INDIGENOUS players from Port Adelaide and Hawthorn have used the Sir Doug Nicholls Round to share more than just a heated battle on the field.
Port players Karl Amon, Sam Powell-Pepper, Jarrod Lienert and Steven Motlop exchanged gifts with Hawks Shaun Burgoyne, Chad Wingard and Jarman Impey.
In a quirk, Burgoyne, Wingard and Impey’s names each feature on the special Indigenous guernsey that Port Adelaide wore during the game, with the design by Kaurna custodian Karl “Winda” Telfer incorporating the names of all 62 past and current Indigenous players to line up for the club.
The Port Adelaide Football Club first initiated the idea of a gift exchange in 2013 with Geelong, which was the last occasion the club hosted a game in the Sir Doug Nicholls Round.
The idea has since been widely adopted across the competition each year.
In 2020, rather than presenting a single gift on behalf of the club, the Indigenous players from each team, including those not selected to play on Saturday, brought something significant from their home country to exchange with each other.
The idea is the brainchild of Port Adelaide Aboriginal Programs Director Paul Vandenbergh.
“This is the fourth straight year I think that we’re playing Hawthorn (in the Indigenous round) and we’ve obviously got some friends/enemies playing there with Chaddy, Jarsy and Shauny Burgoyne playing over there now,” Vandenbergh explained.
“Myself and Mathew Stokes at Geelong started this up in 2013 and we feel really honoured that this tradition has kept growing and now every club does it.
“This year what we’ve done is in partnership with Hawthorn, every player is bringing something significant from their home country to exchange.
“That’s something that’s been part of our culture for thousands of years and it’s not just exchanging something physical, it’s trading songs and food and all kinds of stuff so it’s been an important part of our culture anyway but from an AFL point of view the players get a big kick out of it.”
For thousands of years, Aboriginal people and communities across the continent traded with each other, establishing trade routes covering thousands of kilometres.
Like other trade routes through history, exchange involved more than raw materials and goods. It involved the telling of stories and the sharing of ideas.
For Aboriginal people, trade wasn’t just associated with physical objects but included songs, dances and art, stories, rituals and ceremonies.
These connected the people to the land, sky and animals.
Amon brought a Quandamooka Dreaming story book by Sandra Delaney.
“The book’s from where I am from up in South East Queensland and is just a traditional book from the lands where I come from,” he explained.
“The Nunukul, the Goenpul and the Ngugi people are the traditional custodians of the Quandamooka land.
“I think it’s a lot more personal than exchanging a gift you might see before the game and for the boys to get something from where they’re from in exchange, especially from boys that we’re pretty close with and have relationships with is pretty special.”
Port Adelaide has seven Indigenous players on its list with Trent Burgoyne, Tobin Cox and Joel Garner joining Motlop, Powell-Pepper, Lienert and Amon.
