People of the Whale

Mission Statement

• Facilitating integrated recognition, research, conservation and maintenance of indigenous people and all humanity's deep interactive relationship with whales, dolphins and nature.
• Facilitating and expanding the ongoing research into the ecology and behaviour of whales and dolphins with recognition of the phenomena of inter-species communication which still occurs between whales, dolphins and indigenous peoples throughout the world.
• Facilitating interpretation, education and a sense of sacredness and custodianship for whales, dolphins and the fragile eco-culture systems of the earth.
• Facilitating the recognition of cultural diversity as well as the underlying unity of the world indigenous people interlectual and experiencial insights into the workings of nature and proper human relationships with whales, dolphins and the natural world.
• Facilitating acknowledgement and continuum of indigenous peoples existence and perspective on nature as culturally valid and worthy of respect and survival in its own right.

The 'People of the Whale - Earlier Wisdom Institution' was formed recently, as a 'branch' of the Aboriginal Cultural Development Foundation, by like minded individuals and communities both indigenous and non-indigenous with cultural or other connections to whales and dolphins.

To the 'People of the Whale', whose traditional homelands encompass the coastal regions of the worlds continents, the powerful and boisterous whale is a beloved ancestor, shaper of the landscape, and immortal being of the timeless, instructive and never-ending epoch of creation and earthly transformation widely known as the Dreamtime or Dreaming. To the coastal tribes the whale is the all powerful Rainbow Serpent and is closely associated with the Rainbow Serpent/Snake of the inland. The whale is, as is the serpent elsewhere in the world, associated with fire, earth energy, wind, water, the sun, moon and the symbol that links all of these elements - the rainbow.

In most coastal tribal stories the whale, after arriving from his ancestral home in the Milky Way, causes the seas to rise, brings other creatures with him, and travels into a sea cave home moving inland to emerge via blowholes, caves and waterholes into the sunlight of the inland. To the 'People of the Whale', blowholes, caves and waterholes are sacred because they are the aperture through which the whale ancestor made his first appearance on earth. These places are also sacred because the whale's presence continues to animate them, to pulsate from them in ways that challenge the human imagination and that permeate the natural world.

During the course of the whales land sculpting journey on and under the earth's Dreamtime surface, the whale left in its wake a sacred, eternal living essence. Rock formations (both natural and man-made), trees, waterholes, and other features that dot the local terrain, mark these ancestral Dreamtime passages, record the dramas, and entomb many of its principal characters, as if in sleep. At the same time, these sacred places are centres of natures reproductive powers.

The whales story is a reflection of the whale 'totem' peoples Dreamtime origins, religious duties, and of the primal, cyclic, life-perpetuating processes of the natural world. On at least one level the whale embodies the essence of nature's life force and fertility, in particular the fertility of the waters. Consequently the items used to harvest the produce of the sea, spears, nets, baskets, and stone fish traps, are associated with and are sacred aspects of the whale mythology.

The whale clans knowledge that the local terrain is a sacred map of the whale's ancestral journey gives them an extraordinary sense of participation in the workings of local ecosystems. The initiated members of the clans can communicate directly through ritual and 'prayer', with the forces of nature. Radiating out from the sacred whale dreaming places along the Dreamtime trails of the ancestral whale are indelible geographic points, where the aboriginals understanding of the Creation Time connection between the land and nature's mysterious regenerative powers allows them to work in harmony with the forces of fertility at these locations.

During the whales treks across the landscape, he left a trail of words and musical notes as well as indelible physical footprints, permanently etching the whales story in the earth. Generations later, by devoutly singing the appropriate sacred song, a totemic clansman can reliably navigate for days along these great Dreamtime tracks. In the process, the land would be rejuvenated, memories of totemic ancestors would be rekindled, and reunions with faraway kinsmen would take place along the ancient Dreamtime trails of stone, story and song. In one sense the whole of Australia can be read as a musical score of songlines. The songlines can in a sense, be visualized as a serpent, writhing this way and that, in which every 'episode' is readable in terms of geology and natural phenomena.

Beyond lending a sense of spirituality and cosmic order within the Aboriginal world, these ancient beliefs convey genuine ecological insights into the working of nature. Stories of the Dreamtime travels of the whale reveal a sophisticated grasp of whales ecology. Maps of the whales journeys, breathing life and form into the landscape as he went, correspond with uncanny precision to maps of the preferred habitats of the whale that have recently been painstakingly assembled by detailed aerial and ground based scientific study.

Traditional Aboriginal beliefs about the sacred sites of the Whale Dreaming represent a remarkable fusion of ecological and spiritual knowledge. They encode genuine ecological truths about the population dynamics and location data, with sacred places corresponding to prime whale breeding habitat and with places where whales 'like to linger'. At the same time, unlike sterile scientific findings, they contain a moral code mandating irrevocable human responsibility to honour and nurture the precious, life-sustaining whale populations and nature in general.

Its founding membership included whale/dolphin 'totem' people from the following Australian Aboriginal tribal groups;

• The Mirning people whose homelands encompass the coastal and inland regions of the Nullarbor Plain and include the major Australian breeding grounds for the endangered Southern Right Whale together with the Ngadju Mia people, their related coastal neighbours, they are in the process of creating (via land and sea claims under Native Title) the worlds largest indigenous and environmental sanctuary (Mirning Nature Institution Sanctuary) encompassing their huge traditional lands and sea. In particular, it is hoped to create a whale sanctuary stretching some 900 kms along the shores of the Great Australian Bight creating the worlds largest whale breeding sanctuary (excluding Antarctica) while at the same time protecting the entire corresponding Whale Dreaming complex of sites creating complete protection and recognition of an entire cultural/environment whale institution environmental system unparralleled in the world.
• The Barngarla people whose homelands encompass the coastal and inland regions of the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia. The Barngarla are also establishing via land acquisition, land and sea claims under Native Title, and partnership with private and government land holders, a series of smaller sanctuaries to protect and manage key areas of land and sea embracing Whale and Dolphin Dreaming site complexes important to whale and dolphin ecology.
• The Kondoledjeri (People of the Whale) clan of the Ngarrindjeri people of the Coorong Region in South Australia are also creating and have already established Nature Institution Sanctuaries to protect and manage coastal land and waters encompassing Whale and Dolphin Dreaming site complexes associated with locations significant to whale ecology (including a site known as the death and soul place of all whales!).

This 'People of the Whale' founding group of tribal peoples and other are in the process of linking up with other whale/dolphin indigenous peoples all over Australia and around the world to expand the membership and promote the ideals of the 'People of the Whale'.

The 'People of the Whale - Earlier Wisdom Institution' together with the 'Eyes of the Soul' project hope to share the reality of interspecies communication between humans and whales and the subsequent implications for mankinds and the worlds future well being.

With this in mind the recent creation of the 'Eyes of the Soul' film and documentary project by KK Films Ltd (a non-profit project to promote environmental responsibility through the wisdom of the Peoples of the Whale and Dolphin around the world) will help facilitate a global membership of indigenous 'People of the Whale' and the subsequent support for cultural survival with integrated elder wisdom environmental management.