Any visitor to tropical far north Queensland is able to walk down to the Trinity Inlet and look through eye pieces strategically placed in some old jetty logs to be able to get a glimpse into this region's indigenous cultural landscape and to see some of the locally indigenous storytime beings embedded in the landscape including Gindarja, Djarragun and particularly Guyalla, with his wings still spread out over Yarrabah (see above).
In relation to Guyalla, the accompanying sign explains:
"Guyalla is one of the Storytime Legends. Guyalla with his brother Dumarri made all the food that we eat and the laws that go with them. He was not a compassionate storytime person and made everything harder for the people because he believed that everything you do should not be easy and that you have to work for what you receive. Guyalla was a great hunter and was turned into a sea hawk when he didn’t share his food with the clan. The mountainside overlooking Cairns .. resembles a sea hawk’s wings spanning across the sky"
As part of Yarrabah Shire's native title determinations, the Federal Court of Australia has on a number of occasions confirmed there is an underlaying or overlaying indigenous system of lore across the region wherein the creative journeys of ancestors back in time immemorial (sometimes called storytime beings) have shaped the landscape, and the ancestors themselves have laid down and become embedded within the landscape.
For those familiar and initiated into this system of lore the legacy and the presence of the ancestors within the landscape are hard to miss. Cultural mapping (see below) estimates the movements of just a small number of the locally indigenous ancestral beings, including Guyalla and his brother, across the Yarrabah Shire (see Timothy Bottoms 1990 research)
In relation to Guyalla, the accompanying sign explains:
"Guyalla is one of the Storytime Legends. Guyalla with his brother Dumarri made all the food that we eat and the laws that go with them. He was not a compassionate storytime person and made everything harder for the people because he believed that everything you do should not be easy and that you have to work for what you receive. Guyalla was a great hunter and was turned into a sea hawk when he didn’t share his food with the clan. The mountainside overlooking Cairns .. resembles a sea hawk’s wings spanning across the sky"
As part of Yarrabah Shire's native title determinations, the Federal Court of Australia has on a number of occasions confirmed there is an underlaying or overlaying indigenous system of lore across the region wherein the creative journeys of ancestors back in time immemorial (sometimes called storytime beings) have shaped the landscape, and the ancestors themselves have laid down and become embedded within the landscape.
For those familiar and initiated into this system of lore the legacy and the presence of the ancestors within the landscape are hard to miss. Cultural mapping (see below) estimates the movements of just a small number of the locally indigenous ancestral beings, including Guyalla and his brother, across the Yarrabah Shire (see Timothy Bottoms 1990 research)
Within the locally indigenous underlaying or overlaying system of lore, the ancestors themselves have laid down in the same landscape into which urban development is growing; being the growth and development draft Cairns and Yarrabah planning schemes are seeking to manage, regulate and control.
On a number of occasions over the last couple of weeks the Yarrabah residents I am assisting have queried the extent to which the locally indigenous system of lore and places significant under that system of lore have been integrated and included into the proposed planning schemes.
It seems the locally indigenous system of lore is visible (and hard to miss) for those who are familiar or initiated into the system, but is not visible and is easily missed by those who are not familiar or are not initiated into this system of law, including, it turns out, the specialist planners who have actually prepared the draft planning scheme.
See for instance the less explicit, more implicit significance of the local choice of emblem for the local Yarrabah football club (below), including the slogan "Fly Guyala Fly!"
One of the residents meeting Department of Local Government, Infrastructure & Planning officers last Monday evening, with a view out across the Cairns Harbour and Guyalla, wings stretched wide, in the background .. one of the residents found the Yarrabah and other draft planning schemes to all contain a whole series of overlays for acid sulphate soils, for erosion, for fire hazards, for biodiversity and for far more other than the locally far more significant cultural landscape (above)
This particular resident sought to explain this particular problem with the statutory planning scheme and even, potentially, the statutory planning system according to which the planning scheme is being produced .. this particular resident explained that the planning scheme had plenty of overlays over the top of the pre-existing locally indigenous cultural landscape and system of lore, for which he imagined draft planning schemes and the planning system needed to explicitly include some underlays sufficient to show the otherwise invisible cultural landscape over which the planning scheme is being laid!
It is perhaps fortunate that the Queensland Government has actually enacted the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 which provides for cultural heritage management plans to be developed, agreed, and registered with the State and, following the meetings with the planners it may prove fortunate that we are being given the opportunity:
- to suggest cultural heritage management planning as provided for under the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act is a real and genuine option for whole Shires like Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire, and
- cultural heritage management planning may be able to be raised from relative invisibility to visibility should someone draft and Councils adopt a local planning scheme policy specifically for this purpose.
It is less fortunate that it seems no one seems to have the money, and the specialist planners undertaking community engagement definitely do not have the money to actually prepare cultural heritage management plans nor local planning scheme policies!
Note, below, that even the draft Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Planning Scheme includes a picture of the seahawk (Guyalla) flying above the Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire on its cover page!
This particular resident sought to explain this particular problem with the statutory planning scheme and even, potentially, the statutory planning system according to which the planning scheme is being produced .. this particular resident explained that the planning scheme had plenty of overlays over the top of the pre-existing locally indigenous cultural landscape and system of lore, for which he imagined draft planning schemes and the planning system needed to explicitly include some underlays sufficient to show the otherwise invisible cultural landscape over which the planning scheme is being laid!
It is perhaps fortunate that the Queensland Government has actually enacted the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 which provides for cultural heritage management plans to be developed, agreed, and registered with the State and, following the meetings with the planners it may prove fortunate that we are being given the opportunity:
- to suggest cultural heritage management planning as provided for under the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act is a real and genuine option for whole Shires like Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire, and
- cultural heritage management planning may be able to be raised from relative invisibility to visibility should someone draft and Councils adopt a local planning scheme policy specifically for this purpose.
It is less fortunate that it seems no one seems to have the money, and the specialist planners undertaking community engagement definitely do not have the money to actually prepare cultural heritage management plans nor local planning scheme policies!
Note, below, that even the draft Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Planning Scheme includes a picture of the seahawk (Guyalla) flying above the Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire on its cover page!