kanyini essay
What do you think are the messages being presented by Bob Randall and the director Melanie Hogan, in the film Kanyini?
Melanie Hogan’s Kanyini shows the pain and suffering of Aborigines during the period of white settlement through the contemporary accounts of Bob Randall, an aboriginal elder of the Yankuntjatjara people. Randall explains that the aboriginal people were deprived of their ‘Kanyini,’ which comprises of their land, family, belief system and spirituality. The loss of Kanyini, is shown to be the major factor in the current day troubles of Aborigines. In Kanyini, Hogan exposes the traumas within the Indigenous community due to the invasion of their land.
White settlement is shown to have damaged Aboriginal society through the loss of land. The white invaders saw the land as belonging to nobody and so claimed it for themselves and set up farms. The land was in fact used by the Aborigines but they had never seen themselves as owning it. Fences and introduced species thoroughly affected the area, altering the flora and driving away the native fauna. The aboriginal men fought for their land and this period is known as the “killing time”, because many warriors lost their lives. Randall states; “The killing time still affects our people.” This was when they lost their land, one of the pillars of Kanyini. Randall states that “white people got everything and we got nothing.” The aborigines were deprived of their land and Hogan emphasises the trauma of losing the land; one of the four pillars of Kanyini.
Bob Randall explains the trauma of the children who were taken and formed what we now know as the Stolen Generation. It is a modern term used to describe the 50 000 children taken from their families due to an official government policy ordering the removal of part aboriginal children from their families, to be raised as white children.
Melanie Hogan’s Kanyini shows the pain and suffering of Aborigines during the period of white settlement through the contemporary accounts of Bob Randall, an aboriginal elder of the Yankuntjatjara people. Randall explains that the aboriginal people were deprived of their ‘Kanyini,’ which comprises of their land, family, belief system and spirituality. The loss of Kanyini, is shown to be the major factor in the current day troubles of Aborigines. In Kanyini, Hogan exposes the traumas within the Indigenous community due to the invasion of their land.
White settlement is shown to have damaged Aboriginal society through the loss of land. The white invaders saw the land as belonging to nobody and so claimed it for themselves and set up farms. The land was in fact used by the Aborigines but they had never seen themselves as owning it. Fences and introduced species thoroughly affected the area, altering the flora and driving away the native fauna. The aboriginal men fought for their land and this period is known as the “killing time”, because many warriors lost their lives. Randall states; “The killing time still affects our people.” This was when they lost their land, one of the pillars of Kanyini. Randall states that “white people got everything and we got nothing.” The aborigines were deprived of their land and Hogan emphasises the trauma of losing the land; one of the four pillars of Kanyini.
Bob Randall explains the trauma of the children who were taken and formed what we now know as the Stolen Generation. It is a modern term used to describe the 50 000 children taken from their families due to an official government policy ordering the removal of part aboriginal children from their families, to be raised as white children.