Gravitas

CONCLUSION

When I was a little girl, about 10 years old, I found a stone axe in our garden.

This axe, as it was identified at the time by Aboriginal Affairs Queensland, was probably quarried in North Queensland and, having been found in South East Queensland, hinted at the fact that it was used for trading. It therefore became evidence for a much misunderstood — if not ignored — fact about Aboriginal trading between geographically diverse areas.

I discovered that it was one of only three other such axes ever found in the area. It was a real treasure, a true discovery. But I understood its importance, so I offered to return the axe to its original owners. However, this turned out to be harder than I thought it would be.

Speaking with those at the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, they indicated that they had no place to display the axe. So it was suggested that I ‘take the axe home and treasure it’. There was no one else that I could reach out to back then.

As it turned out, the time was not ripe for my axe. Today's advice is to replace such a find where it was found, with its presence reported to the First Peoples — State Relations, where there will be a record of it for posterity.

This experience reminded me, however, of the experience of voice innovator Alfred Wolfsohn, who did incredible work around the psychology of voice, but who remained ‘forever frustrated ...