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Tradition wrapped up in cloaks of possum

By Robin Usher

13 March 2006 - The skill of making possum-skin cloaks disappeared from Victoria about 150 years ago, leaving behind only a few specimens in museums around the world.

That all changed seven years ago when three women on a printmaking course were shown the Aboriginal collection at the Melbourne Museum, which has two cloaks from the 19th century.

"It brought me to tears when they brought out the cloak from my family's country around Lake Condah (in western Victoria)," says Vicki Couzens.

"I felt such a strong connection to the past - I could feel the old people. We were all tremendously moved."

That chance viewing changed Couzens' life, as well as that of her two companions, Treahna Hamm and Lee Darroch. They set out to rediscover the skills needed not only to make the cloaks but to put motifs on them similar to those from the past.

"The most important thing is that we are telling our stories in our own way," Couzens says.

"In the past seven years, the cloaks have slowly come back into use as a normal part of welcoming ceremonies and at funerals."

The three received a grant from Melbourne City Council for their work and began importing skins from New Zealand, where the foreign possum is regarded as a pest, similar to the rabbit in Australia.

The first two cloaks made by the women are on permanent display in Canberra's National Museum of Australia, where they have represented Victoria for the past three years.

Three more decorated cloaks are now on show at Bunjilaka, the Melbourne Museum's Aboriginal cultural centre. They are part of an exhibition, Biganga, which is the Yorta Yorta term for the cloaks. Another is in the office of Melbourne's Lord Mayor, John So.

The show demonstrates traditional and contemporary practices based on the unique Victorian tradition.

The women are keen to teach others how to make the cloaks. For example, Couzens, who is from the Kirrae Wurrong clan, works with her daughters. Darroch, from the Yorta Yorta clan, is a community arts worker in East Gippsland and Hamm, also from the Yorta Yorta, is an artist in the state's north-east. Couzens says the cloaks are a key ingredient in cultural regeneration.

"We are creating connections for future generations," she says. "They reinforce our identity. It's only when you know who you are that you can gain the strength to go forward."

All three women say cloak-making has improved their sense of being Aborigines, and reinforced the continuing Aboriginal presence in the state.

"I became aware that while we were reviving an art form that had been rested for 150 years, we were, in fact, reinforcing something that has never been in doubt, but may have been taken for granted," Hamm says.

"As we talked about the cloaks, I realised that we were not only connecting with each other, but also with our people from the past who had made cloaks just as we're doing."

Hamm was taken from her mother at birth in 1965 and given up for adoption. She did not meet her again for 27 years.

"I only stopped asking questions when I met my family and began learning about our culture and continuing traditions," she says.

Hamm, whose Possum Skin Cloak Spirit is also on display at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, is doing a PhD in philosophy as RMIT, where Couzens is also undertaking a masters degree.

Darroch, whose grandmother was removed from her family, was brought up being told her dark skin was the result of Pacific Islander ancestry - "anything but Aborigines," she says.

Couzens says that people's skin colour is no indication of their sense of being Aboriginal.

"That might fade over generations," she says, "but that doesn't affect the spirit."

As part of her work in Gippsland, Darroch helps put young people in touch with their families. She says that making the cloaks has improved her knowledge of Aboriginal culture through the discovery of the stories told in symbols on the old cloaks.

"One of the old cloaks had 81 stories on its panels and no one knew them when we started," she says. "But, as we have gone on, the stories have started to come back."

Biganga: Keeping Tradition is on show at Bunjilaka, Melbourne Museum's Aboriginal cultural centre until next February.

Source: The Age

Possums revive Aboriginal craft

14 March 2006 - Australian Aboriginal artistes are importing hides from New Zealand to revive their traditional skills in making possum-skin cloaks.

The traditional craft - once a crucial aspect of living in southeast Australia - died out about 150 years ago, leaving behind only a few relics in museums.

But Melbourne's Age newspaper reports that three women have used a council grant to recreate the craft with possum skins from New Zealand. Killing possums is illegal in Australia.

"The cloaks have slowly come back into use as a normal part of welcoming ceremonies and at funerals," weaver Vicki Couzens said.

- NZPA

Source: NZ Herald

related links:

• Bunjilaka, Melbourne Museum's Aboriginal cultural centre
  
• Koori Heritage Trust

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