Gordon Marshall is an Aboriginal man and a freemason.
From The Koori Mail 22 August 2012 Photo – Geoff Vivian
He has been Worshipful Master of The Derby Lodge seven times, and is now the Worshipful Master of Roebuck Lodge in Broome.
He appeared this week as a guest on The Mary G Show, where the “hostess with the mostest” congratulated him.
Anyhow, this was a good opportunity to share a Koori Mail story I wrote two years ago.
The Koori Mail
Text by GEOFF VIVIAN
Police, the WA government and Aboriginal community organisations agree that night patrols are an essential service.
Click on this image to read the story
Teams of trained Aboriginal workers drive through the streets of Perth and regional towns at night, stopping to speak to stranded countrymen who are often intoxicated or otherwise distressed.
They then offer them a lift home, or to emergency accommodation
In July 2013 the WA Aboriginal affairs minister ordered a review of the service, with a view to extending it.
Meanwhile the Commonwealth Attorney General, who part-funded the service in Broome and Perth, decided to cut funding for the patrols by 37 and 20 per cent respectively.
A serious cultural debate keeps popping up since Worora elder Donny Woolagoodja first displayed a giant Wanjina at the Sydney Olympics.
Vesna Tenodi
Several non-Aboriginal artists felt that Wanjina images, until then confined to Kimberley caves, were theirs to reproduce and re-interpret. Elders of the Worora, Ngarinjin and Wunambul tribes disagreed, and have expressed distress and disappointment at what they see as outsiders’ appropriation of their sacred imagery.
Dutch musician Randolph Smeets – aka the Phlod Nar – created a suite of musical pieces, even though he had never visited the Kimberley.
You can find my 2009 WA Today story about Randolph and his work here.
Croation-Australian gallery owner Vesna Tenodi had likewise never visited the people of Mowanjum. Nevertheless she commissioned a giant sculpture of Wanjinas carved in the side of a massive stone block, outside her gallery in Sydney’s Blue Mountains.
You can find my first KimberleyPage story about Vesna and her cultural adventure with the Wanjinas here. More stories about the unfolding drama are here.