Riding The Black Cockatoo

Riding The Black Cockatoo
ISBN: 9781741753776
Publication Date: 1 June 2009

The inspiring true story of one man's reconciliation journey. All through his growing-up years, John Danalis's family had an Aboriginal skull on the mantelpiece; yet only as an adult did he ask where it came from and whether it should be restored to its rightful owners.

John Danalis was doing a teacher training course at university, as an older student, and decided to take a unit called Indigenous Writing. During one seminar he revealed that he had grown up with an Aboriginal skull (nicknamed 'Mary') on the family mantelpiece, a gift from his uncle to his collector father. The horrified reaction of his fellow students caused John to ask a few questions - where did his uncle find it, who was 'Mary' (a man, as it turned out), and was there a group that might want to claim the skull. By a series of amazing coincidences - almost as if some spirit was driving events - and thanks to his own faith and determination, John made connections with people who could help him in his quest, with the result that Mary was ceremonially handed over to the rightful owners, the Wamba Wamba people of northern Victoria, and later buried in Wamba Wamba country.

As a result of the processes he went through and the people he met, John Danalis put his upbringing and assumptions under scrutiny and exposed his own stereotyped thinking and forged undreamed-of connections with Aboriginal people - an exhilarating but testing process. This book, then, is one man's reconciliation journey.

A sidelight: during a bike ride, John was followed by a red-crested black cockatoo - an almost unheard-of bird in Brisbane. He later found out that this bird was the totem for the Wamba Wamba - just one of the coincidences referred to above. He also happened to see a headdress made from black cockatoo feathers at a literary festival - and ended up using it ...