THE launch of NAIDOC Week in Logan City was an opportunity for residents to meet with local Indigenous people from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) communities and share the 2017 theme ‘our languages matter’.
One of the speakers at Woodridge State High School for the event was Logan City community elder Uncle Noel Summers, who was born in Brisbane but is from Badtjala country in the Fraser Island region.
“Today is very special because not long back we had the celebration of fifty years since the referendum, and every NAIDOC day we have a theme,” he said.
“It’s about the languages this year, so it’s a very important day for all Aboriginal people to celebrate their history and their culture.”
Uncle Noel called on guests to ensure that young ATSI are encouraged to learn their traditional languages, not just from books but from their elders passing them on.
“The practice of passing it on gives them more of a start,” he said.
Mr Summers also gave a passionate show of support for the women of the ATSI community in Logan City, many of whom he shares committee work with.
Totem meaning
Mr Summers took time to interpret the totems exhibited on the stage at the event, which were created for a 2015 curated exhibition at Logan Art Gallery: The Homesickness Project.
“It wasn’t actually done by the people who live in this country, the traditional owners,” he said.
“It was all about people who don’t live here, and of the elders who worked on it only one of them was from here: Aunty Robyn Williams.
“They’ve got all their different totems on the bottom here, and in the middle it’s spirit people.
“My totem’s on there. Mine’s a dolphin.”
According to Uncle Noel, the whole community was involved in painting the poles, from preschoolers right through to community elders like himself, because many ATSI living in the Logan City region are not from this part of Brisbane, yet they maintain strong links with their traditional lands.
“Whatever your totem is, you’re the custodian of it,” he said.
“If my totem, for example, was a Barramundi, I can’t eat that. You can’t eat your totem, you’re it’s custodian. You’ve got to try and look after it.”
Guests watched a series of performances and videos between the speeches, including a rendition of the Australian national anthem in two languages – Aboriginal and English – before ATSI flags were presented to representatives of Logan City Council for the first time in the local government’s history.
