April/May 2009 Newsletter from didjshop.com

Editorial

First please let me ask all of you for a big favour: please add didjshop.com to the white list of your email spam program, especially if you use Gmail or yahoo.
We have increasing problems with our emails being returned or deleted as spam. This is because Didjshop.com is a major website and some spammers use faked didjshop.com email addresses to send spam from, which in turn results in some of the major free email providers like Gmail and yahoo treating our legitimate emails as spam.
So if you wish to continue getting emails from us, please tell your email program to allow emails from didjshop.com, thanks.
And please do not assume that you will be fine just because you got this newsletter - our newsletter is sent from a different server in the UK.

It seems that the Didjshop newsletter is becoming bi-monthly. I know that there are many of you who are eagerly awaiting the next issue and I do feel guilty for not getting a version out every month, but this is simply what is happening, mostly because I am getting involved in more and more local issues, which are also very important to me.
I do feel a growing urge to help our local area to become more resilient and cooperative in the view of looming economic, social and environmental challenges, so I have become involved in a community group working towards that aim.
I apologise that this, and all the other community engagements I have, reduces the time I have to write newsletters. Nevertheless I hope that the quality of each newsletter is actually better as each one has more information and stories in it.

Most of you would have heard about the medical study which discovered the benefits of didgeridoo playing on sleep apnea. Wayne, one of our customers, recently made us aware of another study with further supporting evidence. Researchers from the university of Sao Paulo's medical school, led by Geraldo Lorenzi-Filho were intrigued by the earlier study on didgeridoo playing. They gave many different exercises, including chewing, sucking, swallowing, speaking and breathing, all typically used in speech therapy, to 16 sleep apnea sufferers. The exercises were performed by this group for 30 minute daily over three month, while a control group were asked to perform 'deep breathing' therapy.
At the end of three month in the exercise group episodes of shallow breathing per hour of sleep were significantly reduced, the sleep quality score increased and snoring intensity was reduced significantly. No such changes were observed in the control group.
When asked which of the exercises she thought were the most effective ones, Dr. Catriona M. Steele from the University of Toronto said that balloon inflation (like didgeridoo playing) may change the tone or strength of the underlying musculature, as could the "tongue press-to-palate task.
So while you can treat sleep apnea with simple exercises, didj playing does the trick most effectively and it is more fun and more relaxing :-).

While we are talking about didj playing in below first newsletter topic you will find a discussion on 'traditional playing styles' which we hope you will find useful.
Our second topic this month is about the ever growing Worldwide Didgeridoo Circles. The last one was a huge success and we really would like to ask all of you to participate in the next one. Just imagine how cool it is that all together we can actually surround this wonderful planet with a blanket of didgeridoo sound! Please add the voice of your didj to the growing chorus, thanks!
In the meantime check out in the below topic how many people and where they participated in the last one.

We have added 40 new didjes to our online shop, and in the third newsletter topic you will find more info about them. Let me just say that there are some really extreme and unusual didjes. Recently one of our customers was concerned about his planned purchase from our website after reading this statement on a UK website selling didjes: "The dot art painting commonly found on didgeridoos and sold throughout the world is not actually a traditional art form on indigenously crafted instruments, rather it is a dot.con!"
While it is a snappy sounding statement, it is clearly designed to help them sell their own non-dot art, is untrue, probably deliberately deceptive and an insult to the many Aboriginal tribes who decorate their didgeridoos and other traditional instruments with dot art.
How wrong this statement is, is amply demonstrated by their own website. In their 'Vintage Yidaki' section we found a 'Vintage Cape York Peninsular Didgeridoo' offered for sale complete with a 'Certificate of Authenticity'. As most North Queensland didjes this 'Vintage Didgeridoo', is clearly decorated with dot art!
Furthermore and rather strangely in their 'Yidaki' Didgeridoo section there is what they claim to be a "Ceremonial Yidaki" from NEAL (north eastern Arnhem land) for sale (with what looks like rather shiny commercial varnish), which is decorated with both cross-hatching and dot art.
Now you can have it one way or the other, but to sell dot art as 'authentic' and then claim on your homepage that it is a 'dot.con' is clearly hypocritical. There are sadly several of these sort of websites which in their fervour to promote their own products they get the facts wrong, make assumptions and give misinformation, which often are insulting to some other Aboriginal tribes (as in this case).
We do not wish to name this website, as we use this only as an example so you can get an idea how careful you need to be with information you see on the internet about didgeridoos.
Please always question the ulterior motives for any website to make such sweeping statements.
While several didj websites continue to try to propagate the myth that the didgeridoo was traditionally used only in the Northern Territory (some even restrict it to north eastern Arnhem land), some Aboriginal tribes in the north of Western Australia and in Far North Queensland consider the didgeridoo to be an integral part of their traditional culture too. Other tribes in those areas do not, just as there are vast areas in the Northern Territory where didgeridoos were not traditionally used. While I do not know enough about Western Australian art, I can assure you that North Queensland artists use mainly dot art.
So while there is certainly and sadly a lot of fake art on didjes, to say that all dot art on Aboriginal instruments is a 'dot.con' is simply wrong.
Can you imagine how reading such a statement on an English website would feel to an Aboriginal person who is painting his traditional instrument with dot art (be it a didgeridoo, some clapsticks, a bullroarer or some boomerangs)???
As for Didjshop.com, we guarantee that we buy all of our didgeridoos only from Aboriginal people and that we ensure that all of our didgeridoos are cut, made and painted by Aboriginal people. Needless to say that all of our didgeridoos are termite hollowed.

The forth topic in this newsletter are customer and visitor comments and this month there are three brand new sections on traditional playing, genuine didjes and importing aboriginal art, as well as some great customer testimonials and website feedback.

Next you can find out who won our April and May shopping vouchers and the Aboriginal news section this month is very extensive - we hope you will find it useful and informative.

As usual there are some images in this newsletter. besides some of the new didjes you can see how magnificently some of our eucalyptus trees flower - in the comments section there is a picture of a Bloodwood tree that is in full flower. It is virtually buzzing with bees so loud that you can hear it for a fair distance.
And in the Aboriginal news section you can see a couple of visitors which dropped in while I was working on this newsletter. It is wonderful to live in paradise :-)!
Next month is the Laura Aboriginal festival and I am very much looking forward to being there and having three days off!

Since there will not be another newsletter before the 21st June, last not least a small reminder: Please do participate in the next Worldwide Didgeridoo Meditation by playing your didj at your local sunset time, and please do add yourself to the map, thanks.

Enjoy the rest of the newsletter....

Svargo

Traditional Didj Playing Styles

In our March Newsletter I quoted some Aboriginal elders as saying: "don't try and copy us, find your own way of playing the didj. We have our style, you need to find your own." I went on to write: 'So out of respect I have never attempted to learn so-called traditional styles, most of which are probably not really traditional anyway. I think we need to accept and most importantly respect that the truly traditional styles of playing the didj are very sacred and secret. While it is understandable that people are fascinated with traditional playing techniques, especially if those are part of sacred ceremonies, we feel it is important that we all resists the temptation of wanting to learn secret knowledge, totally respect that there is a secret aspect to the didgeridoo, and do not to try and find out and learn the sacred traditional styles.'
Soon after I received the following email from Richard Hague from USA (thanks Richard for your permission to reproduce your question here):

"Hi Svargo,
Just read the newsletter and I have some (more!) questions regarding traditional playing techniques. I am still a little confused as to the Aboriginal stance on non-Aboriginal people playing in a style that can be interpreted as being "traditional".
The thing is, I bought a cd (about 10 months ago) called hard-tongue didgeridoo which details the basic sounds that make up traditional rhythms (ie dith, dhu and dhrill). Even though it was created and endorsed by an Aboriginal player is it still deemed as wrong to use these techniques as a basis for playing?  I have also heard a cd by djalu that sounds like it teaches actual traditional rhythms.
It just seems that some people say it is ok to learn traditional style techniques, while other people are against it which makes trying to respect the culture that much harder.
Before emailing you the first time about my question for the 2009 questionnaire, I learned a lot by just watching YouTube videos of player like Larry Winiwini. Does this mean that I shouldn't try and learn something from these players (i.e how to add syncopation to my rhythms) or that I should not copy exactly how them play?
What is so hard is that watching players such as Winiwini you know you are watching the best, and doesn't everyone want to learn from the best? 
As you can probably tell, my playing style is inspired by Winiwini, and I must admit that I have tried to dissect certain sections of his rhythms just so I could understand how it was done.  To me this is no different to somebody listening to Hendrix and trying to emulate a certain riff so that they might get better at guitar (that said, I fully understand that a guitar is not a sacred instrument (though some rock/metal heads might object!) and was only using it to try and explain my thoughts).
Basically, I was wondering if learning from an Aboriginal player, even though he isn't playing any actual traditional rhythms, wrong?
(I know that copying a player be it Aboriginal or contemporary is always wrong)"

These are good and valid questions, Richard, and I am sure you are not the only one thinking about them, so thanks for asking and giving us permission to answer them publicly.
here is our answer to Richard and we hope all of you find this topic interesting:

"Hi Richard,
This is a bit of a touchy subject since there are clearly very different opinions around and some people display almost religious fervour on the subject.
I think we can fairly safely assume that didjes traditionally were and probably still are used in secret ceremony and that the kind of didjes and how they are played in those circumstances is top secret. Out of respect for the secrets of this ancient culture Didjshop.com does not promote "traditional" playing styles.
However like any other secret, this one attracts people who want to be "in the know" and who want to find out and would love to be able to be initiated and play that way.
Some people have been successful in getting Aboriginal people to show them traditional styles (whether by payment or by spending a long time with Aboriginal people).
Others have been conned into believing that what they were taught are traditional playing styles when in fact they are not.
The whole issue becomes even more complicated because the very nature of secrecy does not allow anyone in the know to identify whether a particular playing style really is traditional or not.
Last not least in many Aboriginal communities kids and teenagers are encouraged to play didj whichever way they fancy and sometimes these random playing styles are then taught to foreigners or learned by them as traditional styles.
To your questions:
1) "is it still deemed as wrong to use .... techniques [available on CD] as a basis for playing?"
There probably are some Aboriginal people and elders who would deem it to be wrong, while others would have no problem with it or would even encourage it (especially if they can profit from it).
Having said this, most teachings by Aboriginal didj players do not contain any secret didj playing styles and in any case the responsibility lies with the Aboriginal person if they did divulge such techniques.
So our view is if you can get it on a CD or watch it on YouTube, you may learn from it.
2) "Does this mean that I shouldn't try and learn something from these players (i.e how to add syncopation to my rhythms) or that I should not copy exactly how they play?"
In general we encourage people to listen and learn from all other didj players, but with the intention to help them find their own style and not to copy others (whether they be traditional or contemporary players). However we do ask people to be very aware of the additional issues involved when learning from traditional players.
3) "Basically, I was wondering if learning from an aboriginal player, even though he isn't playing any actual traditional rhythms, wrong?"
In our view, if the Aboriginal player isn't playing traditional rhythms, there is no more or less problems then when someone copies Jimi Hendrix...
We first and foremost encourage people to find their own playing styles.. In our books this will benefit and enrich all didj players much more then everyone trying to learn so-called traditional styles.
It is also less controversial and avoids potential conflict and disrespect.
Please be aware that there is very different views on this issue and our position is just one of many and while we do appreciate that you listen to us, in the end you will have to do what feels right to you."

As one can see this whole issue of 'traditional' playing styles is quite complicated, has a large potential for conflict with Aboriginal elders, can easily become disrespectful and very few people really know the boundaries of what is permissible and what is unacceptable. Consequently Didjshop.com does not promote 'traditional' playing styles but encourages everyone to find their own didgeridoo playing style, something that in our view will only enrich the whole didgeridoo community.

Growing Global Didj Circles

It is incredibly exiting to see how big our regular Worldwide Didgeridoo Circles are getting!
On the 20th March 2009 over one thousand people in over four hundred locations all around the world joined their didjes in song to send a massive wave of didj sound around this beautiful planet of ours in honour of Aboriginal people who have lived in harmony and respect of the land for tens of thousands of years. Together we spoke through our didjes of the importance for every human on this planet to learn the kind of respect for nature which Australian (and other) Aboriginal people have held for many generations.
It was wonderful to see how many people followed the call and supported the cause.
THANK YOU to everyone who helped to make that didj wave loud and clear!

The complete list of all participants is getting too long for inclusion in the newsletter, but here is a list of the over fifty countries where didgeridoos were played during this event:
New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Russia, Iran, Kenya, Ukraine, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Macedonia (FYR), Austria, Belgium, Croatia/Hrvatska, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bermuda, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada, USA

And here a list of the thirty eight states in the USA which were represented in the event:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Vermont

Together we covered 23 time zones, that is really cool!!!
Now if your country or state are not on the list and you did participate in the last worldwide didgeridoo meditation, please do add yourself to the map, thanks.

And please do consider participating in the next Worldwide Didgeridoo Circle, especially if you live in a country that is not yet on the list, and please register yourself so you too will be on the map, thanks. If we all tell some friends and if some of you spread the word through facebook and twitter, we might get up to a thousand locations or more! So please help spread the word, thanks

The next Worldwide Didgeridoo meditation will be on the 21st June 2009, and it will be our seventh anniversary.
So we like to ask everyone who has been participating to invite a friend to join in. And we like to ask everyone who has not yet participated to join this huge global didj circle at their local sunset time on the 21st June. From the feedback we et from participants, we can guarantee that you will enjoy the experience.
Together we can make the earth sing!

We also like to invite everyone to send us some pictures of their local event and/or write a bit about their experience during the meditation. It would be nice to have some pictures and comments about the event for others to see. Please do keep any image files to less then 200Kb when you send them, thanks.

New Didjes

Yes we have added new didjes again to our virtual shop.
Some of you have noticed and some are already ordered, so do not wait too long before you check them out.

Didgeridoo connoisseurs will be thrilled to know that we have added the last big batch of Didjshop Collection didjes. We still want to cull our personal collection a little bit further but this is the last time that we upload a dozen or more of these rare pieces.
It is also getting more and more difficult to let go of them and in this upload there are some really nice didgeridoos. Check out this perfectly shaped didj in the key of A, it is 245 cm long and the internal bore is just ever so gradually increasing, resulting in what is probably the best ever backpressure for such a long didj.

Do you like the really low musical keys? Would a low E be low enough? Then as072 is the one you want to check out. Being a seven foot long fork didj you can also play it in low G# or in the key of A. This is certainly not a beginners didj and the change from the low E to one of the other keys can be challenging at first as can be the low E itself, but once you got the low E droning, you will love it.

For those of you who love unusually looking didgeridoos, there are some real beauties in this upload. One looks like a pipe with the opening on the side like an alphorn; another has part of the tree trunk forming a massive bell; yet another didj has a wide ring of big knots around the bell and then there are several others with massive bells and also some more 'stump didjes', Stump didjes are didjes which are cut so a little bit of the main tree stem is left near the bottom of the bell (see picture in comments section just below)

As usual not all of the new didjes are expensive pieces, so there are several new didjes for the lower budget, whether it is just for the occasional play or a cheap learner, a concert learner, a healing didj or a light travellers didj.

As a valued newsletter reader you can click this link to check out all recently uploaded didjes. Please remember that regular visitors to our website cannot do this, so you need to use this link from the newsletter.

Enjoy browsing through our new stock!

New Comment Sections and Feedback

We have added three new sections to our Visitor Comments online.  Since this is an ongoing question, we do not wish to evaluate any answers to the new questions, we will not highlight any replies at all, but simply let you browse through the wide variety of comments on these issues.

A lot of didjes are sold using terms like "genuine didgeridoo", "authentic didgeridoo", "traditional didgeridoo" or "Aboriginal didgeridoo".
So we asked our visitors what they think these terms mean. Check out their replies in: What is a 'genuine' didgeridoo?

We also asked: "What shape or features do you think a didgeridoo should have so it can be used for 'traditional style' playing?"
This was a question inspired by email discussions with various readers and you can find visitor relies here: Traditional Playing Features

The third question we ask is:
"Australia is importing large quantities of cheap copied Aboriginal arts and crafts from countries like Indonesia, India and China to sell to tourists (often as genuine Aboriginal art). Do you agree or disagree with this practice?" and "Please provide your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with imports of Aboriginal arts and crafts into Australia:" Check out responses in: Importing Aboriginal arts

What we will share with you here are just five recent comments from customers (out of by now over 750) on the service and workmanship aspect of their Didjshop.com orders:

• Anonymous from USA: "The quality of your website made me more willing to take a chance on a web purchase.  I am so happy I did.  Beautiful workmanship and fast delivery."
• Anonymous from Australia: "Very prompt despatch, e-mails to keep informed very good.  Workmanship the best we have seen."
• Anonymous: "I was very happy with the service. The whole process was very smooth and I felt a close contact at all times.
  The descriptions are very good and you get exactly what you thought.
  The workmanship seems to be very good too. I'm not an expert (yet!) but I have three Didjes and this one is the best in terms of price/quality."
• Engin Esen from Turkey: "Any word can not explain how perfect it is."
• Colm from Ireland: "Excellent Service. Received the Didj in Ireland in less than a week from ordering it. The workmanship is excellent both visually and to play. You can feel, see and hear the quality."
• Christian Robert from France: "You make the world the way I'd like it to be everywhere on this beautiful earth."

You can read many more customer comments here:

And here just five of the hundreds of amazing comments we get every month about our website Didjshop.com:

• Anonymous from Spain: "It's very well put together. Everything is easy to find and the prices of things are all reasonable - nice to see that neither the consumer nor an indigenous culture is being exploited like with lots of things you can find in the US about the indigenous folk there. Also  like the colour scheme and the logo is cool"
• Eric from USA: "I think you guys are the best  I like that I can actually hear most didjes before I consider buying one. The didj I bought from you is my favorite one and I absolutely love it."
• Anonymous from Germany: "Your website is excellent. The most competent  far-ranging and authentic site and the most serious and trusty shop."
• Daniel from United Kingdom: "It's the best! Your sincerity  dedication  vision and professionalism make you a pleasure to visit and buy from."
• Curtis from USA: "It's visually stunning  extremely informative  and what I expect from a company dealing with high quality didgeridoos. The customer service is superb  and the employees are extremely helpful."

Please feel free to read more comments on our website here.

Last not least five reasons why people agree or disagree with imports of Aboriginal arts and crafts into Australia:

• Jose Luis from Spain: "It doesn't make any sense that the Government that should be protecting Aboriginal culture is helping to destroy an already endangered traditional culture just for money"
• Rex Womack from USA: "Greed is the only reason to import fake Aboriginal arts and crafts.  By using the resources of a county's people and products  you raise the value of that country.  You also raise the dignity of the Aboriginal people which in turn empowers them to be productive citizens."
• Todd Melville from Australia: "Just one stroll through the Vic Markets in Melbourne will unveil a whole host of shitty imported didgeridoos.  The sellers (mostly Indians) will blatantly lie about where they're made and who makes them  and even about the type of wood!"
• Peter from United Kingdom: "Aboriginal art should be ABORIGINAL ART!!"
• Ramon from Australia: "The aboriginal culture is rich and diverse and is an integral part of our heritage. Why pollute our heritage with cheap  tacky product imports when we can celebrate the skill and talent of our forebears by sharing only authentic artifacts  arts and crafts!"

April and May Winners

April Winner

The winner of our April prize, a $50 shopping voucher at Didjshop.com, is Arpad Toth from Madison in Hungary.
Arpad earned his winning entry when he filled out our 2009 questionnaire.
Here is his comment on Didjshop.com:
"I have been visiting sites of the kind for 15 years..but didjshop.com is just going with it forward like unbreakable.. I honestly think its the best site on this planet.."

Arpad is also a customer and said this about his Didjshop didj:
"The best one ..as I said compared to the one that was 2000 plus shipping;) af170 was really the best buy ..Good value and most enjoyable!! no dislike..it is a B and actually I think is my favourite ..I ordered many didj since from different shops in Australia..one of them was 2000 dollars (burrngupurngu:) but not playing it much..This big didj of yours (af 170) can always give me what I enjoy in a didj and can take me to those dimensions I love to be in every time!!"

We also really like what Arpad said about his experience of playing didj for 50-60 minutes without any breaks:
"Ok :)..It takes about 5-10 minutes to be warmed up with didj then it gets better and better with every minute the longer I play the better..it takes me away and back and away through timelessness and spacelessness.:)..there is no cold and no hot just the sound and pleasure of the ability to play..plenty of movement and dance for the soul..it is treasure of the existence and the pleasure of every breath.."
And we love his comment on using the didj for meditation: "Many times it happened when I was not in a good mood or I was angry or something and would feel I could use some drink or drug..I just play and then it is the best that comes in life..I smoothes away all worries.."
Thank you very much Arpad for all your wonderful comments and for telling over fifty of your friends about Didjshop.com.
We are looking forward to hear from you when you redeem this shopping voucher.

May Winner

The winner of our A$50 shopping voucher for May 2009 is Stuart Turner from Tucson, Arizona, USA.
Stuart has this feedback on our website: "This is my main source for didge news and info Thanx"
Stuart gave the following reasons for disagreeing with imports of Aboriginal arts and crafts into Australia: "Arts and crafts should be clearly labeled as to origin. Discerning buyers will make enlightened choices."
Thank you, Stuart and congratulations on your win.

If you would like to win one of our three prize didjes for 2009, simply go and fill out our questionnaire for 2009 to receive two entries in all the draws for the monthly and the main three prizes!!!.

Aboriginal News

We hope you will appreciate that this month Aboriginal news section is longer then usual due to this newsletter covering two month:

• Regular readers of our Aboriginal news section would be well aware of the main reason the government used for the federal intervention into Aboriginal communities, namely the protection of children from sexual abuse. You can read our initial report here.
  Well we are now nearly two years down the track and one would hope that after spending billions of dollars on this military style take-over of Australian Aboriginal communities child abuse has been eliminated or at least reduced.
  Sadly recent reports point to the opposite.
  1) In Brewarrina in north western New South Wales a 12-year-old Aboriginal girl was allegedly raped in the towns park in broad daylight. A specialist investigation team took ten days to reach the girl and perform medical tests. We wonder whether this unacceptable delay would have happened if the girl was not Aboriginal. Why do we spend billions of taxpayers funds and then have such clearly inadequate responses to instances of child sexual abuse. While we could not confirm this information, we have heard that the perpetrator was a non-Aboriginal male in his 50's.
  2) Statistics for sexually transmitted diseases in the Northern Territory show that their incidence in children under 10 has doubled in 2008, hardly a sign of improvements in child sexual abuse...
  3) Northern territory police issued a formal apology to the state coroner for repeated delays in providing investigation findings related to the suicide of a 15-year old girl in Mutitjulu (next to Uluru). The girl was found to have three sexually transmitted diseases, most likely acquired when she was trading sex for sniffable petrol.
  In our opinion apologies (especially if they fail to apologise to the families involved) are not good enough. Police inaction, which seems to happen mainly when white perpetrators are involved in Aboriginal child sexual abuse, is clearly unacceptable. There is no reason to continue the employment of police officers who do not do their jobs, namely to protect Aboriginal minors from sexual predation.
• Meanwhile the Northern Territory state government made a bad situation worse when it introduced the "Care and Protection of Children Act" which makes it illegal for anyone under the age of 16 to have sex, punishable by 16 years in jail. And yes that is anyone, so even two 15 year-olds having sex would commit an offence.
  The really hideous part of the new act is that it is also illegal to not report someone under the age of 16 who is sexually active.
  This means that Pharmacists selling a condom to teenagers under 16, or a doctor treating them for an STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease), even a parent or friend has to report any incidence of sexual activity involving teenagers under 16 to the police or face a $20,000 fine.
  As the NT Australian Medical Association president Dr Paul Bauert points out this will lead to more teen pregnancies and more STDs.
  When will governments finally learn that big brother approaches will only push what is perfectly natural behaviour underground. What is needed instead is funding for facilities which inform and provide a safe environment for teenagers to learn about the dangers of sexual behaviour. As soon as you replace centralised control with co-operation and empowerment, we will see improvements.
• The good news is that the number of Aboriginal doctors has more then doubled from 41 to 82 from 1996 to 2006. In the same time the number of Aboriginal nurses has increased from 650 to 1135. While these are still woefully inadequate numbers, at least the increase is much larger then the increase in the Aboriginal population over the same time frame. We would love to see a commitment by the government to double these figures every five years until the majority of doctors and nurses working with Aboriginal people are actually Aboriginal people themselves. This is providing many advantages, namely that the health practitioners have a basic understanding of Aboriginal culture and issues and that the patents will have much more trust in the health staff.
• 'Closing the gap' keeps the door closed -
  The federal government has announced another two billion dollars of funding to 'close the gap', yet one really has to ask where all that money actually ends up. It seems that most of it goes to bureaucrats, non-Aboriginal people and companies and very little ends up paying for actual and useful facilities on the ground.
  For example the woman's shelter in Alice Springs had to refuse entry to every second woman seeking refuge from domestic violence this year (over ninety-five percent of their clients are Aboriginal). How much can it cost to buy another house to provide shelter to every woman who needs it?
• We warmly welcome the recent federal governments decision to support the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights, which the previous Howard government refused to adopt.
  However it is embarrassing for Australia that on the same day the United Nations Human Rights Committee declared the Australian Federal Government to be non-compliant with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN committee says many of the intervention policies discriminate against Aboriginal people and asked for them to be changed.
  Robin Seth Purdie from Amnesty International claims that these discriminatory policies include welfare quarantining and the removal of the permit system.
  Let us hope that the government will support the UN Declaration on Human Rights not just in spirit, but that it will actually reintroduce the Racial Discrimination Act and make changes to the intervention.
  In latest news the government has indicated that it wants to re-introduce the racial discrimination act, but it also wants to continue welfare quarantining. So we are concerned that the government will pass special legislation to legalise a practice that is clearly racially discriminatory.
• The Aboriginal community at Wallage Lake on the NSW coast south of Sydney has a problem with asbestos. In the late 80's the local Yuin people were employed by the then 'work for the dole' program to demolish 15 homes. Other buildings were demolished in the late 90's. The problem is that the building contained significant amounts of asbestos. The indigenous demolition workers were not informed of this nor given any protective clothing. They were given basic tools and told to smash the wall sheets and roofing. Crumbled sheets of asbestos are still laying around the whole area, spread throughout the community, even right under the Aboriginal Lands Council office and in the school yard.
  Both state and federal governments claim that this is the problem of the Aboriginal lands council and not theirs. We fail to find words for this totally irresponsible attitude.
  First and foremost it should be the responsibility of James Hardie, the company who made and profited from the sale of those building products. Next responsibility lies with the government (probably state government) that commissioned the construction of the original buildings. Thirdly responsibility lies with the federal government who employed Aboriginal people to demolish the houses and failed to ensure safe disposal.
  For both the state and federal governments now to try to pass the buck to the Aboriginal Lands Council adds insult to injury.
  Whether a massive fish kill in nearby Leighton Swamp involving thousands of Mullet and Bream had anything to do with the asbestos contamination will remain a mystery as fisheries officers called to the site claim the fish were too old and cannot be analysed to determine the reason for their death.
• Famous Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil together with Darwin crocodile hunter Mick Pitman are pushing the federal government to allow safari-style crocodile hunting in the Northern territory.
  The NT government supports the plan to kill up to 25 crocodiles a year, which are at least 3.5 meters long. The NT government also wants to triple the zone around Darwin where rangers can catch and remove crocodiles to deal with the increasing numbers of problem crocodiles in the greater Darwin area.
  Estuarine crocodiles in Australia were culled extensively starting around 1940. About thirty years later crocodile numbers were reduced by as much as 95% and fears of the Australian estuarine crocodile becoming extinct led to crocodiles being declared a protected species in 1970, which made it illegal to kill or injure a crocodile.
  Crocodile numbers are generally considered to have completely recovered by now, so there are calls from some people to start culling crocodiles again.
  Earlier this year several sightings of a crocodile were reported during heavy flooding in the Sunshine coast near Kin Kin, which is much further south then their normal range. This might be due to growing numbers, or it might be due to climate change effects.
  In any case there is clear evidence that crocodiles numbers have fully recovered. In our Cairns area we hear more and more stories of crocodiles being found in local drains and rivers, on beaches and even out in the open ocean or on islands. Areas previously safe for swimming are now potentially dangerous.
  While the indiscriminate killing of every crocodile was a sad chapter in Australian history, to allow crocodiles to breed like rabbits and not control numbers at all is just the other extreme in our view.
  We support a crocodile management regime that ensures sustainable crocodile numbers while protecting people in populated areas from crocodiles. And if Aboriginal communities can benefit from conducting safari-style croc hunting, we support this activity. We do not know whether the NT proposal uses guns or spears. Any takers to go and spear a big croc the traditional way?
• In breaking news Aboriginal director Warwick Thornton has won the coveted Camera d'Or prize at Cannes for his debut movie 'Samson And Delilah'. The movie is a love story between a petrol sniffing boy and a girl which has to take care of her grandmother. The story is woven into modern day Aboriginal society, presenting its violence, poverty and drug problems with candidness and tenderness.
  Congratulations, Warwick and we are thrilled to see an Aboriginal actor putting Australian movies at the forefront of international cinema events. This is wonderful news and hopefully an inspiration for other Aboriginal film makers.

Keep on didjing until next month and please play your didj with us on the 21 June at your local sunset! Thanks

from Svargo and the DIDJSHOP.COM team