A year of loss, new life and Aboriginal stories and songs Indigenous Rights

The river flows gently, as it has for millennia. The local birds sing to the tune. A gentle wind whispers through the gum trees, as if transmitting secrets from the distant past. And the tender smell of yellow vegetables wafts through the evening air.

The Yarra River is home to the indigenous Wurundjeri for thousands of generations. Today, Warrandyte is a wealthy suburb of Melbourne.

Fred Leone, a man from Garawa and Butchulla in the far north of Australia, is sitting by the water and contemplating the natural beauty.

He also contemplates his mother, who died suddenly in February 2021.

“My mother was a fighter,” he says simply.

The day after his 69th birthday, Fred received a phone call from a Brisbane hospital saying that his mother had a stroke and was in an induced coma.

“I couldn’t do it and I glazed it for a minute,” he recalls. “I started crying and scared. Everything was clearing before my eyes. I’ve been able to see all these events since I was a child. ‘

Fred immediately flew from Melbourne to Brisbane to be with his mother. A week later, her family had to make the most difficult decision of her life: turn off her livelihood.

“We had to make the decision to turn off the machine,” Fred recalls.

“That was pretty intense. You feel like you are betraying them. You think ‘it would be easy to get out of this”.

Fred pauses for a moment as a parrot flies.

It has taken on a cool breeze as the evening sun begins to set.

While the waters of Yarra are rolling.

“And then I remember we had to turn off the machine that evening. And that was the most touching gut. ”

Lucky tonight, Fred’s family reunites for the last moment of the matriarch, and after turning off his life support, Fred remembers leaving the room.

“I just broke up,” he says. “I couldn’t walk. I fell. I saw my partner and he hit me and I cried and cried. I walked in after he passed her and whispered some things to her.

“That was the first time I felt a deep, deep pain that I could never understand. She is your mother. You know from the day you were born here until you left or until they left. They are always there. I realize that’s what they mean when they say ‘your heart is breaking.’ “

Caregivers of knowledge

Known as a cultural singer in her clan and community, she has the stories, songs, language, and ceremonies of people who are descendants of Fredi.

Much of this knowledge was learned from his mother, Aileen Sandy.

The fighter, as described by Fred, survived the time when he passed on his culture and language to his children, when the Australian government was trying to take over the aborigines and eradicate their traditions.

Aileen grew up on a Cherbourg mission in far-flung northern Australia when the official policy was to remove Aboriginal children from their parents and send them to a mission or church orphanage to be raised by white authorities.

The aim was not only to eradicate indigenous cultures but also to promote a class of Aboriginal slavery.

Children raised in these organizations were expected to be domestic workers, farmers, or workers.

In the state of Queensland, where the Cherbourg mission was located, this policy was joined by what is now known as the “Slolen Wages”; The money owed to Aboriginal workers was placed in a government bond and was never seen again.

Thus, Fred explains, his family grew up in intergenerational poverty.

“We grew up and had no money,” he says. “The government imposed it on living in poverty and overcoming it.”

However, Aileen continued to work and save, and managed to send her children to a good private school in Brisbane. He survived an abuse with his father, Fred.

“He stayed strong and was always there for us and did what he had to do to make it all survive,” he says.

His mother also told him all the stories about the history of Fredi, including his family and clan relations, and the massacre of his grandparents’ generation.

“He told me from a young age that I would write or remember or record everything,” he says.

“I was the first to carry a pen and a notebook in my pocket. He used to tell me things and I would write them down. ‘

The government’s attempt to suppress such stories and songs resonates even more today, and Fred has taken on the role of his clan, not only to remember and make such important cultural treasures, but to pass them on to future generations.

He says that it is essential to transmit this knowledge, especially because the older generations, who are the custodians of this knowledge, have begun to die.

“So I always talk to other song men or song women and older people who have identified in the community or what traits they are looking for in young people, making sure they know. [who to pass culture on to]”He says. “There is a constant need.”

A new generation

This generation may be new to Fred.

Although 2021 has been a year of sadness, her life has also been greatly enriched by the arrival of the twin girls, along with her other four children.

Although his twin mother died before he was born, Fred and his partner were able to inform him that he was coming.

He remembers how when his partner arrived at a hospital in Brisbane, he put his mother’s hand on her pregnant abdomen “and tears welled up in her eyes.”

“I could see that [my mother’s] the eyelids go. I knew he knew and I was happy to meet him, ”he says.

Fred now realizes that it is his responsibility to pass on the stories and songs he has learned from his mother to future generations, as well as his twin babies.

“There was a song we used to sing when we were kids. And I sing this song to my kids all the time, ”he says.

Her mother’s death has also stopped and reflected on the legacy she will leave to her children and the world in which they will grow up, focusing on issues such as global warming and the continued survival of her culture.

“How can I empower these two children now and install all this knowledge so that they are so strong and proud and where they come from that they will take a leadership role to fight for the whole? The planet. Because the whole planet will suffer.”

“What will be our heritage, what will we leave behind? What lessons have we learned and how are we transmitting them? ”

However, despite the importance and importance of global issues such as climate change and the importance of transmitting culture, Fred also remembers the advice his mother would pass on to his twin daughters.

“He always said,‘ Be proud of yourself, never let anyone tell you who you are, ’” he says. “Don’t let anyone say anything different. You are what you should be.”

Fred reflects the gurgling water again and the whisper of the wind and the fresh smell of spring nectar.

“I’ve always held on to it,” he says with a smile.