave me the name Dorak the lively after my dad, since my mom was still mourning.
 * My personal Kawaka story**

I wasn’t older than about eight years when I understood that our Kawaka Clan was one of the richest and strongest Aboriginal clans. We all have our own territories, but far from everyone lives near such a good fishing river and has as skilled fishermen like we have. That river is really holy, and has given us food for many generations. People think we aren’t religious and spiritual. Just because we rather pray to a single god we cannot see, we believe in a number of different deities with a special form just like our lifesaving river.

To my generation, ceremonies have played a really important part in our Aboriginal life. We practised small ceremonies and rituals to ensure a supply to our plants and animal food. A ceremony that I can remember as one of my favourites was the initiation of boys and girls into adulthood. Mom liked to make a big deal out of the ceremony and we used over a week with nightly singing and dancing, story telling and display of body decoration and ceremonial objects. That weak my great family finally told me about my father, I will never forget the words from my grandmother. She told me he was one of the best fighters in the clan. They still call me the son of hero, because he rescued and protected our clan from hard attacks and thieves.

The day that changed my life totally was exactly ten years ago. It was a really sunny day and out of nowhere there came a black, old and really long carriage into our town boundary. That was really not normal, because everyone knew who we were, and no one could ever stir up against us. One well-known clan rule is that no one can come to see us before reporting they are coming. There was something really suspicious about this carriage.

Suddenly about three minutes after we first saw the carriage, there came about fifty armed men out of it, and they started shooting arrows at us. Women and children were in a terrible panic, and hided in our houses, while we had to protect everything we had. I can still hear the sound of our screaming wives and see the eyes of our children filled with tears. They killed five men, injured eleven and they took all our valuables.

It was a really hard time for me. I had been hit in my foot on six different places. There was nothing our blessed healer could do, and after one horrifying week he made the decision. He gave me a big bottle of hard liquor and made me drink it to relieve the pain of the operation, and then he amputated my foot. That was one of the really worse thing I ever could imagine.

For a long time my daily life was only to learn walking with wooden crutches and to train my other foot. I missed my old life, to dance and hunt, and I had to find the quality of life back again. Today, ten years after the horrific accident I have practised our traditional music a lot. There was nothing else for me to do. I could not practice the thing in my life I was meant to do. I could not dance, hunt or be the leader of our fighters anymore, so I became the Kawaka-musician. Our traditional music holds a lot of meaning to our culture. We use the music to describe our Aboriginal life and to teach what must be know about our culture to our kids. I have already taught my youngest child to sing and dance about our everyday tasks and I have taught him his first karma song. It makes me so proud to learn my child good manners, and I like all parts of life I still can enjoy.

Today I got a better life than I ever could dream about with only one leg. In the evenings, our clan; our kids, parents, grandparents and our in-law family are sitting in a circle around the camp-fire while our oldest and most knowledge women are telling stories about when they were young. After the fabulous storytelling that I love so much, our family dances while I play the Didgeridoo.

The didgeridoo is also known as didge have at least forty-five other names in our community, but didgeridoo is the most used name. The didgeridoo is a wind instrument and my didgeridoo is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe", and when I am alone, often played it as a solo instrument. I really care about my didgeridoo. It was really expensive and has a good quality. My original Aboriginal didgeridoo is produced in Northern Australia and is made from the hardwood eucalyptus tree. I mostly use my didgeridoo in ceremonial life when I accompany singers and dancers in our religious rituals. It means a lot to me that I can contribute to something good that other people in our clan appreciate.

I had to practise for a long time to be as good as I am today. Not everyone can play the didgeridoo. I had to learn the important rhythm and the beat of the clapsticks. Only we who are strongest men can be skilled at playing the didgeridoo, because we have to have a big space in our lungs to blow out enough air to get the right sound.

I am a really skilled player, highly respected and I really travel a lot with our professional song man, Daku. When we travel, we arrange trade meetings and other meetings after we have played together. After the accident my clan actually gave me a new name too, Odern By The Sea! I have always liked the name since I got it, because Daku and I like to walk by the sea when travelling.

Our clan has the best aboriginal musicians all over Australia. Our healer told me that everything has a meaning, and that it was my holy stone that made me loose my foot to discover my hidden talent. I am really proud of our culture, and we are one of the world's longest surviving cultures, which modern people say dates back at least 50,000 years. Off course that’s just a stupid joke, because we Aboriginals all know that we have been the strongest for over 150,000 years.


 * //My didgeridoo://**

http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/sass/music/musicarchive/AusGeneral.html
 * Sources of reference:**

http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/

http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/religion.shtml

http://www.aboriginalarts.co.uk/aboriginal_culture.htm

http://www.sro.wa.gov.au/community/aboriginalhistory.asp

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/aboriginal_health_issues?open