The theme is all about encouraging all Australians to be a voice for reconciliation in tangible ways in our everyday lives. In recognising the work of generations past, and working towards the benefit of generations future, if we all act today, we’ll end up with a more just, equitable and reconciled country for all.
Two people who locally advocated for a more just and equitable society, albeit 200 years ago, were best friends Biraban, a bilingual Aboriginal man and leader of Newcastle/Lake Macquarie’s first nations peoples, and the Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld, a British missionary sent to convert the local people to the word of God. Their names may sound familiar, two of our local reserves are named after them.
National Reconciliation Week is a time to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation throughout our community.
Such an opportunity for learning is provided in the 1hr documentary Biraban and Threlkeld : Finding the Third Space, available on YouTube.
Biraban and Threlkeld captured songs, poems, ceremonies and dreaming stories, and represented Aboriginal people, whose testimony could not be accepted because they could not swear an oath on the Bible, in court. Together, they undertook the first systematic study of an Aboriginal language anywhere in the country and created the first ever translation of the Bible into an Aboriginal language. It’s also the first time an Aboriginal language was printed. Their work was so thorough that it is still being used to this day to reconstruct language. The film uses decades of research and is told using both First Nation and European historians, academics and linguists.
The CPPA used the Awabakal Dictionary- Community edition to propose a name for one of our reserves. Nikinba, meaning place of coal, is the suggestion for the reserve we refer to as Stansfield, locally identified as that is where you can access it from, it currently has no formally recognised name.
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