My Blue Room

Avatar’s story is being played out in real life.

Reposted from “For the Next 7 Generations” blog…originally posted at Survival.org “The Movement for Tribal Peoples” 25 January 2010

Following the film ‘Avatar’’s win at the Golden Globes, tribal people have claimed that the film tells the real story of their lives today.

A Penan man from Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, told Survival, ‘The Penan people cannot live without the rainforest. The forest looks after us, and we look after it. We understand the plants and the animals because we have lived here for many, many years, since the time of our ancestors.

‘The Na’vi people in ‘Avatar’ cry because their forest is destroyed. It’s the same with the Penan. Logging companies are chopping down our big trees and polluting our rivers, and the animals we hunt are dying.’

Kalahari Bushman Jumanda Gakelebone said, ‘We the Bushmen are the first inhabitants in southern Africa. We are being denied rights to our land and appeal to the world to help us. ‘Avatar’ makes me happy as it shows the world about what it is to be a Bushman, and what our land is to us. Land and Bushmen are the same.’

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, known as the Dalai Lama of the Rainforest, said, ‘My Yanomami people have always lived in peace with the forest. Our ancestors taught us to understand our land and animals. We have used this knowledge carefully, for our existence depends on it. My Yanomami land was invaded by miners. A fifth of our people died from diseases we had never known.’

Director James Cameron received his Golden Globes awards for ‘Avatar’ last week, and revealed one of the central ideas of the film.

‘Avatar asks us to see that everything is connected,’ he said in his acceptance speech, ‘All human beings to each other, and us to the earth.

Cameron was inspired by the Maori language of New Zealand when devising the language spoken by the Na’vi.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry says, ‘Just as the Na’vi describe the forest of Pandora as ‘their everything’, for most tribal peoples, life and land have always been deeply connected.

‘The fundamental story of Avatar – if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids – is being played out time and time again, on our planet.

‘Like the Na’vi of ‘Avatar’, the world’s last-remaining tribal peoples – from the Amazon to Siberia – are also at risk of extinction, as their lands are appropriated by powerful forces for profit-making reasons such as colonization, logging and mining.’

‘One of the best ways of protecting the our world’s natural heritage is surprisingly simple; it is to secure the land rights of tribal peoples.’

There’s always something, isn’t there? It’s almost a week since my birthday and other, perhaps more interesting, things that have happened before and since are loading up behind it…

When we first arrived in Australia, our friends Dave and Annie were so excited that after six years, finally “the Americans are coming!,” that they decided to give us a welcome party. Thanks to them we met people who have become new friends that night, and Annie and I learned that our birthdays are only one day apart in the same year. She immediately made plans for a mutual birthday party the night of October 11. An added pleasure was another to share our birthday, a “truckie” named Jeff, whose birthday is the 12th. We had a nice time, mostly sitting by the bonfire Dave made, eating a little barbie (q) and having fun with a triple – cutting of the cake they made with all three of our names on it. I was so happy our new friends Jan and Roger, who moved to the area about 11 years ago, were there, and they surprised me with a little ceramic bowl handmade by Jan. She’s been doing pottery professionally for a long time – her work is so beautiful, I really wish she had a website I could link to so you could see. I was so touched by their thoughtfulness, and Jan and I had a lovely conversation by the fire.

The next day was mostly quiet. I caught up on some much-needed rest – a gift in itself – and counted the minutes until the gift I had been anticipating since we arrived: the first episode of “First Australians”, a documentary about the history of Australia and the impact of its colonization on Australia’s native inhabitants. Those who know me also know how much I care about all indigenous people and their struggles, and how I love ethnic cultures, so you’ll understand why 5 months of waiting for this had me in such a state of suspense. SBS did it again. While this isn’t really the place to try to recount it all, their website is featuring playbacks of the episodes that have already aired, and I highly recommend that if you share my interest in Aborigine history and culture you check it out here: http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/ They are showing two new episodes each week, and there are now two you can watch, with a new one coming up Sunday night.

Following were highlights of the the 14th annual Deadly Awards, recognizing excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music, sport, entertainment, the arts and community achievement. – held at the sydney Opera House, this is the first time it’s been broadcast on tv. I was so impressed by the expression of these culturally rich people. Whether in traditional forms or contemporary ones, they all had wonderfully individual styles. When they introduced the nominees for band of the year, I decided that I wanted a cd from each of them! From elegant country music icon Jimmy Little, hailed by his colleagues as “the gentleman of the Australian music industry”(who presented the Lifetime Achievement Award and sang a beautiful song about talking to Jesus) to beautiful/cute and very talented pop-hiphop artist Jessica Mauboy, from aborigine rap Black Arm Band to the sweet, angelic voice and left-handed guitar of blind Gurrumul Yunupingu, accompanied by strings, I fell in love with them all!  Gurrumul opened the show with his performance and took home three awards: Single of the year, Album of the year and Artist of the year  – check out his MySpace page here:http://www.myspace.com/gurrumul. He’s also been nominated for 4 Aria awards, where he will also perform this Sunday evening 10/19. See more at http://www.deadlys.vibe.com.au/

Then came the 13th. Another quiet day, and I turned my thoughts toward the future. As I stood at the door to the back yard looking at the trippy orchids growing in the tree just outside, along came a King parrot, which we have only seen once before here. He landing in the tree and began to sing to me, looking right at me, then flew down to the laundry line and tight-rope-walked all the way to the end, about two feet from me, singing all the way! After checking me out closely he flew across the yard, then back again to the tree, still singing. A sweet voice, not like you’d expect from a parrot. A rare and precious gift. Funny that the day and the hour matched exactly that of my birth in the States. Somehow I felt as if our friend Chala had stopped by to sing his happy birthday song to me.

A few days have gone by since, and yesterday Chala’s nephew Bawala (Sonny) rang to share his new poem with us. He is undergoing a transformation in the wake of the passing of his beloved Chala, and the connection he made with my husband and son seems to be intertwined with this, so he’s in touch nearly every day. He told Joel he felt that something else was trying to come forth from within him…what was it? Another poem? What? They hung up without an answer, the day went on a bit, and the guys left to run an errand. While they were away he rang again, asking what kind of day it was here. I told him it was clouds and sun, and a moment ago there was a little shower that came and went. He said, Those showers are a blessing, they rain on you softly, then go away. Then he told me he had figured out the strange feeling – today was Chala’s birthday! So profound that they had buried him on Sonny’s birthday, September 27th, and here we are, only 20 days later remembering his birthday (10/17/1917 – they think…no birth certificate and family members say he was probably over 100 actually).  I told him about the parrot and how strongly I had thought of Chala when he was singing to me. He said, yep, it was probably was him, visiting me so I wouldn’t feel left out by not being able to come to his funeral and meet his people. He was like that. Later in the evening I made crepes and lit a candle, and we thanked him for including us in his last ceremony and making us part of his family, and for all the beautiful experiences we have had as a result.

Now I have turned 45.

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