We of the Never Never
Clip 3: ‘Some bush of their own’
2 min 38 sec
Taken from the feature We of the Never Never (1982)
Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG
Availability of the complete title
Please be aware that this clip may contain the names, images and voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may now be deceased.
Curator’s clip description
On the trail of ‘wild blacks’ who have speared cattle, the stockmen and Mrs Gunn (Angela Punch McGregor) discuss the question of prior right to the land. An elderly Aboriginal man, Goggle Eye (Donald Blitner) explains where the stars came from, and wonders why God never gave the white man land of his own.
Curator’s notes
This is an interesting scene for the way it contrasts two cosmologies, both based on powerful mythology. Goggle Eye seems to understand that his mythology is not theirs, but they don’t afford him the same courtesy. The stockmen are ignorant of the stars, and stumped by his question, but Mrs Gunn has an answer – God made everything – that she feels trumps his belief system. Never mind that his is thousands of years older and probably based on a thorough traditional knowledge of the solar system. The use of two campfires, besides giving a shockingly clear example of the tradition of apartheid that was common on cattle stations across Australia at the time, also gives a sense of the two cosmologies – two fires, like two suns.
Paul Byrnes, curator
