Australian Aboriginal Elders are travelling to the United States on
January 26 to meet with film makers who are in the final stages of
negotiations for a movie based on the best-selling book - 'Mutant
Message'.
"We want to block the move by Hollywood executives at
United Artists to turn Marlo Morgan's lies and distortions into a major
motion picture", says Robert Eggington, an Aboriginal activist
spearheading the trip.
United Artists has agreed to meet with the Aboriginal Elders at a high
level meeting in Los Angeles. Scriptwriter Ann Hamilton Phelan, who
wrote the script for "Gorillas in the Mist" is expected to attend.
'Mutant Message' is written by American New Age author Marlo Morgan. It
chronicles an alleged four-month "walkabout" that Morgan alleges she took
in the Australian Outback in the mid-1980's with an obscure tribe of
Aborigines.
The book has outraged members of the Aboriginal community for
misrepresenting sacred religious and cultural beliefs. 'Mutant Message'
appeared on the US best seller list for 25 weeks.
Morgan continues to lecture nationally on Aboriginal culture, saying it
can teach Westerners about "their inner selves".
Eggington, however is not amused. "Marlo Morgan has taken away the
right for Aboriginal people to tell their own story as she saturates the
American market with a complete fabrication."
"As Aboriginal people, we have the right to ownership of our heritage. We
are the custodians of the oldest living culture in the most ancient land
mass on the face of the Earth."
The group of eight elders will arrive at LAX airport on January 26th.
They will hold a media conference at the Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood Blvd
on Tuesday, January 30th at 11:00am.
For further information, please contact:
In Australia: Robert Egginton, Perth's Dumbartung
Aboriginal Corporation
Tel: 011 619 4514977
In the US Patricia Friedel,
Tel: (415) 673-9102 Fax: (415) 788-1119
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mktrecon@iinet.net.au Perth Australia
http://www.iinet.net.au/~mktrecon/index.html
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TO THE 11 INDIGENOUS SPIRITUAL ELDERS OF THE WORLD
who have met together in 1992 1993 1995
at Manu Ariki Marae, Taumaranui, Aotearoa (New Zealand)
and who are pledged to look after guide and teach the next seven
generations of our youth how to survive
and TO ALL INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WHERE YOU ARE AND WHO YOU ARE
It is hoped by me as the 12th Spiritual Elder, of Australia, that each and
every one of you will receive the information that I will be in America
on 26.1.96 to 6.2.96.
It is hoped by me that each and every one of you Spiritual Elders will be
able to support in whatever way you can. It is to deal with our
Indigenous Ancient Living Culture and how this woman, Marlo Morgan of
America, a white woman, from Kansas City, is trying to destroy it through
her book 'Mutant Message Downunder' and through her lecture tours over
the United States, Europe and other parts of the World and now through
having a film made. It is through the eruption of Marlo Morgan
exploiting our Culture and our Blackfella Religion and our Sense of
Belonging that our Elders and People Australia-wide have become deeply
concerned with this issue. Marlo Morgan is becoming a rich woman
overnight and telling lies about our Beliefs and Culture. Many
Aboriginal people have read her book and have heard tapes of her speaking
at lecture tours. She is being very racist saying Aboriginal people have
made a decision to die out. Her lecturing makes fun of us the Aboriginal
People and our Beliefs. It is not a laughing matter.
All this has to be corrected by the Indigenous People of this Land.
There have been meetings over the last year throughout the Central and
Western Desert, South Australia, the Kimberleys, and the South West
coordinated by Dumbartung. All are agreed in a united voice of concern
that we must speak in America concerning Marlo Morgan's book. Not one
individual or group knew or was aware of Marlo Morgan's claimed presence
in their areas.
It is also asked by me and my community of Nyungah people living on our
Sacred Homegrounds on the Dreaming Track of the Sacred Belief of the
Waugal Rainbow Serpent in the Swan Valley Western Australia, to the 11
Spiritual Elders and to Indigenous People where you are and who you are,
can you support?
We are asking for world indigenous support by telegram, letters, faxes,
making statements, by contacting the Publishers of that book, Harper
Collins to withdraw it, and the film people who have bought the rights,
Uniter Artists to stop, and American T.V. radio, newspapers and Oprah
Winfrey who put Marlo Morgan on air.
We ask the First People, the Native Peoples of the Americas & the World to
support strongly as their Ancestors and all the Ancestral People did
supporting one another
Togetherness is Strength
Togetherness is Hope
Robert Bropho, Nyungah Elder and Spokesperson, Swan Valley Western
Australia.