Kombumerri Traditional Custodian Contributor: Emerald Brewer

This resource is related to the following Learning Area –

And responds to the following Enquiry Question –

Q46.What were the Indigenous protocols when communicating with different age groups, e.g. Elders and children?

Resource transcript –

As children that we had to have for our Elders respect really looked like so we would wait on our Grandparents as small children we would do chores for them we would wait on them basically we would get you know make them cups of tea we would help out in the yard and we would not ever say no to our Grandparents so for example our Grandparents would ask us “Oh I need you to do this, I need you to do that”. There is no way that that me and my siblings would ever say no and that was a respect factor. That was something that was instilled to me from my Mother that I would have to portray to my Elders. My Elders on my Mother’s side um they’re Aboriginal on my Father’s side they were Australian but I would have these values and I would um put them forth to not only my Aboriginal Grandparents but my Australian Grandparents as well. So a lot of that had to do with when I was growing up, I was with these Dreamtime stories that I was told, so, for example, the story about The Goomp Goomp um being afraid and if you don’t do this you know The Goomp Goomp was going to come and get you um a lot of that had to do with the respect factor, so I was always taught that if you step out of line or if you do something that you’re not supposed to do The Goomp Goomp is going to get you or you’re going to get in big trouble with the Elders. Now that’s a value that’s been passed down for thousands upon thousands of years Aboriginal people are a collectivist group whereas generally in western society it’s more individualistic and so when you become a part of that mob, when you grow up in that mob, you look up to your Elders respect is automatic. It’s not given, as in it’s not like it’s not earned, it’s something that you have to give automatically so in regards to um keeping our Elders within the community when they would get older or when they would become sick or ill, we would nurse them until they would pass on and this is something that we still have today we still do this today so when it comes to our Grandparents, the younger generation their children, for example would take them on in their own home it’s kind of seen like a certain type of taboo, if you were to put your Grandparent or your parents in aged care because of the fact that we look after each other as we’ve always done throughout the years.