Ten Canoes as Cultural Pedagogy

C. Grace – June 2020

In the same way ‘mainstream’ non-Indigenous media is instrumental in the promotion and
continuation of the hegemonic cultural discourses of western cultures (O'Shaughnessy 2008),
Indigenous texts—and specifically films—are not simply passive reflections of Indigenous
cultures. Indigenous films actively participate in shaping modern Indigenous societies,
ensuring cultural knowledge is passed on through the generations; while also allowing
cultural knowledge to adapt and remain relevant in a modern world (Stasiuk and Kinnane
2010). In this way, Indigenous films and filmmaking can be considered what Jenkins (2016)
would describe as a ‘technological convergent’ evolution of the First Nations’ traditions of
storytelling—and as such, seen as a form of cultural pedagogy.
In this essay, I will discuss the background and contextual elements which frame the
production and reception of Ten Canoes (de Heer’s and Djigirr, dirs. 2009); then discuss how
Ten Canoes uses different cinematic techniques to positions the audience as an active
participant in the continuation of Yolngu culture; while also challenging the dominant
Manichaean ideologies of western storytelling. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate how Ten
Canoes is not simply a reflective portrayal of Yolngu culture, but rather an active text in
defining and redefining modern Yolngu culture.

The concept of film as a pedagogy has been well explored. In their essay on the Public
Pedagogy and Politics of Film, Giroux (2011:687) discusses how films are not only ‘sources
of shared joy, enjoyment and escape’, films also ‘offer up subject positions, mobilize desires,
influences us unconsciously and help to construct the landscape of our culture.’ Importantly,
Giroux (2011:689) also notes how ‘film produces images, ideas and ideologies that shape
both individual and national identity.’

Aboriginal cultures have been using these same principals to convey and construct culture for
thousands of years, through the medium of storytelling (Heiss 2003). Stasiuk and Kinnane
(2010:87) describe storytelling in Aboriginal societies:

The true role of the storyteller is to teach; teaching the cultural values,
passing on knowledge and belief systems within the stories and expressing

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 the importance of these stories being passed on from one generation to the
next in their purest and sacred form (87).

Stasiuk and Kinnane (2010:88) continue to describe the evolution of this tradition into film,
using the analogy, ‘…we replicate the campfire and the “message stick” with the screen and
DVD’.

Indigenous representation in film though has historically been dictated by non-Indigenous

people—with estimate of upwards of 6000 films made about Aboriginal people—and has
been marred by ‘a dense history of racist, distorted and often offensive representation’
(Langton 1994:94). Aboriginal characters and stories were often non-existent, or portrayed as
subordinate to non-Indigenous characters. It is timely to note that one of the
recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was to give
control to Indigenous Australians over how they are represented both on and behind the
screen in media-production employment. In 1993, the Australian Film Commission (AFC)
established an Indigenous Branch (IB) to ‘increase the rate of engagement of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people in all areas of the screen industry’ (Keats 2018:11). The AFC
and the Film Finance Corporation amalgamated in 2008 into Screen Australia, with the IB
remaining a fixture.

To define Aboriginal/Indigenous filmmaking, and specifically in the context of Ten Canoes

being an ‘Aboriginal’ film, I will draw upon the definition of Aboriginal literature as
outlined in Heiss (2003:26): ‘Aboriginal literature, [films], can be defined and judged by
writers in terms of what has driven the production of a work and the way a work reflects the
real-life experiences of Indigenous people.’ In this way Ten Canoes is very much an
‘Aboriginal’ film; however, it is important to recognise though, when Giroux (2011)
describes the role of film in shaping ‘national’ identity—when considering the societal
diversity of Nations which exist under the broad stroke of ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islanders’, Ten Canoes is as much, if not more, a Yolngu film, versus an ‘Aboriginal’ film.

Ten Canoes received many awards, however, the film was also criticised on several levels
(Renes 2014). This criticism included the film’s ‘western gaze’ on Indigeneity—from a
perspective of white paternalism and racial stereotyping; as well as a lack of intercultural
empathy between what was essentially and ‘authentic’ yet inexperienced cast, and a non-
authentic but experienced production crew (pp.852). Renes notes: ‘It should come as no

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surprise in the light of the colonial history of Aboriginal oppression that permission from the
Yolngu community to film on their land, with their people and in their language was not
easily granted’ (pp.854). de Heer also faced person criticism for insisting the actors remained
naked, a directive some argued had more to do with de Heer’s personal anti-Christian stance
than historical relevance. The difficulties de Heer faced in production was heightened when
David Gulpilil—whom it is suggested unofficially co-wrote the film in response to a 1930s
photograph of the Yolngu people goose-egg hunting (Hiatt 2007)—resigned from the project
for what was speculated to be a matter of tradition lore (Renes 2014). The division regarding
the film among the Yolngu community can be seen in the documentary film, The Balanda
and the Bark Canoes: The Making of Ten Canoes (Reynolds and Nehme 2006), however the
support for the Yolngu community is also important to note. Such support includes de Heer
being thanked by the actors for bringing energy and memory back, and for the role in
teaching the children about Yolngu traditions (McCreddin 2012:49).

In Renes’ (2014:858) criticism of Ten Canoes, they raise the question ‘Do different time
frames [in the film] imply a fragmentation into divergent narratives, or do they productively
come together into a new form and content?’ (Renes 2014:858) In response to this, I believe,
Ten Canoes uses narration to unite these levels of time—described by Hiatt (2007) as
Mythical time or The Dreaming, the Ancestral past, and the present—to position the audience
as an active recipient of the tradition knowledge of the Yolngu people, thus demonstrating
cultural pedagogy.

It could be said the opening line implies the film is directed at Balanda audiences:

Narrator: ‘It’s not your story, it’s my story’ (REF);

however, I believe the film is directed as much at Yolngu audiences. Even before the
narration begins, as the title credits roll, David Gulpilil is credited as being ‘the storyteller’
(0:52). When considering Stasiuk and Kinnane’s (2010) description of the role of the
storyteller in Indigenous cultures, portraying the narrator in this way grounds the viewer as a
participant—as sitting around the metaphorical ‘campfire’. The film continues this
positioning of the audience as an active participant by demonstrating how the teachings of the
Mythical past, which showed people how to ‘live the proper way’, continued into the
ancestral past, and how they can be applied to the present:

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 The Storyteller: Minygululu knows it’s true about the wrong feelings of his
young brother.

Minygululu: I am going to tell you a story, from long ago, and I want you to
listen very carefully.

The Storyteller: The men will carry the bark to the swamp, Minygululu will
tell Dayindi that story, to help him live the proper way. It is Minygululu’s
story for Dayindi back then. And it is my story for you now. It is a good story
but you gotta listen ey? Maybe you like Dayindi. Maybe the story will help
you live proper way. And here is that story.

(9:58)

The use of second-person here affirms the dialogue between the narrator and the audience;
while the visual metaphor of Minygululu teaching Dayindi how to build bark canoes—
signifying both the unravelling of a multilayered story (Caldwell 2009) and the teaching of
traditional knowledges—further reinforces the idea of the audience as the continuum of
traditional wisdom. This continuum is reaffirmed when Ridjimiraril is introduced:

The Storyteller: …and in that ancient time, their lived an ancient ancestor.
This ancient ancestor was called Ridjimiraril. Ridjimiraril was a warrior, a
proud one. He had wives and children just like we have now. And he
followed the law, which is the same law as the law now. (12:43)

Using colour in the both the present and the Mythical past, reinforces the relevance of the
traditional knowledge by connecting modern life with the Dreaming. In this way, Ten Canoes
can be seen very much as helping define and redefine Yolngu culture. It is important to note
that although de Heer is credited with writing the screenplay—bringing into question just
how ‘traditional’ this story is—de Heer said of this: ‘When I write the average script, I
impose my will and thoughts and ideas on the page. That was not my process with this. I
didn’t impose, I served’ (Rutherford 2013:144).

Ten Canoes further serves Yolngu cultural traditions by challenging the dominant
Manichaean ideologies of western storytelling. Ten Canoes has been described in terms of
‘how it creates a relationship not just between all the characters from the various parts of the
film, but [also] with the audience watching the film’ (Caldwell 2009). Ten Canoes not only
positions the audience in this way, as discussed earlier, Ten Canoes doesn’t offer the viewer a
Manichaean view or right or wrong; nor an Aristotelian catharsis—characteristic of
mainstream western cinema. Instead, Ten Canoes invites the viewer to reflect not only on the

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ontological significance of the story, but on the storytelling process itself; and by doing so,
challenges the dominant ideologies of western storytelling.
The idea there is not one single ‘right’, rather a reflective consciousness, is demonstrated in
the sequence where the men from the Mythical time are discussing what might have
happened to Ridjimiraril’s wife, Nowalingu (36:40). The montage sequences depicting each
man’s idea as to what happened to Nowalingu demonstrates the importance of storytelling in
the construction of ‘events’; while the circular panning of the camera shows the way
collective knowledge comes from the group, rather than the individual—completing almost
three full revolutions of the group before consensus was achieved. This sequence highlights a
difference from western storytelling discourses, where it is the events which construct the
story, rather than the story constructing the events. In western literature, this construct is very
much at the heart of post-modernism.
This reflective motive is also seen during the Ancestor Time, where Dayindi is not simply
told it is wrong to covert his brother’s wife—instead the process of acquiring this knowledge
is analogous to building the canoes themselves:

The Storyteller: The stories of our people are very old. Sometimes they take
long time to tell, days even. Minygululu is telling Dayindi some of the story
while they carry the bark. Proper trees for the canoes grow far away from the
swamp. (13:30)

Here the distance travelled can be seen as a metaphor for the storytelling process.
This philosophy is further highlighted when The Storyteller says:

The Storyteller: Dayindi learns by watching. That is the way we do it, with
our people. (15:00)

But Perhaps no line in the film signifies the reflective motive more than the Storyteller’s
final monologue:

The Storyteller: …and they all lived happily ever after. [Laughing]. Nah, I
don’t know what happened after that. Maybe that Dayindi find a wife, maybe
he didn’t. It was like that for my people, but now you see my story. It’s a
good story, not like your story, but a good story all the same.

Ten Canoes is a story about love, jealousy, generational conflict and sex among many others.
These concepts are represented heavily in western films; however, the way in which Ten
Canoes traverses this terrain is its biggest difference. Caroline Josephs, a researcher in the
sacred oral storytelling traditions of the Yolngu peoples describes storytelling as an ‘all-
encompassing event that creates a relationship between all things, including self, country and

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kinsman. It combines history with the Dreamtime, past and present… In order to explain
Yolngu storytelling to non-Indigenous people, one must tell a story’ (Josephs cited in
Caldwell 2009:109). It is in this way Ten Canoes is very much part of the tradition of story
telling for the Yolngu People, constructed in a technological convergent manner, with a
profound understanding of the cultural pedagogy of film—and I thank the Yolngu people for
allowing me to share in their culture; and for understanding post-modernism 50,000 years
before anyone else.

Words: 1730

References

Caldwell, T 2009, ‘Yolngu Storytelling in “Ten Canoes”’ Screen Education

de Heer, R and Djigirr , D (dirs.) 2007, Ten Canoes, DVD, South Australian Film
Corporation
Giroux, H 2001, ‘Breaking into the Movies: Pedagogy and the Politics of Film’, JAC, Vol.
21, No. 3, pp. 583-598, view online, 29th August, https://www-jstor-
org.ezproxy.usc.edu.au/stable/20866426?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents
Heiss, A 2003, Dhuuluu-Yala: To Talk Straight, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra
Hiatt, L.R 2007, ‘Who wrote Ten Canoes’, Quadrant, November 2007,
https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2014.941327

Jenkins, H., 2006. Convergence culture: where old and new media collide. New York: New
York University Press.
Keats, J 2018, ‘Screen Australia's Indigenous Department turns 25’, Inside Film, No. 183, 11-
13.
Langton, M 1994, ‘Aboriginal art and film: the politics of representation’ Race & Class, vol.
35, no. 4, pp. 89–106, doi: 10.1177/030639689403500410
McCredden, L 2012, ‘Ten Canoes: Engaging difference’, Studies in Australasian Cinema,
Vol. 6 No. 1, doi:10.1386/sac.6.1.45_1

O’Shaughnessy, M, Stadler, J & Casey, J 2006, Media & Society, Oxford University Press,
South Melbourne, Victoria
Renes, M 2014, ‘Reel Indigeneity: Ten Canoes and its chronotopical politics of
Ab/Originality’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Vol. 28, No. 6, 850-61,
doi:10.1080/10304312.2015.941327

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Reynolds, M, Nehme, T, 2006, Balanda and the Bark Canoes: The Making of Ten Canoes’,
DVD, Fandango Australia
Rutherford, A 2013, ‘Ten Canoes as “inter-cultural membrane”’ Studies in Australasian
Cinema, vol. 7, no. 2-3, pp. 137–151, doi: 10.1386/sac.7.2-3.137_1.
Stasiuk, G & Kinnane, S 2010, ‘Keepers of our stories’, Australian Journal of Indigenous
Education, Vol 39, no. Supple