Nawi Movie

[Shanel Arrendell]

Overthe last couple of weekends, I have managed to make a full sized, NSW south coast, tied-bark canoe. They are known as nawi by the Indigenous communities based around Sydney Harbour. Although probably wider than an original one would have been and some details still not accurate, my canoe has recreated the style and produced a method that forms the folds. The finished craft does look like the craft seen in images made by early explorers.

When I started researching Indigenous watercraft, building a bark canoe had been an objective which I thought might take some time to actually happen, largely because of the difficulty in obtaining a piece of bark. In the end I got past that issue in a novel way.

There was also another fine example in a water colour by Oswald Brierly done in the late 1840s, showing a canoe in Twofold Bay. In addition there were some consistent features noted in the few descriptions of canoe making that I have found so far, so I combined the common details of these resources:

DAY ONE: Over an hour on 27 August, I peeled back the layers of the loose exterior bark (now on the inside of the canoe panel) and thinned down over 1 metre of bark at the ends. The long strips were put to one side to use later on as ties.

At this point it was necessary to soak the bark for some days. This was done by hosing it down morning and night, and leaving it covered in wet towels to hold in the moisture. The rain helped too at one point, and it was in the shade from 10.00am onwards each day.

Next step was to push pegs through and help secure the ends of the nawi. So I cut some small bits of casurina and carved an end into a point, which would be the peg. I created a hole in the bark with a screw driver, and hammered the peg through the hole the blade had started to create.

So, tying them off with some synthetic rope, I placed them in the hull where I wanted them, and then set about securing them to the top edge with bark strips. On the first two ties I pushed holes in either side of the branch and fed the ends of the bark strips through, with difficulty. It formed a loop on the inside holding the frame and bark close together while on the outside I went up the topsides and around the branch, finishing each end off with a double hitch, which may or may not be right! The difficulty with the holes made me try a slot on the next two, and this was much easier to manipulate to get the bark through. Lunch time-and other things to do for a while, before I went back to it.

First job was to make some rope from the bark to replace the synthetic rope holding the branch and topsides in shape. Sitting in the sun, two long and wide strips were chosen, and twenty minutes later the twist method had produced over a metre of rope. This was then hitched to each side of a branch and pulled up tight. Enough for one day, it was clear my objective of a bark canoe was going to be realised, so I tided up, put some bricks under the ends to help hold them up, and left it to start drying out for the week.

DAY THREE: The following Sunday 25 October was wet. Wet, cold and windy. But not wet enough to stop me working. Another section of bark rope was made and four strips chosen to secure the ends, two per end.

Out into the drizzle, I took off the synthetic rope from the ends and replaced it with bark strips lashed and hitched around the ends over the folds, with the end of the bark strip hitched around the peg. This came up nice and tight, and there was no tendency for the folds to want to unfold either.

My name is Tyler De Nawi, though you might know me better as Mustafa, the actor Waleed Aly referred to in his Gold Logie acceptance speech to illustrate the lingering barriers to diversity on Australian TV screens.

I'd like to explain why I changed my professional name, and say something about how I feel about having done so.

When I started in this industry I, like so many other aspiring actors, set up an account on a casting website. I used the name I was born with, Mustafa Dennawi, and I posted images of myself and my vital stats. And I waited.

I felt like a little boy when I went up to Waleed at the Logies. I just wanted to say, "I'm proud of you man, I hope you win". What I didn't say was that for a long time I've felt the pain that comes from feeling ashamed of who I am, because others tell me that's how I should feel.

There's an undeniable irony in the fact that after I changed my name to Tyler I landed roles as Karim Ahmed (Syrian-Australian) in The Principal and Elias Habib (Lebanese-Australian) in Here Come the Habibs. Especially since my own heritage includes both Lebanese and Syrian ancestry.

You know, Tyler is not the only stage name I've used. I was Steve in the office of the marketing company I worked for. For 10 years I was an acrobat in a Brazilian dance company; there they called me "Cabelinho".

In Australian television if the name Mustafa hasn't ruled you out of the audition process entirely, it might get you in the door to play "terrorist #3" or "drug dealer #1". But what if I wanted to be a regular on Home and Away? Would the casting director even consider someone called Mustafa?

After I was outed, Waleed Aly called me to say he hoped he hadn't done anything wrong by telling my story. As far as I'm concerned, he hadn't. But in the wake of the exposure I realised the story of my name change means so much to so many others that it no longer really belongs to me, or to him, anyway.

But there's still a way to go. I dream of a time when our TV is filled with locally produced content that isn't about ethnicity but is filled with characters from diverse backgrounds, characters who are there simply as a fact of life, just as they are in the world around us.

My name is Tyler De Nawi, though you might know me better as Mustafa, the actor Waleed Aly referred to in his Gold Logie acceptance speech to illustrate the lingering barriers to diversity on Australian TV screens.

I'd like to explain why I changed my professional name, and say something about how I feel about having done so.

For more than a year, I waited. I received not one reply to any of the dozens of roles for which I put myself forward. Then one day I decided to change my name on the site to Tyler De Nawi. The photos were the same, the resume was the same, the lack of experience was the same. The next day, the messages began to come in \\u2013 not just replies to my applications but also direct approaches from directors and producers. \\\"We love your look\\\"; they said. \\\"We want you on our short film. We want you to do an underwear shoot in Singapore.\\\"

\\\"Tyler\\\" became a cloak for me, a cover for my true, secret identity. Being exposed after the Logies made me feel really vulnerable. But I'm starting to see the bigger picture here.

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I felt like a little boy when I went up to Waleed at the Logies. I just wanted to say, \\\"I'm proud of you man, I hope you win\\\". What I didn't say was that for a long time I've felt the pain that comes from feeling ashamed of who I am, because others tell me that's how I should feel.

But if that's all you're seeing in my story you're missing the point. I am Elias, the good Australian boy, \\\"proud of his heritage yet often frustrated by its conservatism,\\\" as the character description for The Habibs put it. I'm not out to make political statements \\u2013 I just want an opportunity to move people, to make them laugh, to bring them together in front of the television where they might see the common humanity that bridges whatever differences they, or we, might have.

You know, Tyler is not the only stage name I've used. I was Steve in the office of the marketing company I worked for. For 10 years I was an acrobat in a Brazilian dance company; there they called me \\\"Cabelinho\\\".

In Australian television if the name Mustafa hasn't ruled you out of the audition process entirely, it might get you in the door to play \\\"terrorist #3\\\" or \\\"drug dealer #1\\\". But what if I wanted to be a regular on Home and Away? Would the casting director even consider someone called Mustafa?

Change is coming. In 2011, Firass Dirani won two Logies and said we need more caramel on TV because it's good for us (he might have added a few more flavours too \\u2013 chocolate, mocha, butterscotch, to name a few). Five years later, Waleed Aly wins the Gold Logie. Diversity is happening, right here, right now, and in many ways this industry has been very good to me already.

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Above all, I look forward to a day when Mustafa is equal to Tyler in the ears and eyes of the people watching television programs in this country \\u2013 and, perhaps more to the point, when it is equal in the eyes and ears of those who decide what sort of television programs we get to watch.

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