First Knowledges Astronomy

Sky Country

Karlie Noon, Krystal De Napoli, Margo Neale, Margo Neale

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson Australia
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781760762179
• Topic: Scienze fisiche
• Subtopic: Scienza spaziale

What do you need to know to prosper for 65, 000 years or more? The First Knowledges series provides a deeper understanding of the expertise and ingenuity of Indigenous Australians.Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the oldest scientists in human history.Many First Peoples regard the land as a reflection of the sky and the sky a reflection of the land. Sophisticated astronomical expertise embedded within the Dreaming and Songlines is interwoven into a deep understanding of changes on the land, such as weather patterns and seasonal shifts, that are integral to knowledges of time, food availability, and ceremony.In Astronomy: Sky Country, Karlie Noon and Krystal De Napoli explore the connections between Aboriginal environmental and cultural practices and the behaviour of the stars, and consider what must be done to sustain our dark skies, and the information they hold, into the future.

1

PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES

KRYSTAL DE NAPOLI

I can pinpoint the moment when my fascination for the night sky began.

It was a warm night. I couldn’t have been more than eight years old and I was lying on a trampoline on Bpangerang Country with my mum, Tamara, and my older sister, Kaitlyn. I was locked in an observational rivalry with my sister. She was always claiming to see things in the sky that I could not and making wishes on a seemingly infinite number of shooting stars.

I was indignant and complaining to my mum. She patiently pointed to features in the sky and described them to me: the Southern Cross, Orion and his belt of three stars, and her favourite, the cluster of faint stars that made up the Seven Sisters. Regardless of her assistance, my eyes still struggled to track down each object, and I finished the night without getting to make a wish on that ever-elusive falling star.

Despite my frustration, I was left with a yearning to learn more about the nature of the skies. As I grew older, this curiosity amplified every time I experienced the beauty of the dark night sky, taking a midnight stroll down the quiet streets of my home town under rural skies yet to be lost to the effects of light pollution, or staring past the thousands of twinkling stars swimming in an infinite sea of darkness. Reminders that I am a speck compared to all that lies in the universe.

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I had a very turbulent childhood. My family is one among many who have experienced the devastating effects of intergenerational trauma. My pop was removed from his Gomeroi mum and community at a young age, severing his footing in his Aboriginal identity. My mum was raised in unfavourable circumstances, in an environment of dysfunction, violence and dependencies that my six siblings and I regrettably lived through, too.

I spent most of my childhood living in public and emergency housing on the east side of my town, which was marked by higher incidences of crime and violence than other parts of town. Often we were victims of it, other times perpetrators. Much of my life was based on survival, rather than the everyday concerns of a young child. I was always worried about the state of things at home and felt entirely disconnected from my peers at primary school, envying the familial support and normalcy they seemed to have. I remember periods of intense hunger. I remember witnessing a lot of violence inside my home and outside in my neighbourhood. I remember feeling the need to serve as protector and ‘parent’ to my own parents and my siblings. Desperately needed support wasn’t there for us, and failed if it was.

My primary school was situated on the opposite side of town from where I lived, at the crossing of the Ovens and King rivers. I felt privileged to be enrolled there, but it became difficult for me to access it. In the early days, I would often set out alone at 7.30 am, the air cold, and walk for an hour to cover the 5 kilometres to school.

I loved learning – even at a young age I had a thirst for it – but was rarely able to engage with my education. On days that I was able to physically be in attendance, mentally I would be distracted by events at home. Unfortunately school life wasn’t much easier than my life at home. I have clear memories of walking into class on many mornings only to have my teachers tap their watches at me for being late. It was humiliating. I was the kid with the dirty uniform, which gave other children ammunition to bully me. My long hair was always knotted, and teachers would take it upon themselves to brush it before class. I often didn’t have a hat to wear in summer and was forced to sit on the school verandah away from my friends at lunchtime. This may sound like a minor inconvenience, but it solidified the feeling of isolation that consumed me. I felt really discouraged but now realise the teachers and other kids knew little about what it had taken for me to get there. Many times I would be held back by the school staff after the final bell rang because they had been informed it wasn’t safe for me to return home that night.

So many aspects of my upbringing were lonely and scary but, being the second-oldest child, I always had the wellbeing of my siblings in mind to push through for. At times it felt impossible to imagine the breaking of the intergenerational cycle. But my life, and my siblings’ lives, today are testament to building a different future. I couldn’t be more proud of the strength and resilience they’ve shown. They are all becoming very fine and capable adults, and have done all of that hard work themselves.

It is evident that I slipped under the radar of many authority figures around me, which makes it easy for me to recognise the adults who took notice, decided to act and ended up changing my life for the better. By the age of sixteen I had found a second family in that of my best friend, Louis. In his parents and sisters, I finally had people I could lean on in tough situations. I also had two fantastic teachers who stepped in at crucial moments and provided listening, understanding and support to get me through to the end of high school.

During my VCE studies, a freak accident saw one of my younger siblings taken to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, approximately 250 kilometres from home. As a protective older sister, the severity of this accident and my helplessness devastated me. I remember having a quiet cry in class and my teacher, Mr Barron, taking me aside and saying, ‘I know you’re not crying over the maths, so what’s really wrong?’

This was the first time anyone had asked what was going on in my life outside of school. He was very sympathetic and flagged the situation with my other teachers, who provided a degree of leniency and compassion. It was a step in the right direction, but unfortunately did not mitigate the existing factors. Very little tolerance was shown when a student missed more than five classes during their VCE studies, and as the cumulative stress of my home life started to impact my attendance, I became at risk of failing altogether. Graduating Year 12 truly felt like my only ticket out of the cycle of alcoholism and unemployment in my family, but I couldn’t see a way forward and my future looked very bleak.

As I have travelled further into my studies and academic career, it has become clear that there is always a path towards where you want to go in life, even if it may not be the shortest or most direct one. I was fortunate that at this crucial turning point, another teacher reached out to me. Mr Wong, my literature teacher, took me out of class and asked about the cause of my despair. I was honest with him about the fact that I was at risk of failing and said I was finding that prospect overwhelming. He responded surprisingly jovially, with an air of determined optimism about structuring a way for me to pass and succeed. I can still remember how light and full of purpose I felt after this discussion. It was as if I had been given a second chance at life.

Our plans unfolded perfectly and I graduated with my VCE in 2013. Without a doubt, those two conversations changed the direction of my life and I will always be grateful for the impact these two brilliant teachers had on me.

At the age of eighteen I became the first in my family to pursue tertiary education. I was offered a position in the Indigenous Enabling Program at Monash University in Melbourne, a semester-long alternative entry pathway that upon successful completion would lead to a Bachelor of Science. These alternative pathways exist to enable students to access an education that the hurdles in their life may otherwise exclude them from. Tertiary education is a resource inaccessible to many. Without enabling pathways, the current system perpetuates cycles of inequality that disproportionately disadvantage those who may be living pay cheque to pay cheque, or with some sort of trauma or disability. They exist to acknowledge that an individual’s circumstances and the impact they might have on a person are separate from what they are capable of accomplishing. It is clear that our circumstances do not define our capabilities, but our system dictates it is so. I will always champion these programs, and encourage anyone who may have experienced similar situations and setbacks to me to seek them out.

Not only had no one in my family attended university, but most of them had been unable to graduate from high school. I felt daunted and insecure about my lack of understanding of what tertiary education or a career might look like – I had never witnessed my parents holding jobs – but I summoned the courage to move, and soon found myself flourishing in my new university environment.

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On a cold June morning only four months into my move to Melbourne, I was awoken by the last of a barrage of missed phone calls. I had already sat two of my final exams for the program, and planned to spend the day preparing for my final one, which would grant me entry to the Bachelor of Science degree. I answered, entirely unprepared for the heavy weight of the words I was about to hear.

‘Krystal, your mum is dead.’

This is the single worst day of my life and the date, 7 June, is burnt into my head and my heart. I can’t imagine a pain greater than the loss of a parent. My mum had passed away unexpectedly at the young age of thirty-seven, leaving seven children behind. I had lost someone who shaped me, who featured in the core memories of my life. I saw her in everything I did, and navigating the grief that followed was exceptionally challenging.

It was with a conflicted heart that I made the decision to return to university the following semester and complete my final exam. I wanted to stay home with my siblings but knew I had a responsibility to myself, too. I began to reflect a lot on my experiences in my home town under those beautiful dark rural skies, and reconnected with the curiosity that had resonated within me when I was growing up. I decided that if I successfully passed my exam, I would trust my gut and enrol in astrophysics-focused subjects, and so it came to be.

I was very lucky and privileged that my first-year astronomy lecturer was the exceptional Dr Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway. I have never had a teacher as passionate and knowledgeable, as inspiring and engaging as she is in her approach to astronomy education. Her classes became the one positive outlet I had during that period of grief, and really cemented my interest in astrophysics, fanning a raging bonfire of passion that burns stronger every day.

I have since learnt many things about the skies from an astrophysical and cultural-astronomy perspective. I can identify all the objects my mum shared with me under those Bpangerang skies, and would be able to return the favour by divulging a depth of knowledge in return. It grieves me that I can never share this with her. Mum was never able to engage with her studies growing up and lacked the support structure to complete secondary school. Her knowledge of the skies was something I took for granted as a child, before I could understand the significance of her holding it. Where she had learnt that knowledge is a question I don’t think will ever be answered.

The impact of my childhood has resulted in my having a mental health condition known as complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). It has been exacerbated by the grief I experienced through my years of tertiary study related to the tragic death of four other family members as well as my mum. Every year my exams fall either on or around the anniversary of her death and my brain struggles to inform my mind and body that I am not going through the original trauma and relives that physical stress, fear and anxiety. I carry the burden of grief and missed loved ones with me always. As a result, I still don’t get to engage with my studies as purely as I would like to. I’ve had to get comfortable with the fact that my pathway won’t have the typical timeline of someone my age. There is no single correct way to achieve an ambition, and I feel I have done well to adapt to difficult circumstances with resilience and determination.

After starting my undergraduate degree at university, I was quickly introduced to a community of exceptional and passionate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students – aspiring doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers. I remember how out of place I felt listening to their motivations for their studies, where they had come from, and how the knowledge they wanted to acquire would directly lead back to their communities. I felt guilty because my academic pursuits seemed entirely selfish. I was driven by my curiosity about the skies, but could not see how my work would do anyone any good, other than the field itself.

Since then, I have had the privilege of connecting with Indigenous people not only across the country but around the world. I have begun to understand that my experience of guilt is not unique. There is nothing selfish about pursuing your own dreams, and the desire to give back in one way or another is common. This dual mentality sets the foundation for why the fields of Indigenous astronomy and Indigenous science are so important for me. I have found a niche in which I can feel passionately connected to my culture and community while devoting myself to the area of science that I love.

I began to obsessively consume all available resources about Indigenous astronomical traditions. In 2017, I booked a weekend trip to Byron Bay in New South Wales to attend an astronomy convention called Star Stuff. My motivation was to hear a talk on Aboriginal astronomy that was being presented by one of the field’s leading cultural astronomers, Dr Duane Hamacher. After strong encouragement from other attendees at the convention, I fought past my social nerves and introduced myself to him. He seemed just as excited to meet me as I was to meet him, and I was soon after warmly welcomed into the Australian Indigenous Astronomy Project, through which I also came to know my co-author, Karlie Noon. By 2018, Duane and I had started to deliver regular public talks on Indigenous astronomy together across Melbourne. We began several research projects, including an exploration of the Pleiades in Aboriginal astronomical traditions, analysis of the role of moon cusps in Indigenous weather prediction (see Chapter 3), and a general dive into the astronomy of the Muruwari nation with Muruwari man (and now dear friend) William Stevens.

In the following years, an unexpected passion for science communication took hold of me. I began to speak regularly about Indigenous science at schools, libraries, planetariums, observatories and conferences. This public speaking role was naturally born out of my eagerness to educate willing listeners on Indigenous sciences and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), and resulted in my being involved in some large-scale projects. After an article I wrote for the Indigenous-owned media organisation IndigenousX called ‘Indigenous Astronomy to Revitalise the Australian Curriculum’ received international attention, I was invited to co-produce and feature in a radio documentary for the BBC, Emu in the Sky. In 2021, I worked as an astronomer tour guide with Chimu Adventures on the history-making first-ever commercial flight from Melbourne towards Antarctica to observe the aurora australis, also known as the southern lights. I became the first non-genomicist to be awarded the Illumina Women in Genomics bracelet, a token of appreciation given to women contributing to the scientific field with distinguished leadership. From 2019 I started collaborating with composer and cinematographer Ross Calia and Wiradjuri dancer Ella Havelka – the first Indigenous dancer to join the Australian Ballet – to create the immersive dance film Our Starry Night. The film is inspired by the Aboriginal dark sky constellation the Celestial Emu (see Chapter 2), and accompanies the Van Gogh exhibition at The Lume, Melbourne’s digital gallery that opened in 2021. The 360-degree immersive experience of Ella’s self-choreographed dance is projected onto the four-storey-high walls and the floor of the exhibition spaces, and also features time lapses of my own paintings of the emu.

In 2020, my work as a science communicator was recognised by Monash University with the Faculty of Science’s Science Communication Award. I started to focus on embedding Indigenous sciences into tertiary and secondary school curriculums and became part of a working group that designed and executed Monash’s first Indigenous science course, ‘SCI2030 – Indigenous Science: Science through the eyes of Australia’s First Peoples’. I have since curated a public database of Indigenous science resources alongside Dr Angela Ziebell for the Australian Council of Deans of Science (ACDS) to assist tertiary educators in accessing reliable resources for the classroom. These two projects are explored in Chapter 5. Through the construction of the ACDS database, I gained a greater awareness of the ingenious work done by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scientists and knowledge holders beyond the field of astronomy. Inspired to learn more, I launched a weekly radio show called ‘Indigenuity’ on Melbourne community radio station Triple R 102.7FM, where I host conversations with Indigenous knowledge holders to give a platform to their ingenuity.

My proudest achievement is that I have successfully completed my Bachelor of Science. At the time of writing, I am nearing the end of an honours degree in astrophysics under the supervision of astrophysicist Dr Michael Brown. My research aims to determine the star formation rates of galaxies, and I have my sights set on commencing a PhD in late 2022.

My engagement with Indigenous knowledge perspectives has entirely changed the way I view not just the skies, but the land around me. Everything is connected, and this idea of fundamental universal interconnectedness has become undeniable through my study of Indigenous science. I feel that until recently I have been walking this earth with my eyes closed, not fully appreciating the depth of what is being shown to me. Aboriginal oral traditions encode knowledge in endless layers that extend so deeply that once you feel you have learnt enough, you realise that you have only scratched the surface.

Now when I revisit the nightly strolls I made as a child under the stars of my rural town, I have a different perspective. There is so much more to appreciate than just the beauty of the twinkling lights above: the sky is an ocean of knowledge that reflects our experiences on the ground. What is found in the sky is reflected here on Earth. I can look above and navigate my way across the land. I can look at the stars, the planets and the Moon and know that they are ready to inform me about changes I need to understand in my environment.

My aim with this book is to participate in the act of knowledge exchange that has been practised across thousands of generations by my ancestors. I hope this perspective evokes a sense of responsibility to Country in all readers, and that you will join me in championing the preservation of our dark skies.

KARLIE NOON

Everything is connected, and everything and everyone has a place. I knew these words were the truth from the day I was born. It is what my mum and her mum knew to be true as their elders passed this knowledge on to them,...