 So I'm going to introduce our first speaker who is my uncle Max Dullamunmun Harrison Thank you Yes mentioned my name is Max Dullamunmun Harrison and I'm a human man And that's where I was handed down a lot of a lot of stories and with the story of knowledge and So So it's a wonderful thing to be able to to be able to receive Receive that knowledge In doing that to receive in that knowledge. You're you're receiving sacredness of the past and you also are receiving sacredness of the present and That is very important when we talk about sacredness and and and the sacredness always is Comes in our culture many many aspects many many ways It it not only comes in with initiations and other laws see once once we look at Aboriginal laws Laws are a living thing. It's not like your present law today LAW that can be changed with the stroke of a pen But living laws Takes a bit harder to be changed because once we try to change that living law and the sacredness of those living laws We become just a bit sick just a little bit different thing that that can happen to us and And and we become suspect to the fluid and influenza and everything like that. So So so what I'm talking about is is is the food that we ate Back in the sea I was I was born in the in the mid 30s and and And today I I I still like to go for my walk I still like I still like to take the young man out and and teach him about Teach him about our sacredness and about our laws in particularly the fish traps I was I guess I was about 1215 years of age Somewhere about that in that in that basic time when I was told to sit on my bum and look at the fish traps and Because when you've been taught like that you never asked why what for you know You either got a boondi, you know a bit of a whack or something You know because you've been disrespectful to the to the elders you've been disrespectful to the ancients And when I talk about the ancients, I'm talking about the ancients that handed these stories down and the knowledge That goes with these stories You see they're not just something they're just not made up stuff They're handed down. It's it's like families today that That will hand down their legacies and that's the same as same as our mob How am I have handed those legacies down with sacredness? sacred ceremonies simple ways of going out into the bush and And seeing fruits and berries in that So you don't go there and they just don't go and pick that fruit and and And just pull the berries off like that. If you do that you're violating You're not doing anything sacred So your best way that you can do it is go into the bush and you see you see your berries or yeah Yeah, whatever it is there and you shake that tree or that plant three times If that falls off, it's yours If it doesn't fall off, it still belongs to that thing So if you're gonna take that then you'll rape in that tree or that bush and You'll rape in the land and That's something that we have to hold close to our spirit close to our heart is Trying to be able to to practice our sacredness and our stories of of how we must practice these these simple things of just going out and hunting and gathering spear and fish is another thing You sort of a dungeon a little done your little ritual before you threw that spear because you were taken alive and If you went a good shot and you missed that you missed that bigger fish and got a smaller one well, then there's something wrong And so so so we have to look at sacredness in lots of ways and And and and while we walked and we walked and we hunted and gathered gone for our food and that and And and taken taken water out of a river that's also something that that's very sacred and very Very ritual. I've got a story on that one But but but we'll be here tomorrow night by the time I finish it So so we won't go into that one But but when you take when you take water from a running river You dig a hole in the side and you let that water come through Into a just a little pool and then you take it You must take it that way because if you just go there with the bucket or and just dip into the river and And take it out then you are raping the river You are not taking that water in a good and proper manner in a sacred way So sacredness comes in gathering water sacredness comes with Gathering wood foods spearing fish and Also Getting your shellfish in that So so we have to be very careful in How we do these things and we have to have this practice and and most of all We have to have the have to have the teachers and the great masters to show us That if we do these things So when I was when I was this young young teenager, you know, I I was told to sit on my butt For hours and what the ocean come in From both sides and you'd see the water hitting splash and then go down and run down and then run to this pool and They set me in the right place These uncles and grandfathers of mine, so I thought what am I doing? Heditated, you know, and I knew the old fellas was ready to ready to chuck a boondi at me So I sat down again, and I and I worked the bum You know into the end of the ground and I sat down. I was again and For hours and then that said me you had enough now had enough what so you got to come back tomorrow You got to what this you got to what this one that moon comes you got to what this one grandmother moon comes up And you watch that you watch the change of the water. Oh I said so what am I watching? You're watching the fish traps and these fish traps were done some 12-13,000 years ago You're two waters are coming in like this both ways And when they when they bring the When the water comes in and bring the fish in and then the stones are set and it's channeled down to this great big pool And that's where these fish shall then then take it But the miraculous thing about that is is is is to be able to sit there and watch Sit there and watch The movement of grandmother moon grandmother moon grandfather son is the two important things of of Living on mother earth and looking at father sky. They're very important They're very important grandparents and parents besides our flesh grandparents and parents So to have those to have those four elements of mother earth one that gives us everything, you know And then you think you you might think what you're talking about, you know when you go and sit your bum in your car You know, where's that coming from? You know, you might have bought it out of a You might have bought it out of a car yard But you got to remember where that comes from That was birthed by the mother so sacredness and These fish traps are such a very important part of my life I'm trying to get some money so that I can get all some of the urine descendants from Wollongong to Eden To come in and I can then have them they're sitting on their butts and and and and and watching all the different different rising of the moons So that they can understand The level of the water and which way the water is coming in you see nature Is the greatest teacher of all and I had my grandfather and my uncles to take me that Thank you