Honouring those gone: Yorta Yorta man Damien Saunders honoured his grandmother, whose country they stood on.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
To commemorate National Sorry Day in the lead-up to Reconciliation Week, elders and members of the Yorta Yorta people gathered at Shepparton’s La Trobe University campus on May 26.
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Yorta Yotra and Djadjawurrung man Damien Saunders conducted the smoking ceremony and Welcome to Country and gave an emotional address about the intergenerational trauma of the Stolen Generations inflicted by the Australian government.
Ceremony: Damien Saunders welcomed the assemblage into his smoke for cleansing and purification.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
“Some families had three generations taken from them in one day. How do you replace that?” Mr Saunders said.
“Sorry Day is painful trauma ... I still see my people hurting with more pain.
“We were alienated from our culture, our oneness.
“There’s a ripple effect that continues today.”
National Sorry Day is the day when we remember and acknowledge the hurt and damage caused by Australian governments when they forcibly removed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, communities and cultures.
“My father who has passed away made his first boomerang when he was 47 years old,” Mr Saunders said.
Sorry Day: Damien Saunders reflected on the impact of entire generations having their cultural identity stolen from them.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
“He said to me, before he passed away, ‘sorry, son, that I couldn’t teach you culture’.”
Yorta Yorta man and City of Greater Shepparton councillor Greg James said it was the obligation and responsibility of Aboriginal people to persist in carrying on the cultural journey of their people to reverse the cultural genocide that was perpetrated by the governments.
“They were acts of cultural genocide, there’s no other word and it’s truth telling,” he said.
Truth telling: Cr Greg James speaks on the cultural genocide of his ancestors on National Sorry Day.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
According to Yorta Yorta woman Julie Andrews, intergenerational trauma is passed down within Aboriginal communities through a continuation of oral history, stories and narratives.
“That’s how we teach. That’s how we connect to our country, our family, our history,” the director of Indigenous research and convenor of Aboriginal Studies at La Trobe University said.
“So no doubt these traumatic stories are being passed down to the next generation.
“So why would you want to do that? Because people honour the memories of those people with the suffering that they went through and being separated from their family.
“We have to pay tribute to the suffering of people in our family.”
The elders and Yorta Yorta people present said the way forward was not simply to be sorry on May 26, but for non-Aboriginal people to learn about First Nations culture and the real lived history of their ancestors.
“Increasingly the support and recognition for Aboriginal people from non-Aboriginal people — and the the sorriness — is growing now, and the understanding is growing of what Sorry Day means,” Prof Andrews said.
Emotional: Professor Julie Andrews discusses what National Sorry Day means to Aboriginal communities.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
In her more than 12 years of co-ordinating education of Aboriginal culture at La Trobe University, Prof Andrews has seen more awareness in younger generations about how Indigenous culture and issues tie in with all of the environmental issues that are top of mind across the nation.
“It doesn’t have to remain in that big political agenda,’’ she said.
“Because now it should be a grassroots approach and community approach so everyone can be informed and have an opinion.
“Particularly now when we look at how many Aboriginal people are in parliament that have been elected, there will be a lot more open debate and discussion having more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in parliament.
“And now with the election, there is very much an awakening of the Uluru statement now.
“There’s a lot of national policies that are going to be resurrected because of this election and bit of hope from the Aboriginal community.
“There’s a lot of unfinished business that happened as a result of the Uluru statement.”
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