Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Some religious type talking about the Bible knocked on my door just now.
Some religious type talking about the Bible knocked on my door just now. I asked her if she'd heard about the Wargul. She said no, and didn't want to hear about it or the people that'd been living here for 60,000 years and their beliefs. As she left at speed I said that was very close minded and not very ecumenical.
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In the Fundamentalist church I was raised in, ecumenicism was a dirty word. They aren't trying to be open-minded or ecumemical, not in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteShe seemed surprised that I would even consider asking her to consider someone else's beliefs, when she was asking me to consider hers.
ReplyDeleteI’m Unitarian Universalist and most missionary types that come by here are Jehovah Witnesses, Pentecostal or Mormon. They have never heard of this so I say I am very happy, that I’m Secular Humanist. If they don’t get it I say we do not believe it’s right to have missionaries. Then they can’t leave fast enough.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, now that I look it up, the term ecumenical seems to pertain to Christian churches trying to get together to work things out. Is there a word for all religions trying to do that? Is that the Unitarian thing?
ReplyDeleteIn the cold times, the Wargul formed the land and waters around the Debarl Yerrigan by wriggling and shoving, and you get up on a high place, say Kings Park -
(But the Noongar would perhaps say, Karrakatta - ok, not just that, it's complicated The place of the hill where black cockatoos with red tails go; the banks of the Swan River where Perth is built, ‘crab head’.
Katta is the Aboriginal word for a hill or top of any height. Karra may have derived from karri (crab), karak (red tailed cockatoo), kara (spider), karh-rh (an orchid) 1. ) you can see that's quite clearly what happened, it's bleedin' obvious.
In this book batchelorpress.com - Nyoongar Boodja - Koomba Bardip Kooratan | Batchelor Institute Press Online Store Nyoongar Boodja - Koomba Bardip Kooratan it's fascinating how they collate science with Noongar understanding of the region. First there was the nyitting, the cold times (ice age), for example, where everything was frozen in one mass and couldn't move.
And also what might be the oldest news story, where an ancient impact was enough to knock the Earth off its axis, cause great waves that left fish high and dry, and commented on maybe 40,000 years later in story with startling accuracy.
1.Noongar place names
Swan -Canning Estuary and environs
compiled by Pat Forster, 2018
Alicia Smith fascinating! This is all new to me. The first thing I read when you wrote the word Wargul, in search comes up as a World of Warcraft character!
ReplyDeleteSpellings differ, but it's a phonetic language, so I'm spelling it the way I've heard actual Noongar people pronounce it.
ReplyDeleteAlicia Smith When I get door knockers, time permitting, I tell them I'm quite happy to listen to their beliefs, but I demand equal time to expound on mine. So if they talk for 20 minutes about their god/church, I get 20 minutes to talk about my pagan beliefs. I make them swear on their holy book too, so they can't skip out early.
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