The use of tinnies had a significant impact on Indigenous peoples’ relationship to Country, says a research paper. Picture: Sam Williams
Faster coastal trips may well have changed the Indigenous peoples’ relationship with Country, says a new research paper.
The paper’s focus was on the impact of maritime transport, and specifically on historic and modern journey times, between the towns of Warruwi and Maningrida in north-central Arnhem Land, separated by more than 250km.
The paper’s author, Sam Williams, is a PhD candidate from Charles Darwin University and collaborated with elders Samuel, Henry, Jack and their families from Maningrida to understand how the change from canoes to motorboats to helicopters changed their relationship with Country.
During fieldwork in 2023 and 2024, the elders shared the ways they had interacted with the land as time, and technology, advanced.
Samuel recounted travelling as a child by dugout canoe between Warruwi and Maningrida; during these journeys, he would listen to and watch his elders as they interacted with the land and sea.
“When we were travelling with the canoe, we used to stop and camp,” Samuel says.
“My mother, she used to tell us, ‘Come on, you boys, make a big fire and I’ll tell you all these sacred site areas’.”
The knowledge shared included the names of places, if and how to engage with landscapes, ancestral stories and more.
CHANGING TIMES
The last canoe to travel between Maningrida and Warruwi set sail in 1982 and the transition to powered tinnies (aluminium boats) brought significant changes with it, the paper says.
Faster travel times eliminated the need to camp and the accessibility of tinnies meant elders and their children or grandchildren travelled together less.
For Samuel, Henry and Jack, the slow, quiet movement in a canoe that taught them so much is being replaced by journeys which make such learning challenging.
“The point is that the way we move is intimately connected to the way we know,” Williams says.
“All our lives are getting faster and faster as technology enables us to travel further and communicate instantly across great distances.
“From one perspective, the barriers of ‘remoteness’ have been reduced by the acceleration of travel between Maningrida and Warruwi. In some ways, country has never been closer and faster to access.
“Yet, paradoxically, this acceleration has not facilitated the kinds of encounter between people and their country that my collaborators in Maningrida are deeply concerned about.
“Moving faster can unsettle the possibilities for interaction that involves sitting near, listening, observing and engaging.
“I think this conversation is particularly important against a backdrop of government policy that has sought to make towns like Maningrida and Warruwi larger while limiting support for outstations. Spending time on one’s own country can be highly restricted.
“These structural constraints mean that those I have been working with are eager to seize whatever (limited) opportunities come their way to interact with Country but not all these opportunities facilitate the kinds of encounters they really want to see take place.”
TURNING TO VIDEO
This research is part of a larger project commissioned by elders and others living in Maningrida to find new ways to renew the relationship between people and country, he Samuel says.
“They have been making videos for their younger generations to familiarise themselves with important ancestral places.
“This is for the new generation so they can see, so they can learn more,” Samuel says.
“We made these videos for future generations so they can watch and learn about this country and know who their families are – to learn about kunak (country) and nguya (clans).”
The research paper has been published in the journal Maritime Studies.
