Main Street, Wyoming; 714; Paul Taylor

Main Street Wyoming is made possible by Kennicott energy company proud to be part of Wyoming's future in the coal and uranium industries which includes exploration mining and production. And the Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching the lives of Wyoming people through the study of Wyoming history values and ideas. Paul Taylor an Australian living in Laramie travels the state and country telling the stories and playing the music of the Australian aborigines. Their similarity to American Indians is striking. If you are fascinated with the Land Down Under Don't miss this main street Wyoming. You. Reduce it. Welcome to Main Street Wyoming. I'm Deborah Hammond. My guest is Paul Taylor whose

tales about struggle you have made him a favorite speaker across Wyoming. Paul I know that not only do you give performances but you also give workshops and all kinds of things but what I'm interested in today is hearing the story of Australia Wyoming has a real fascination with your country. Can you tell me how it how it started when the Europeans first settled there. Well it was all actually taught in with the American War of Independence. And. Two hundred years ago America defeated Britain and at that time Britain was sending the convicts to Georgia was in particular and they couldn't do that anymore. America said you can keep them. Now the system in Europe at that time was breaking down and people were literally starving in the streets and I was stealing a loaf of bread or a sheep in the countryside just to survive. And they were put in jail the lore of the land put them in jail the jails were overcrowded. I couldn't go to America anymore and then I said well what are we going to do. Maybe if we sent him to a strike nobody wants to live there they'll never come back. So they did I said into a strike because it's too

too hot and it's to drive the normal settlement. So it was to relieve that problem. And it was all tied in with that American experience so I did they sent the convicts to Australia they were interested in the land and all and. I never knew about that relationship and we know about the convicts going to Australia but didn't realise America had anything to do with it so that's wonderful that's quite a quite a beginning it is the first thing that really took hold as Europeans are looking for to make money or to make a business out of something and you know as they came out here to Wyoming it was Beaver you know strategy of the first thing I found was why it was and the world depended on while oil at that time. And so the Europeans with the Americans were all around the south coast the southeast corner or the stray around you that settlement hunting while I was at that time and there's a song that I grew up with which is a whiling song which comes from that period and as I've traveled around America found various versions of it. In California there's a California version and there's a Cali New York state version from Cape Cod.

Well great let's hear it. So to do that all do this and this is a this is actually part this is a rhythm stick which is part of a strategy in American folklore if you travel around America are found various versions of this. This is a relatively modern existence. It is relatively think a relatively modern invention and a strange love to drink and it's probably come from that's probably the fact that Australia is so dry and so hot. So if you go to Wisconsin you find and eat sticks which is gone. My picked him brain that I haven't a different version to the way around. Way way

way. When I returned she'd marry me. It was the California gold rush. And then if you go to New York State New York state you're here. Called girls they have no car. Heber why Holder why they call me here with me. And if you go to Lincoln which is near Adelaide in South Australia here Port Lincoln goes I have no car heaver why holy white i can name here with Snapper barns. Just.

Look at the big A bid really. Starts the kookaburra laughing that's the bar in which the kids seem to grow up with or I don't know if you did Deborah but you know I think I was a Girl Scout we all sang about their Google bar on the old gum tree. Yeah and it's the laughing bit of a stright. Oh that's one one of things I missed the most is the sound of the bill. And that's what the song it sounds like is laughing. So that's what that song is all about. Well now I know the other thing that Australia and I am really have in common is the concept of raising livestock in these vast expanses of land you call in ransoms. We call them station stations and we Don Randall excuse me you have a you have legends and all kinds of things to do with cowboys too don't you. We have a whole history which was happening if not probably before the American history about the time the big the trappers were coming here they started moving some of the biggest

movements of sheep and cattle ever seen on the face of the earth in Australia and about the IDing 70s when it was really hitting here up the Great Plains into Wyoming and Montana the great movements. It was really hitting in Australia so it was almost at a run identical face and that was the cowboy movement in Australia that was cold. We don't even use that word cowboy though called overland as drovers and stockmen and. And example of that cultural similarities probably the what we call Bush ballads and their cowboy poetry. It's the same equivalent and probably one of our greatest is a man called Banjo Paterson who did the Met The Man From Snowy River. The film was based on you also wrote Waltzing Matilda and Clancy the overflight and I haven't run into Baxter Blackett to cover parts gathering and he sort of took me aside and he said Banjo Patterson if only I could write like Banjo Paterson. So banjo is seen and I was I was actually you know I was quite surprised but

banjo is seen as an idol here in America which will shock me. But Clancy of the overflow I will give you a little bit of that in my wild erratic fancy visions come to me a Clancy gonna drove in down the Cooper where the Western drover's go. As the stock is slowly stringing Clancy rides behind them singing for the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know and the bush has friends to greet him and a kindly voice is meeting him in the murmur of the breezes in the river on its back and he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended and at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars. And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy I want to take a turn at drove and when the seasons come and go Well he faced the round Eternal of the cash book and the Journal but I doubt he'd suit the office. Clancy all of the overfly. And that's just that's one hundred and that was

nineteen hundred and four. I think when he wrote that one he was talking about romantically talking about the cowboy all the drovers way of life in a stright. Now I know that one of the things that you really talk a lot about and in addition to giving this kind of historical background is that the role of the Aborigine people in Australia. How did the Europeans react to them when they first met the Aborigines in one of the Aborigines think of Europeans. Well at first there was a lot of miscommunication and it was essentially the same story as what happened with Native America here in a lot of in a lot of ways. The Europeans came as pastoralists and farmers and I looked upon the Aborigines who were hunters and gatherers they looked upon them as really not having a right to the land because they to them they didn't seem to be. There was no fences they weren't running cattle or sheep or they didn't seem to be. Look after any animals and the Aboriginal on the other hand was like the Native American I would saw themselves as custody of the land. So the

Europeans then in the very in the first landing why it was written into the fabric of the law they called it a strike it was declared terra nullius which Manges the Latin for no man's land because they assume that these people really weren't doing anything with it. But it was a European bias and so that therefore gave them the right to come in and take it over. And it's been 200 use since that time there's been a lot of very similar conflicts with like with naive America and whatever. Very a lot of fighting there were equivalents to Crazy Horse and your honor amongst Aboriginal. And I fought they fought and eventually they came kicking and screaming into a sort of a frontier Western culture very similar to what you see in Wyoming. Now now I know that that you have a lot of stories and songs that you and the didgeridoos did in your collection here. How did you come to know about all of this.

Well in the early 80s I grew up in the city. I mean Australian cities are huge we have these huge cities on the coastline. Once you go inland you get drier and drier and dry and you get into the outback and everything you know there's hardly anybody. I mean it's and the land areas as big as America and I graduated as a social worker and my first job took me at the age of 21 out of suburban Adelaide. Ninety five percent of Australians grew up in suburbs and the 5 percent grow up in the outback so my sisters don't even don't even go to the outback. I went to the outback and worked in my work took me to Darwin in the Northern Territory and direct. Directly working with tribal people and it was a thing that I know of it changed me for the rest of my life. Well can you explain to me the instrument then. I was introduced to this tradition and these the didgeridoo which is become very popular in America as the world seems to be returning to tribal. A lot of All That sounds and this is one of the oldest and I say this is probably the the sound of the earth and these are branches of trees

that are now by termites and they in the tropical north of Australia where they have these incredible colonies of termites they attacked the gum trees or the eucalyptus trees Kookaburra sits in the tree and these trees are so I were hot on the outside the termites can eat through the inside is actually softer than the outside. They nest in the trees and they make the tree. These trees the hymen the Aboriginals go out into the ocean I've been out actually with my friend Bill Harney. We got this one from his from the woman people and you can see you can see this one. It's pretty well holiday yeah. And this is actually the trunk where he went out and he typed. He went up to the street. I think she's home I think I think I'll cut it down so we cut it down here at the base and then he cut it here and he put another piece in here for the mouthpiece. But essentially what you have is a hollow tube and there's no reeds and beeswax on the mouthpiece I take the back off. Compare them to pine and decorate and everybody plants and Dick rose in a particular

way. That was a little quick about it. They used him as a rhythm for dancing but also the dancers are often about the link to animal or animal sounds. How do you make the continuous sound I mean you've just got air going through it all the time how do you do that. It's called It's a circular breathing technique which I think sellers or brand brands Kenny G does it on all day on the saxophone. The

basic sound is just like this loose lips sink ships they sign America. And then you throw your voice into Mike and so you sort of sing through. I was going to do it which is sort of how a little bit like a coyote that don't really back very much so you put three you chew it. So you get these wonderful times and then to answer your question you do this technique while you're buzzing it loops to keep the sound going without stopping you go. Your cheeks become the bag of air for the bagpipe and you pop them up it's a reservoir there when you need a breath you pop them out you get what they call back pressure and you

squeeze out a little bit while you take a breath at the same time. And if there's always air coming out there's always going to be a sound you keep your lips buzzing. Incredible it has such an it sounds like it's from another world. I mean that's what it just transports you to another place one of the oldest sounds in the world and I would actually say it goes back to the beginning of time when the land was being formed. The scientists I do they say maybe it's only 2000 years old some say judging by paintings on rock faces and Stripes full of just luck in Wyoming. The that it goes back maybe 20 to 40000 years and the Aboriginal people say it goes back to the beginning when there was a giant snake that came up out of the ground when everything was completely flat and featureless and there was nothing no life at all and a lot of Native American stories stand in the same way in the beginning there was nothing and apple out of the ground and out of the sea came the spirit ancestors of the people. And I was sort of all the different characters and creatures but probably one of the most famous. And it's really hard to generalize about Aboriginal people.

Certainly the tribes because the land dictated the culture you got tropics and you got desert like the Sioux and the Cherokee of the Apache you know in Australia is the same. You know it's a huge landscape so each one was different but one character was this giant snake that seems to have linked a lot of the mythology together in the dream time came out from the center of the earth and it was a right that had like a serpent's head on it was called The Rainbow Serpent. And each tribe had its own different name for it as it hit the earth's surface. It swept across the flat land and pushed up the mountains and the troughs for the rivers creating the land of Australia as we know it to this day. And one story there's like hundreds of stories all over the country one story tells of the snake that dove into a billabong which is a wood a hole once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong under the shade of a cool about tree and the snake dove into the water hole the people rushed over to watch the beautiful colors disappear. I step back they can't there for many days just to see what that snake was going to do. And then one day a big storm came up.

And suddenly up out of that water hole through the trees through the clouds and into another Billabong many miles away a dove that giant rainbow snake and the old people up in the north of Australia the traditional people were still inside when I see a rainbow in the sky they say. That's that rain by snake jumping from one Billabong to another and they're very careful not to disturb those Billabong because I still believe those spirits are alive and knows what hosts do to this day my friend is no exception. We've been camping and my Native American friends told similar stories my friend Joe far from Lame Deer in Montana or the Northern Cheyenne people says that when he was growing up his mother used to say you keep away from those places where the water comes up out of the ground because there's a lot of spirits around you be careful and you think oh through the world about. They come to tradition with the Lochness Monster and in all Ireland when I visited Ireland before. After this period I went to Ireland to trace my ancestry. There are snakes in the water hose the snakes and if you go to Africa you find this same tradition in the snake really represented the earth I think and was

the. And the stories of the snake had to do with very natural things like rainbows or volcanic eruptions. And so the snake is is that is that a good force in its good and bad. All he can do it can be it can create gave birth to the people as it went across the land gave birth to the birds the animals and the landscape as it did it sing out the names and created them all in a song form and but it can also take away life because they could come as a sock line. You could come back as a volcanic eruption and so that's why I like avoiding it at the waterholes it's just it's a you know you've got to respect respecting Mother Earth or however you want to think of it. There's a story of the snake wrap itself around a volcano when for whatever reason I won't go into the details and it's squeezed the top of that mountain and it exploded causing rocks to fly in all directions. Now the Shoshones have a story from around the Jackson Hole area of a snake that wraps around the

mountain top and squeezed it. For whatever reason and it exploded almost the same identical stories. Those are powerful forces so that's how they explain that today in scientific terms you say all these natural phenomena and they see it is that that's the serpent or the snakes were all year. What about you mentioned something about the dream land the dream time dream time just so happened a dream time was the beginning of time when all these characters walking around were spirits that was simply spirit people and giant snakes or that were giant people or what. All sorts of different characters but there was spirits and then there was a time for each tribe where they became physical. In the dream time they turned into the things that we know to this day some change into rocks some to jump into the water holes and became fishes or crocodiles some went up into the sky became styles some became rooted in the ground became trees. Well now when if it's called Dream Time does that mean that that when they sleep and they dream they think they go back to that time are you this is sort of the unconscious world and

it's to do with dreams is the spirit world really and it's alive I would say it's alive now and Drene dream is probably the closest word to it. I mean you don't we don't really have a word that we don't really have the wood for it that actually captures it. But I would say that. The spirit of your ancestor model change into that rock over there on that mountain range. And I would say my ancestors in that mountain. So you don't disturb it and it's still alive there as long as we keep the ceremonies up that the ancestor when it changed into that the snake man of past on the song. So as long as you keep on singing and dance in the songs of your ancestors you keep that alive and still alive so the dream time is now too and always will be as long as you keep up the ceremonies and so that's what how it's just orally passed from one generation to the end as everyone Can everyone hear it or there are certain people it goes on to different live different levels of initiation which stats and the stuff that I'm told we're talking about is what they call public sacred everything sacred but this is public sacred.

These are things they were willing to share with the children would be told. But I couldn't do with I wouldn't be told sacred stuff. Now this has a snake on have this as a snipe. Is that a common motif then that it often enough and this sort of snake skin design that you get you can see the head of the snake and he's the eggs of the snake which might have been for this person George Monita from animal and this was probably giving birth to the people as it gave birth to the people that sing out their names. Everything was a song. Now will this have each. Does each one have its own unique sound. Yeah they're all different. What is it longer does that affect you yet you want me to plan what's yours. This is played this one here and traditionally that sticks and you can see the sort of snakeskin design again. Now the sticks the rhythm the dancing this was the equivalent of the drum as opposed to the night American power and the sticks get the rhythm to the dances and I sing up the land

in the same way the North in the north Southwest lacing up the corn for the corn dance Aboriginal people using up the plants the animals using up the land. That's what keeps the life force going. And therefore now you also have a story that you tell about the sandhill crane and you use a

completely different type of instrument for that. Well for that we use. You don't even call it an instrument what is it it's called a bull roarer. Really hard for me to say an American like a knight like like a bull roar like a lion roar. OK and you have a strange accent comes from the fact you go to get you would say quick. We don't math around. I was very much because the Flies my Guinea. OK so you've got that so dry the flies will do anything. That's why the cowboys used to wear those hats with corks dangling down to keep the flies out because they're trying to get a drink of water at a you guys it's so dry. We're talking about probably the driest landscape in the world that's why the Europeans really didn't want to settle there because it was just to drive us to dry. Let's give you a big space here to do this. This is a boom and this was in Crocodile Dundee and Crocodile Dundee was really a cartoon in a lot of ways and I think he called it a telephone or whatever but.

I found the Hopis in Arizona use these for their Rhine ceremonies they sing up the Rhine just like Aboriginal people do the Navajo use it for healing and the Sioux Indians of these regions up here in Wyoming used to use them so maybe right here the words we used here written audit not part of the Apache do and I'm not sure whether the Shoshone do or not to sin in certain places astray I wouldn't even do this is sacred. This is basically a toy than psycho ones you wouldn't even see that would be in bed with ceremony or whatever. Well what little bit of time we have left here I probably want our audience to hear them. And the dream time was full of people those spirit people changing into birds or animals or insects or rocks or whatever. So there was a lot of shade changing in the dream time and there was a girl who was the best dancer in the Holy Land and her name was broad and she used to practice every day out on the on the plains now one

day she was practicing. Somebody was watching her and he was an evil spirit his name was why were he lives up in the two black holes in the Milky Way. If you look up at the sky at night in the southern hemisphere you might see two black holes. You look down to earth he saw they go dancing and he saw her practicing and he said to himself She's the most beautiful dancer I have seen. I'm going to come down. I'm going to take her back to my home in the two black holes in the Milky Way. So while we're of the evil spirit what he did was he changed himself into a whirlwind or a willy willy what the people really really came down to earth wrapped himself around that tree while the girl was practicing and she fought him and I want to cross the Ritz or my name on it. Meanwhile the tribe became worried. Back in AK I said Wish. She's normally back from practice by now so they followed the tracks the tracks led them to a hill overlooking a valley down in the valley. I saw evil spirit while we were fighting with a young girl immediately I ran down into the ranks of the truck driving back to his home when he realized he couldn't do it

and with one big smile went back to his home in the two black holes in the Milky Way. And as all the dust settled I looked around for that go and she had disappeared and in her place was a bird a bird I'd never seen before a great bird with long legs and a red mark on the top of its head and the bird started to do the sign graceful dance. But the young girl used to do it. That's wonderful Paul I can't thank you enough for coming to Main Street Wyoming it's just been just fabulous as bird as we're saying goodbye to our to our audience. I'd like you to sing the Australian national song that we all now Waltzing Matilda. Well it's the unofficial I'm up there so I know that after the national anthem. And it's a story about a billabong and the Aboriginal people always said be careful of those Billabong because a lot of spirits around this. Liability song the shy dog treat he said as he

sat and he waited a little bit to come along too. He sang as he said he waited for you to come home won't jump the swagman and sprang into the Billabong You'll never catch me alive said he and his ghost. As you passed by that Billabong who tumble world to leave me. The two who come along to me and his ghost may be heard as you're passed by that Billabong who come a war to do with me. We're going to. Main Street Wyoming is made possible by Kennicott energy company proud to be part of

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