Why Warriors lie down and die

About the Author

Richard Trudgen

Richard Trudgen was born at Orange,NSW in 1950. After he left school he trained as a fitter and turner in a mechanical workshop which serviced the farming community in the area. Although born and raised in Wiradjuri country he knew little of the Aboriginal people of the area except for some general knowledge. However

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what his mother taught him left him feeling very uneasy about the relationships between the early settlers and the local Aboriginal people.

In 1973 he volunteered for twelve month's work with the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land as a fitter/mechanic. The people and their plight interested him so much that he took up community development work, spending the next 11 years at Ramingining in central Arnhem Land.

During this time he learnt the people's language and about their way of life. After seven years he realized nothing was working the way he had hoped it would. In desperation Richard sat down with a group of elders taking instructions and learning from them from that point on. As they taught him deeper levels of their laws and ways he found that, with comparative ease, he was able to share things the people wanted to know about the modern world around them. After this, things improved noticeably at Ramingining with the people taking control and running most areas of their community, even solving problems like petrol sniffing in their own way.
Due to sickness he was finally forced to return to NSW in 1983. The next 8 years he spent running his own business while reflecting on his time in Arnhem Land. In 1992, with renewed health, he responded to a request from Yolngu leaders to return to the work in Arnhem Land.

Once again under instruction from Yolngu elders he was asked to put together a team that would use different methodologies aimed at demystification or problem solving education. This educational approach is now used in all areas of health education from HIV to chronic disease, as well as the areas of commerce, economics and law. Richard was also persuaded to run cultural awareness workshops and to write papers that would explain aspects of the Yolngu people's world to the English speakers and readers. His instructions included working where invited with council and clan groups in the development of local government and economic enterprises. The elders have also asked him to work with them in trying and get their "traditional law" accepted as a system of law by the wider Australian community.

"As a non-indigenous person, he has brought a unique and insightful approach to a new way of "Two-Way" learning using concepts common to both world-views that many were unaware even existed. It has become for him a true odyssey."

Hon. Bob Collins.
former Senator for the Northern Territory,
co-author of 'Learning lessons: An independent review of
Indigenous education in the Northern Territory'.

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