REVIEW: Different Ways of Knowing: The Relationship Between Indigenous People and the Land in Milroy’s Trees are Our Family Too

 The relationship between Indigenous people and trees, as well as the land, is at the core of Gladys Idjirrimoonya Milroy and Jean Milroy’s text Different Ways of Knowing: Trees are Our Family Too. In the text, Idjirrimoonya and Milroy posit that the relationships between people, the land, and stories are all intrinsically tied to the concept of “knowing” in Indigenous philosophy, as well as to one another.

Trees and people

In the text, the relationship between Indigenous people and trees, or country, is a core tenet of Indigenous philosophy and the concept of Indigenous knowledge. Idjirrimoonya and Milroy assert that “our [Indigenous peoples’] spiritual heart connects us to country; there can be no lies.” (Milroy, 42.) They carry custodial responsibilities and obligations to the trees and the land; as Irene Watson echoes in Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law, “knowledge belongs to a people and the people belong to a landscape.” (Watson, 1.) The relationship between Indigenous people and the land is more complex than the notion of land as a commodity as in Western capitalist thought; rather, the land is not something which can be owned, and is therefore not property, but rather something which must be looked after and valued: “Trees are our relations.” (Milroy, 35.) This sense of kinship tied to country has led to both obligation to look after the land and the belief that the land itself will in turn look after them.

Trees and stories

Idjirrimoonya and Milroy submit that this relationship with the trees is at the heart of what they consider the story for their novel:

“When we began to talk about what story we should write for this book, what kept coming to us was a cry from the trees to help them tell their stories. Not just because it is important for them, because it is important for us.” (Milroy, 25.)

The idea that trees cry may be a new or strange idea to Western backgrounds of thought, but the idea of trees having stories is one which is recurrent among much Indigenous thought. The relation of connection of Jill and Gladys to trees, or more broadly to Indigenous people and country, is central to the notion that Indigenous people derive their stories and therefore their knowledge from the land. “Felling trees begins the destruction of memory and the usurpation of place” (Milroy, 32) the text goes on to explain, formulating a core connection between the destruction of trees and the land and the disintegration of cultural knowledge. For Indigenous people, “the land is full of stories, and [they] are born… into these stories.” (Milroy, 24) In the stories of Dingo and Wombat, these characters “inhabit a real world” (Milroy, 29) and are considered to be a key facet of knowledge because their stories are derived from dreams:

“One of the ways we know and make sense of the world around us is through stories given to us from the Dreaming. Stories tell us about the spirit of the world, and they come from trees, animal, rocks, rivers, the moon, stars, and country itself.” (Milroy, 22)

This philosophy is respectful of trees as living beings which humans have relationships with, and is a theme which can be found across many stories told by Indigenous writers. In her piece Hey Ancestor, Alexis Wright speaks directly to the land, her country, and her ancestors: “Can’t you hear country keeping its peoples’ memories beating strongly?” (Wright, 46) Additionally, she re-asserts this notion of custodianship tied to the tradition of oral storytelling, exemplifying the relationship between the people, stories and the land: “Where are all the proper story-keepers? Who’s going to sing all the sacred story so you won’t feel lonely anymore, is there anyone left?” (Wright, 48)

Stories and dreams as knowledge

At the core of their essay is the assertion that Indigenous people have “different ways of knowing.” (Milroy, 22) One of the central ways of knowing is derived from story-telling, which is derived itself from the Dreaming. Idjirrimoonya and Milroy posit that a story told through a dream can have practical uses for deriving knowledge:

“A dream can be a warning, given because you’ve gone the wrong way. Or there may be something you need to know to prepare for what is coming, or something you must do.” (Milroy, 22)

This notion of stories, and therefore knowledge, coming to them from the Dreaming is leagues away from the ways in which Westerners ‘know’ things. Milroy explains that her “mother, Gladys, was given a dream about the first tree.” (Milroy, 25) The stories come from country or land itself. This sense of knowing is “not unique to Indigenous people: knowing lies within us all. Unfortunately, it is a way of knowing that has been discarded by many of the world’s cultures.” (Milroy, 23) The universality and supremacy of Western knowledge as inherently more logical than other ways of knowing fails to acknowledge this practise of knowing that dates back to generations and generations of oral histories closely tied to Indigenous spirituality; Western ideology typically seems to destroy the land, whilst Indigenous philosophy and “raw law”, as Irene Watson puts it, values its preservation. This is a counter-culture to colonial thought, and is a basis of knowledge which is tied to stories and comes from country itself.

Milroy concludes that there are two ways of knowing: one which is tied directly to Indigenous traditions of knowledge derived from stories and the land, and one which is tied to Westernisation:

“In Australia now there are two knowledge trees. One springs from the story nomads and represents Western ways of knowing, while the other arises from Aboriginal ways of knowing that come from the living tree.” (Milroy, 40)

Milroy recalls that her “grandmother Daisy could not read or write but gave all of us kids’ stories. [Her] mother Gladys and [she] continue to see the world in stories.” (Milroy, 25.) The tradition of oral storytelling, and therefore the preservation of culture and history, are intrinsically tied to trees and therefore to the land. Land and country invite Dreaming, which invites stories; these stories are a way of knowing, and therefore the land itself is knowledge. This interconnectedness between trees, stories and people is at the core of Different Ways of Knowing, and aids in describing the ways of knowing which are specific to Milroy and her mother, and as such, specific to Indigenous philosophy.

Reference List

• Milroy, Jean and Idjirrimoonya Milroy, Gladys "Different Ways of Knowing: Trees are Our Family Too" in Heartsick for Country: Stories of Love, Spirit and Creation. Eds. Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina. Freemantle Press, Perth, 2008

• Watson, Irene. 2015. Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law. Routledge, New York.

• Wright, Alexis “Hey Ancestor” Griffith Review60, 2018.