Michael Christie’s article, “Databases and Aboriginal Knowledge,” brings up an important point that technology has become so important in categorizing and providing people with information from databases and internet sources; however, not all cultures are exposed or a part of this collection of information using technology phenomenon. Christie discusses a few Larrakia women’s desires to preserve the knowledge of their elders through digital technology. They have concern that the children of the Larrakia community do not want to learn anything from their elders. Perhaps technology is the only way to pass down aboriginal knowledge of tradition and identity to the Larrakia youth.
It is interesting to me that those few women from the Larrakia community seemed so willing to expose their culture to technology and potentially become more involved in the technological world. But then I asked though about it how else does one store and collect information in an extremely efficient and accessible way? It makes sense to consider making a database with information for the Larrakia youth and community, but the issue is that is could take away from the methods of literacy and discourse in preserving their identity.
This article reminded me of my experience with a nomadic tribe in Tanzania. During my trip in Africa, the school group I was with ventured off into the mountains of Tanzania at 3:00 a.m. to find a tribe. Since this tribe is nomadic it is extremely difficult to locate and track their whereabouts. We picked up a civilian from a random village along the way who was our guide to find this tribe. He grew up in a village in the mountains, and when he played in the mountains of Tanzania as a child he stumbled upon this tribe. He continued to venture into the mountains and secretly learn about this tribe and their language. Not many people know about their existence or understand their culture. My guide told us he was one of the very few who understood their ways of life because he grew up interacting with them. He explained that the tribe struggles to exist because of the issues of incest and their youth dying from birth defects. He also explained how they regard marijuana as something with that provides strength and spiritual value. They hunt for all of their food and often get sick from certain diseases found in wild African animals. The culture obviously has different values to those of western values, but the idea that their tribe is slowly dwindling and has the potential to become extinct with very little knowledge of their identity is extremely unfortunate.
Aboriginal knowledge is something that should be regarded as more important and collected in certain ways. I believe that technology can provide cultures with the resources to store information about tradition and identity. I think it is unfortunate that the Larrakia women feel that they do not have much choice but to start using digital technology to preserve their culture. However, I also find it unfortunate that cultures like the nomadic tribe in Tanzania do not have resources to preserve their culture. It is difficult to say what the right thing for indigenous cultures is to do in order to pass down their knowledge, but it is a matter of if they are willing to change their processes of discourse and literacy in order to hop on to the technology train.