On Friday in my third week a colleague and I went to a talk at the University of Sydney. This was where I had my first experience of anything to do with the original inhabitants of Australia – Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders. On the way back, my colleague drove me to a few nice spots in Sydney with views of… uhm… well, let’s say: Sydney…

University of Sydney

A talk, related to work, brought me to the University of Sydney:

Founded in 1850, it is the first university of Australia. One of the people who were material to its foundation – William Wentworth – studied at Cambridge University… is that where the idea for the buildings came from? The sandstone buildings look very familiar to me:

And indeed – it is also known as “Oxbridge”… ☺

Sadly, the jacaranda tree that used to be in the Main Quadrangle has died. But full in bloom were the azaleas and clivias, no, not in Mum’s “vensterbank”, but in the borders, outside:

Then it was time to go in for the talk. I won’t bore you with the contents of the talk (which I enjoyed very much, don’t get me wrong), but there was something that caught my attention.

Acknowledgement of Country

Before the invited professor began his presentation, he was introduced and welcomed. Nothing new here – I had witnessed that many a time. But part of the general welcome was along the following lines:

Before we begin the proceedings, I would like to acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of the land on which we meet; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that the University of Sydney is built.

As we share our own knowledge, teaching, learning and research practices within this university may we also pay respect to the knowledge embedded forever within the Aboriginal Custodianship of Country.

Acknowledgement of Country by University of Sydney

Perhaps naive of me, but I had never heard of such a thing before… This was nothing to do with the invited professor – he was from a different country altogether. Initially I thought that a group of “Gadigal people of the Eora Nation” had been invited as well, or something like that. But a bit of googling told me that this is “an opportunity to acknowledge, and pay respect, to the Traditional Owners and ongoing custodians of the land – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people“.

Before the Europeans arrived in Australia to settle there, it was inhabited by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. They were organised in many different tribes, or clans, each living in a particular area. Whilst the boundaries were not officially set, visitors from other tribes had to ask permission and needed to be “welcomed to the land” by the tribe living in the “country” he/she visited. This ceremony included an elder of the visited tribe asking the spirits of their ancestors and spirits of the land to watch over them and keep the visitors safe… An example is on the Wikipedia page about “Welcome to Country”.

Relatively recently this custom has been widely taken over in Australia, mainly in an attempt to improve relationships between the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders on the one hand, and the “new” Australians on the other. This has resulted in many formal events – including the ceremonial opening of the parliament of Australia – beginning with a “welcome to the country” by an elder of the local tribe that used to live at the place the meeting is held. If no local “elder” is available, as was the case at the meeting that I attended, an “acknowledgement of country” is done. There are different views of this now country wide performed custom – as an outsider to Australia I don’t feel equipped to discuss this matter properly, so take a look for yourself: there is a lot of information on the internet. The only thing I will add as a Christian, is that I’m sad to see that what is / used to be part of a Christian nation has no issues with “asking the spirits of ancestors and of the land to keep people safe”…

Viewing Sydney From The North Shore

After the talk, my colleague drove me to a couple of places on the north shore in Sydney. To begin with, Milsons Point, which gave a great view on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House (warning: there are many more photos to follow of both landmarks in further posts to come…).

We then drove a little further along the north shore towards the west, where we had another great viewpoint of Sydney, yes, again the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, as well as central Sydney on the right hand site of the photo.

So far Friday. I have been considering if I would add Saturday to this post as well, as I went out with the same colleague and her husband. However, it is probably better to keep it to “a day at a time” – otherwise the posts may become rather long.