五百年前，托馬斯?莫爾創作了小說《烏托邦》。自問世以來，這本書以及“烏托邦”一詞不斷影響著全球各地的夢想家、思想家和評論家。“烏托邦”或是想象中的世界，或是事物的一種完美狀態，抑或只是空想，它將我們本性中最好的以及最壞的一面呼喚出來。然而現如今，“烏托邦”的概念似乎早已遠離我們的精神世界。

五百年前托馬斯?莫爾創作《烏托邦》時，澳大利亞的土著居民正生活在我們腳下的這片土地上，帶著我們古老的動人故事、傳說中記載的法令、口口相傳的史歌，盡職盡責地在這片土地上勞作。我們的祖先已經在此生活了五萬多年，而今天我們中的許多人仍然居住在這里。最新的科學依據證實了我們已經了解的事實。自古代以來，在澳洲大陸的這片土地上發生過數次“幾乎災難性的氣候變化”，但我們依然幸存至今日。

我不確定祖先們是否覺得我們的文化已達到烏托邦的境界，或是需要讓烏托邦的思想融入到我們的精神和法律之中。但在今天，我們一直都夢想著從敵托邦（反烏托邦）中走出來，而這個敵托邦正是從他人的烏托邦思想和故事中創造出來的，關于我們應該成為怎樣的人、做怎樣的事。希望已經作為參照物嵌入了我們的人生，但我不認為我們的祖先希望實現烏托邦，因為烏托邦的思想會破壞維護世界平衡與和諧的法則，對于具有創造精神的人類來說，只有修復的行動才能體現出自己已將大地、海洋和天空的破壞和恢復能力都掌控在手中。

我相信，在多半惡劣的環境中我們一直都是樸素的現實主義者，深諳生存之道，忙著承擔自己在這個世界的道德宗教體系中被賦予的責任。我們與鄰居，和鄰居的鄰居一起，在這片大陸上，承擔著相似共通的責任——傳頌史歌，偉大的祖先給這片脆弱的領土創造了歷史和法則，我們則負責守護這片休眠的大地。

于是，我們變得意志剛強、頭腦冷靜，總是對其他民族和他們古代的智慧充滿好奇，讓那些來自傳統國家的智慧在我們神圣的文化中“安家落戶”。一直以來，其他文化中的神圣故事或智慧不斷融入到我們新創的歌曲與儀式當中，這是因為我們崇拜這些故事的偉大之處，并給予了回應。舉幾個例子，比如扛著耶穌的驢子、18世紀訪問北領地頂端的麻卡仙人，還有近來極具破壞性的移動性氣旋。

回顧家史，我發現我們家族繼承了我曾祖父崔三博（音譯）（來自中國廣東）的園藝傳統和烹飪技巧，同時也或多或少了解一些中國古代的知識。我時常會好奇他是怎樣和來自宛依（澳洲原住民）(Waanyi)的曾祖母以及其他澳洲的歌者談論中國文化，而他們又是如何讓我的曾祖父融入到我們的文化之中。19世紀末20世紀初，澳大利亞北部有大量的中國人和澳洲土著居民結婚。

我曾經在《酒精之戰》（Grog War）一書中，提到過關于我們對其他文化的好奇。1901年，人類學家鮑德溫?斯賓塞和民族學家F.J.吉倫走訪中澳地區后，在報告中說道，雖然當地土著居民生存條件極其惡劣，但各種儀式可一樣不少，種類之多讓兩位學者記錄地是筋疲力盡。

現在人們已經知道，當時那些瓦魯孟古人（Warumungu）在積極嘗試與白人（papulanji）建立道德和社會關系，但兩位學者大大低估了儀式背后土著居民的精神思想，所以沒能了解這些儀式所蘊含的深義。“瓦魯孟古人認為，如果白人侵略者不理解，那么其他行為就會繼續冒犯精神（Winkarra），而這些精神作為傳統法則的一部分，會繼續釋放破壞力，傷害那里的土地和人類。”斯賓塞和吉倫未能表現出同等的智慧和準則，回應土著居民所獻上的尊重，就意味著承認‘自己是“廢物”，沒有任何合法權利去影響人類的決策。’這時兩位學者雖然對傳統土著文化感興趣并有所研究，但也只是把他們的研究對象稱為“老黑”。

古代的土著居民獲取和存儲知識的方式主要是依靠強烈的精神想象力，將未知事物形象化，通過轉化來加以理解。 其中一個深刻的理解就是相信大地的本質十分強大，比人類自己強大得多，進而以此讓我們每個人認識到自己是誰，同理，也能讓一個國家認識自己。我最近聽了Galpu氏族的長者——Djalu Gurruwiwi 的講述，他是阿納姆地東北地區(澳大利亞北部半島地區) 的雍古族人，也是在迪吉里杜管（didgeridoo）的音樂和精神傳統上普遍認可的權威。這位長者向我們講述了土地強大的本質以及一些古老的故事和法則。     正是這些有影響力的歌者讓我認識到我們的文化能夠創造非凡的夢想家——富有遠見的人。 在傳統和當代經濟學領域最為特別的一位夢想家就是“追蹤者”蒂爾茅斯，他是阿倫特人。我為他撰寫的書籍將于今年晚些時候由吉拉蒙多出版社（Giramondo）出版。

Djalu Gurruwiwi說，他演奏杜管時的聲音，就像雷霆一般……穿透你的回憶……讓人平靜。 他說杜管的樂聲有治愈作用，因為這種樂器非常神圣，代表著神圣的大地，并且能夠奏出土地、海洋和天空的樂章。我們主權里的這個持續的古老的故事世界，穩固地生活在我們自己的腦海里，面對著繼續發生在我們身上的一切。正是這種堅不可摧的傳統智慧幫助我們在任何階段都能取得成功，無論我們的故事怎樣曲折交錯，它都不會改變，凌駕于其他法則之上，貫穿始終。

我研究澳洲以及世界各地的故事已經多年，這是我一直覺得我必須要做的事情，以便讓我的工作具有實用價值（包括寫作）。令我越來越好奇的是，究竟是什么東西能夠影響我講故事的能力，讓我的故事傳遍世界各個角落？

人們一直在講述我們的民族故事，但是土著居民并沒有參與故事創作。所以問題就在于如果別人講述我們的故事會對我所創作的故事產生影響，那么我又怎么成為一名“土著”作家呢？我想要探索，如果其他人害怕我們，并將這種恐懼灌輸給我們，那我們還能發揮我們的想象力和創造力嗎？我為什么還要創作呢？我為什么還要創作我已經創作的故事呢？這些是我在努力創作真實故事的過程中想要探索的問題；另一方面，我想知道，我是不是被其他人講述的關于我們的故事所影響，習慣性地講述著一類故事？我該如何解放思想，寫出不同的東西？

我認為如果沒有專門的平臺來講述土著的權利，如文化經濟主權及安全保障權，那么隨著時間的推移他們的選擇就會越來越少，只能妥協讓步，任由自己的文化和信仰根基遭受侵蝕。土著講述者可能已經感到有必要對于講故事的方式加以思考，就像2007年后，政府出臺政策介入北方土著居民生活時，人們通過批判的方式所做的那樣。我們也許會疑惑，人們將以何種方式聽到我們的故事？我們講故事的新標準又是什么？我們一旦做出讓步，嘗試將土著居民的故事或信仰與主流民族故事合二為一，就有可能動搖文化的存在、真實性以及文化發言權。

我們中的一些人可能對自己講故事的能力已經失去信心，任由他人來講述我們自己的故事。有些人可能已經決定要生活在更加專門化的內部分離形式中，在這樣的形式中，我們只承認了解從古延續至今的文化規律、文化思想和文化信仰的價值；盡管表面上看起來是在委曲求全、受到壓制，但這樣的生活似乎有其合理之處，也有安全保障。不管政府部門的政策如何，我們會在虛設的隔離和相對的和平中餞行豐富的土著文化。即使是在資源匱乏需要依靠外部資源支持的情況下，我們也一直努力保護文化，這是關乎我們生存的大事。不斷被重述的民族故事和平臺已經深深扎根在澳大利亞人的心中，加深了土著居民的自覺意識和自我審查意識。一直以來，澳大利亞人就被引導著以這樣的方式思考，并希望土著居民能夠調整他們的行為方式，貼近官方的描述。那么我們將如何選擇參照物？如何獨立創作我們的故事，講述我們的故事并付諸實踐？我相信這將成為我們這個時代最重要的故事。

在創作過程中我深入思考，試圖在作品中創造一個世界，以澳洲為起點，走向全球。例如我的小說《天鵝之書》，被評為敵托邦之作，但實際上這本書是對希望的深刻批判，就像我的小說《卡奔塔利亞》，是為了說明土著居民的法律比其他法律更加自由，更加超越界限。

制造希望也許是講故事的目的之一，但我們還需要更遠大美好的目標，保持源源不斷的想象力，讓想象隨著故事的希望一起閃閃發光。

Literature Mobility and Place

Alexis Wright

Five hundred years ago, Thomas More wrote the novel Utopia. This book, and the word it created, has continued to influence dreamers, thinkers, and critics across the globe. This word for an imagined place, or state of things where everything is perfect, or of what is utopia, has appealed to the very best and worst of our nature, but in the world today, such an idea seems as far removed from our thinking as ever.  

Five hundred years ago while Thomas More was writing Utopia, Aboriginal people in Australia were living with our own powerful ancient stories, our storied laws, our song lines and responsibilities to the very same places or regions where our ancestors had been living for fifty thousand years or more, and where many of our people still live today. New scientific evidence verifies what we already knew of our survival and permanency to the same regions on the continent through ‘almost cataclysmic shifts in climate,’ from ancient times.

I am not sure if our ancestors felt that they had achieved utopia in our culture, or needed utopian ideas to be embedded in our spirit, or in our laws, but today, we never stop dreaming of a better day from the dystopia created from other peoples’ utopian ideas and stories about who and what we should be. Ideas of hope have become embedded as reference points in our entire lives, but I do not think that our ancestors had utopian longings, because utopian thoughts would have upset the laws for balance and harmony of our world, and only the recuperative acts of the creation spirits as still living entities, held the overall destructive and restorative power over land, water and skies.   

I believe that we were always just plain realists in mostly a harsh environment. We were practiced in the art of survival, and were fully occupied with responsibilities for an ethical and religious system tied to our universe. We were joined to our close neighbors and theirs across the entire continent, with each having similarly connected responsibilities for song lines, to care for the resting places of powerful ancestral beings that had created the stories and laws of our environmentally fragile domain.

This makes us a tough-minded philosophical people who have always been interested in other peoples, other ancient knowledge, to find accommodation in our sacred knowledge for caring for traditional country. There have been holy stories from other cultures, or understandings incorporated into new songs and ceremonies, because our people have respected and responded to the powerful nature of some of these stories. A small example is reverence for the donkey carrying Jesus, or the Macassans visiting the Top End of the Northern Territory in the 18th century, or in recent times, a destructive travelling cyclone.  

When I look at the history of my family, I believe that we have inherited my Cantonese great-grandfather Chui Saam Bo’s horticultural traditions and culinary skills, and perhaps also, we also inherited a mingling of Chinese ancient knowledges.  I often wonder about the conversations he may have had with my Waanyi great-grandmother and our song people about Chinese culture, and how they had incorporated him into our culture. There were a large number of Chinese Aboriginal marriages in the late 19th and early 20th century in Northern Australia.

I once wrote something about our interest in other cultures in my book Grog War, where the anthropologist Baldwin Spencer and ethnologist F.J. Gillen while visiting Central Australia in 1901, reported that while the Aboriginal people they encountered were living in extremely poor conditions, they had performed such a number of ceremonies, that Spencer and Gillen said they were quite exhausted in keeping up with their records.  

It is now understood that the Warumungu were conducting an active attempt to establish a moral and social relationship with these papulanji (white people), but Spencer and Gillen greatly underestimated the Warumungu minds behind the display, and so were unable to conduct a reciprocal deep understanding of what it meant to be on Warumungu land. ‘Without an understanding by the white invaders, the Warumungu believed the Winkarra (spirit) beings would continue to be offended by the forms of behavior that had come from somewhere else. These spirits, which were part of the traditional Law itself, would continue to release their destructive powers over the land and people living on it.’ The failure of Spencer and Gillen to mount an equivalent display of knowledge and Law, to return the honor bestowed by the Warumungu, was to admit ‘to being “rubbish people,” without any legitimate right to influence human decision making.’ At that time, these two men with all of their scholarship and interest in traditional Aboriginal culture only referred to their specimens as “niggers.”

The Aboriginal ancient form of gaining and retaining knowledge belongs in the realm of having an intense spiritual imagination, and of visualizing, translating and making sense of the unknown. It is a deep understanding that the powerful nature of the land is greater than oneself, but which fills us with the knowledge of who we are, and as being one and the same as country. I recently listened to Djalu Gurruwiwi, a senior member of the Galpu clan, from the Yolngu people of North East Arnhem Land, and universally recognised authority on the musical and spiritual traditions of the yidaki (didgeridoo). He spoke of the powerful essence of the land that informs our ancient knowledge of stories and laws.  

It is from such important song men and women that I know we are a culture that creates extraordinary visionaries – the people who see. One of the most special visionaries in the field of our traditional and contemporary economics was the late Tracker Tilmouth, an Arrente man whose book I wrote will be available by Giramondo Publishing later this year.  

Djalu Gurruwiwi said that when he blows the stories of the yidaki it is, like the thunder… same thing… sees into your memories… calms people down. He said that the yidaki could heal you because it is a very sacred instrument that represents sacred ground, and knows how to sing the land, sea, and sky. This continuing ancient informed story world of our sovereignty lives firmly in our own minds in the face of all that continues to happen to us. It is this unbreakable traditional knowledge that has helped us to success through time, and is fixed and transcends any other law in the multi-stranded helix nature of our storytelling.

Through many years of researching stories from all over the world and through my own communities, which I have always felt I had to do to understand how to be useful in my work – including being a writer – I have grown more curious about what would impact on my ability to tell stories that might be embraced anywhere in the world.

Aboriginal people have not been in charge of the stories other people tell about us in the national narrative. The question then was, how should I be an Aboriginal writer when the stories that were being told nationally about us would shape and impact on what I can do as a writer? I wanted to explore what happened in our imagination and our creative efforts when we write under the cloud of those who fear us, and who instill their fear in us. Why do I write at all? And why do I write what I write? These are questions I wanted to explore while trying to create stories more authentically; and on the other hand I wondered, am I just telling stories I have been conditioned to tell by the stories other people tell about us? How would I free my mind to write differently?

I felt that with no dedicated platform for developing stories about Aboriginal rights, including cultural and economic sovereignty and security, as time goes by there will be even fewer options for Aboriginal people to tell their stories without compromising or further eroding fundamental principles of culture and belief. Aboriginal storytellers may feel the need to make more deliberate choices in the way we tell stories, as many have done through the force of criticism during the government policy era of the Intervention into the lives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory that begun in 2007. We might ask, how will my story be heard? What is the new benchmark of articulation here? We risk our cultural existence, authenticity and voice if we accept a pattern of compromise by trying to construct a story or belief that matches the mainstream national story for Aboriginal people.

A number of us might just allow other people to continue being the storytellers about us, because we have lost confidence in our ability to articulate our own stories. Some of us may have taken the decision to live in a more specialized form of interior separatism, where we only recognize and remain familiar with the value of continuing cultural laws, ideas and beliefs, where our lives seem to make sense, have security and surety, while the surface appears both patronized and controlled. We will continue, despite government policies, practicing a rich Aboriginal culture in virtual isolation, and in relative peace, even though the struggle to maintain culture without resources, or being dependent on outside resources, will always be there, and one of the biggest issues of our survival. The repetitive national narrative and platform has become more firmly established in the mind of Australians, and works to deepen Aboriginal self-consciousness and self-censorship. Australians have been historically trained to think this way, and expect Aboriginal people to reset their behavior to approximate the official story. I believe how we choose our own reference points, and how we develop our own practices of story making, storytelling and practice, will become the most important stories of our times for us.

I try to create worlds in my work that begin locally and expand globally in journeys of deep thinking to create for instance my novel The Swan Book, described as dystopian, but in fact, is a deeply felt critique of ideas of hope, just as my novel Carpentaria, was written to demonstrate the liberating and transgressing power of Aboriginal law over other laws.

Hope may be an objective of storytelling, but we all need bigger and better ideas that will not allow our imagination to dwindle, but to shine brightly with hope for stories.