We start this beautiful morning, our last morning on the North Pacific with a quasi good sun rise which woke Andrew up as yet again I tried to get QUIETLY out onto the balcony and was not successful! I am not sure why the door is such a challenge for me, however if I spin the knob just enough like I am opening a safe and hear a click, then it will open and whoosh! in comes the warm breeze! Needless to say me “cracking the safe” getting out the door at 6 am wakes up Andrew! Somehow he has figure it out and despite having a nasty blood blister the first time he tried, he has the maneuver down to a single half twist. Me, nope. Full unlock procedure that I almost need a stethoscope to listen for the subtle click when the door releases for me to then try and open it!
Finally outside! Here is today’s sun rise, which funny enough is after the sun actually rose as it took me too long playing with the door!
For our days at sea, there are both staff and guest lecturer’s aboard giving presentations. Some of the guest lecture presentations I have passed on – such as black holes in space and the like, however I have enjoyed the ones that relate to New Zealand and Australia and the Indigenous population and early settlement. I know that in British Columbia, the treatment of our Indigenous population is something that we all are very concerned about and both New Zealand and Australia have great examples of what has happened in the past and what has been done to rectify each of their situations in the present day. I attended the New Zealand presentation a couple of days ago, where today I was attending the presentation on Australia’s First People’s. The presenter, who is part of the HAL staff is very good at public speaking and has practiced the presentations that she does so her timing is impeccable. She does read from a teleprompter which is a screen between Deck 1 and Deck 2, where the World Stage is 3 decks high. I have found it is best to be on Deck 1 to watch these presentations as the seating that is accessible on Deck 2 and 3 there are overhangs that block the video displays on the stage. This time though I was NOT in front of the railings for the stage! The presentations are excellent and involve indigenous people speaking parts where the speaker fills in the rest – it is seamless from her speaking to when the video plays of the indigenous speaker and what they are wanting us to learn about their culture.
Today, we learned how Australia was settled, mainly on the east coast, way back tens of thousands of years ago by people who arrived from both south Asia, through land bridges and also the South Pacific Islands. Then there were voyagers that arrived such as Cook who was on instruction from the King to discover new lands. That if I remember correctly was about 1770 (I remembered that as it was similar to the USA becoming a nation). Unfortunately, that is when the First Peoples of Australia started to have a hard time. Not only did the Europeans bring sickness such as smallpox and measles, which affected the existing population, they also brought their “rules” and took over by establishing a penal colony. Many ships arrived, several with prisoners and then more with people in which to manage those prisoners in the new land. This had devastating and a lasting impact on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. The population declined by over 75%, land was taken away, their cultural celebrations were banned and trauma ensued. Very similar to what happened in New Zealand and in Canada.
After a few years, more than 90% of the indigenous population had perished and part of the issue was that Cook had written to the King that the land in Australia belonged to “no one” and was open for the taking, despite the first people’s existence. There were new animals introduced to the lands which did not agree with the ecosystem already present and also there was anger building with the way that the aboriginal people were being treated.
It was fascinating to learn that in Australia they have what is called “Stolen Generations” which are from the early 1900’s to the 1970’s, when the government forced the removal of thousands of Indigenous children from their families and placed them in institutions or with white families to be assimilated. I wonder if they have a red shirt day in Australia now too? By removing these children and not allowing them to speak their native language, it taught them to reject their Aboriginal identity which caused separation from family, culture, and the land where they belonged.
There was an indigenous artist who spoke on the video during the presentation about this time in history, how it affected him and his family. None of the native Australians were also citizens of Australia – which shocked me! He spoke of Albert Namatjira, who as an aboriginal, was an awesome contemporary art painter,and his work supported more than 500 family members! He received international recognition – he even met the Queen and his art is in galleries around the world, yet the Australian government for the longest time would not give him his citizenship, despite being born in Australia in 1902. He finally got his citizenship in 1957, and he passed away in Alice Springs, Australia in 1959 at 57 years old. However his story does not end there and the artist who was speaking to us continued about Albert’s work and what happened to it. Somehow the copyright to Albert’s work was sold prior to his death to a private company, however as he was a very popular and well known painter, the company sold the copyright to the public trustee instead of leaving it to his wife and children as the will decreed. The Public Trustee then sold the copyright in the 1980’s for some really low price (under $10,000) to another investor. However in the end the right thing was done, as really the Australian Government and the Public Trustee exploited Albert’s work and it was then sold back to a trust in Albert’s name, in the 2000’s for a dollar, now now all his 2,000+ paintings and images are protected again.
We then learned through the artist who was speaking about the “dot” art that is done in Australia – as the indigenous language is not written, it is often spelled out in dance or in paintings. As a way for the indigenous people to keep their “stories” secret, they then either dance on top of their artwork, if it is done on the ground or place dots on top of the paintings so that it is hard to see what the story is behind on the canvas. I thought that was pretty interesting and ingenious!
The artist then played the didgeridoo (a long wooden wind instrument played by Australian Aboriginal people to produce a deep, droning sound) for us, which he makes the instrument and paints himself. He told us about the different sounds that are made on the didgeridoo like the kangaroo, the bird, the wind, the rain and then told us a story about all those sounds and then played it for us! I wish I had taken a video as it was amazing. Sometimes when I am watching these presentations I am so enraptured that I forget that I want to pass the information onto you also! As I failed at this task, here are some pictures of Australian dot paintings, didgeridoos and lastly how they sound.
Here is a video of a Aboriginal man playing a Didgeridoo
Lastly, here are some examples of Australian Indigenous dot artwork
Do you feel like you have learned something today? I did! Now, lets go for a tour of the ship – starting on my favourite end and deck! Observation Deck 10 – Bow area! Here is where I have been spending most of my time, other than in our stateroom of course and on our balcony! Check it out!
Well, that is all for today folks! I have been fighting a low grade migraine for a couple of days now and I am going to take a break and we are going to dine in our stateroom tonight so I can hopefully put this headache to bed! I am not sure if it is the barometric pressure change or what is going on however this thing just will not go away so it is time for some medicine intervention (which I have with me).
For those paying attention, we are fairly close to the equator now, cruising at 17 knots right now towards Samoa. The Captain announced at noon today, other than we are now at a level 7 on the Beaufort Scale for sea and wind action (which I can attest to) that we will be crossing the equator at 22:45 tonight! I plan to be asleep at that time! However they are having a “Neptune Ceremony” tomorrow to celebrate and I will go investigate what that is all about!
Off to call room service now…. Leaving you with our position at 5:50 pm tonight on the high seas of the Pacific! Those 2, 3 and 4’s you can see in the upper right corner are the Hawaiian stops we came from. We are that dot in the middle at the end of the yellow line. The fuzzy name is Kiribati which we are next to pass on our way to Samoa which is number 5 on our list of ports that we are visiting. Perhaps I should post our itinerary! Good thought Lynda! A post I will get to in my off-leisure hours!
However lets chat about Kiribati for a minute as it is a special place which I did not know about until just now when I looked it up! No wonder it is on the map! According to my friend Google – Kiribati is an island nation that straddles the equator and is the only country in the world to be located in all four hemispheres (Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western). The nation’s islands are spread across the Pacific Ocean, with some islands lying north of the equator, others south, and some directly on it!
Okay, enough information and facts for today. I need to rest my head! Have an awesome day and evening everyone!
